Debunking the b.s. lie about our media

I really don't know what happened to Lou Dobbs, but he's become the biggest braying jackass on a once great network. To hear Dobbs, the most notorious walking, talking xenophobe on a network not named Faux Noise Channel say that the media is largely "liberal" is a joke of the highest order (this footage is from a week or so ago). It's also worth noting that Dobbs has a partisan history going back to his earliest days at CNN, where he hosted Moneyline, later leaving the network after refusing to interrupt his precious show to air a speech delivered by President Clinton at Colombine just days after the shootings.

Anyway, what's been most evident since John McCain selected Sarah Palin as his running mate is the Republicans' return to their dog-eared playbook of Richard Nixon, which on page one says, "Slam the media for being overly liberal whenever there is news that's unfavorable to us."

And it's been parroted by every single Republican ever since when unflattering or bad news (much less a scandal) has befallen someone with an "R" behind his or her name.

I was listening to Thom Hartmann the other day, and he brought up an excellent point about Sun Tzu's centuries-old famous tome, The Art of War. The world-famous work deals with the art of military strategies and warfare. As Hartmann mentioned, in it Tzu reasons that a principle tactic of warfare is to present your biggest strength as your biggest weakness to your enemies, and that's precisely what modern-day Republicans are doing with our mainstream media - decrying the presence of a phantom "lib-rul media" whenever there is unfavorable coverage of their party or their candidates. Not only is the presence of a "liberal media" a fallacy, but it's unarguably on of the GOP's largest strengths.

To wit, there are over 1,000 radio stations in the United States that offer predominately conservative programming. How many liberal/progressive stations are there? Less than 100; and according to Hartmann, there are 70-80 He should know, since he's arguably the premiere liberal radio voice in the United States, and he has had a very difficult time getting on terrestrial radio stations in some leading media markets primarily because there are no stations to get on. The tide is starting to turn ever so slightly, but it largely favors hate conservative radio.

Some other interesting facts:

• Every major television network in the United States is owned by a multinational corporation - CBS, NBC, Fox Network, ABC, CNN, Fox Noise Channel, Clear Channel Radio, Comcast, and on and on. These giant corporations could hardly be considered Democratic (large D) leaning companies.

• One of the most visited Websites on the Internet, and the most visited political Website is The Drudge Report. According to his Website, here are the stats from the last year: "27,151,658 IN PAST 24 HOURS, 723,014,663 IN PAST 31 DAYS & 6,455,462,513 IN PAST YEAR." (And no, I'm not linking to Drudge's GOP tip sheet Website.)

• Faux News Channel is the most watched news channel in the United States, by far, whether on cable or on regular TV.

• The top three most listened to radio talk show hosts in the United States are Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Michael "Savage" Wiener, in that order - hatemongers all, and most importantly, purveyors of GOP talking points, and often, lies and hate messages of their own.

• As far as newspapers go, there are plenty of them out there of all stripes, but the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall St. Journal has the second highest circulation in the United States, just behind USA Today; the WSJ's circulation is just over two million per day.

Some other newspapers...

#1 - USA Today - owned and operated by Gannett.

#2 - Wall St. Journal - see above.

#3 - The New York Times - owned and operated by the Sulzberger family - liberals by anyone's definition.

#4 - The LA Times - corporate owned and operated.

#5 - The Washington Post - also a liberal paper.

#6 - The New York Daily News, owned and published by Mort Zuckerman, whose conservatism is well known.

#7 - Chicago Tribune - a traditionally conservative paper operated by the Tribune Company.

#8 - The New York Post - a Rupert Murdoch rag - what is understood, needn't be discussed.

#9 - Long Island Newsday - is about to be purchased by Cablevision. Hmm, a newspaper that's going to be owned by a cable company. Just wondering where those loyalties lie?

#10 - Houston Chronicle - owned by The Hearst Corporation, a huge media conglomerate, and it's no mystery where that company's loyalties lie.

Other highlights...

#11 - San Francisco Chronicle owned by Hearst.

#12 - New York Newsday - See #9.

#20 - The Philadelphia Inquirer is now controlled and effectively owned by the insipid Brian Tierney, the CEO of Philadelphia Media Holdings. He is a well-known conservative "commentator" and also a failed GOP campaign manager. This same company also owns the only other major Philadelphia daily newspaper, the Philadelphia Daily News.

As you can see, it's quite obvious that you can find liberal and conservative media outlets if you look hard enough, but with the exception of newspapers (where it's relatively balanced, but a medium that's rapidly declining in circulation and reach), our media is anything but "lib-rul," despite what Repubes would have all of us believe.

As I've mentioned, Republicans just slam the media the minute some bad news hits - we are seeing it on an almost hourly basis with McCain, and especially with Sarah Palin. Their strategy is simple - just cry "liberal media," and said media outlet(s) will quickly fold under the scrutiny. If history has proven one thing in the first decade of this century, it's that virtually all outlets in the media go soft the minute they are accused of being "liberal." And when that doesn't work, just spread lies - it never takes them long to go from a conservative pundit/commentator/columnist to the mainstream media; just in the past few days, examples abound of conservatives doing just that to try and steer press coverage toward McCain.

The truth is, it's the media's duty to scrutinize all candidates, no matter what party they are from, including independents.