The Gasbag Gap OR "If It's Sunday, It's Conservative"

[kentuck]

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060306/alterman

<snip>
All this is reason to welcome the new study by David Brock's Media Matters for America, titled If It's Sunday, It's Conservative. MMA conducted a content analysis of ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, CBS's Face the Nation and NBC's Meet the Press, classifying each one of the nearly 7,000 guests from Bill Clinton's second term, George W. Bush's first term and 2005 as either Democrat, Republican, conservative, progressive or neutral. Its key finding: "The balance between Democrats/progressives and Republicans/conservatives was roughly equal during Clinton's second term, with a slight edge toward Republicans/conservatives: 52 percent of the ideologically identifiable guests were from the right, and 48 percent were from the left. But in Bush's first term, Republicans/conservatives held a dramatic advantage, outnumbering Democrats/progressives by 58 percent to 42 percent. In 2005 the figures were an identical 58 percent to 42 percent." And remember, this study doesn't include Fox!

In addition, "more panels tilted right (a greater number of Republicans/conservatives than Democrats/progressives) than tilted left" for every single year of the study. In some years the gap was as high as four to one. Moreover, Congressional opponents of the Iraq War were all but banished from the Sunday shows, particularly in the period just before it was launched.


When spokespeople for the shows were contacted to explain the disparity, they claimed that they go where the action is, and today the action is Republican/conservative. (Though it should be noted that Face the Nation was considerably fairer than Meet the Press or This Week.) But of course, were that true, then the Clinton years would have been just as tilted in favor of Democrats/progressives as the Bush years have been toward Republicans/conservatives. But of course they're not even close.

Think about it: These shows feel empowered to engage an agenda-setting discussion with a panel of mostly right-wing politicians, followed by a journalists' panel in which conservatives are paired almost exclusively with down-the-middle reporters, rather than a writer or thinker who might credibly represent the liberal side. Every week, a politically neutered George Stephanopoulos seeks the wisdom of the deeply right-wing George Will, and the "neutral" (though personally conservative) Fareed Zakaria, with no balance whatsoever. (Sam Donaldson, a liberal, was previously an exception to this rule, though no liberal I know would have picked him to represent our side.) The guest list for the far more influential Meet the Press tells a similar story. Why, asks the MMA study's author, Paul Waldman, "would the producers of the shows believe that a William Safire (56 appearances since 1997) or Bob Novak (37 appearances) is somehow "balanced" by a Gwen Ifill (27) or Dan Balz (22)?"

[Appalachian_American]

1. So we should support Face the Nation over MTP and This Week?

[unkachuck]

2. and don't you love....

....how you'll get the same guest gasbag up on all three simultaneously?....we're really getting played by that 'liberal' media....watching a conservative gasbag it's a waste of time, you know what they're going to say before they it....

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

3. I always find it funny how the "balance" the douche bag du jour from

the Weekly Standard or Washington Times with some center right prick from The NYT or W post. Instead of having somebody from Nation or The Progressive which would be the actual equivalent.

[FrenchieCat]

4. so true.....

but then according to the Repugs, if you say something critical of Bush, you are a radical terroristic Liberal!

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

5. I prefer the term Islamo - Fascism Enthusiast. n/t