so-called leftist media

[Guest guest]

Suze, I'm a former journalist, 10 years at Bloomberg News. There is no

leftist media to speak of, if you mean TV news or daily newspapers or

the big-circulation magazines. The media is only as liberal as its

corporate owners. A few liberal voices like Olbermann are

allowed through, on cable, if the corporate boss decides it's good for

ratings, but it's clear this summer that he was muzzled over Bill

O'Reilly and then he lied about it and dissed a journalist friend of

mine who pointed it out (which is how I lost my respect for him). I

hope can resist the pressures.

Polls of journalists over the years have showed that there is a trend

to the left in the personal politics of national reporters, to the

right for local reporters, but it matters not a whit because the

viewpoints that matter are those of the bosses that set the agenda and

have final approval on stories, who themselves are overwhelmingly

conservative or they're censored by conservative owners. And most

journalists of my personal acquaintance are most interested in being

fair and truthful and, in fact, censor themselves. You don't piss off

your bosses by writing stories with a bent the bosses might fire or

demote you for. And you don't get to write stories that call the whole

system into question.

The fringe liberal magazines (The Nation, The Progressive, Mother

) are constantly fighting for financial survival and they do

survive because of the loyalty of readers. And they are indeed

reporting the stories Fox News and CNN and even MSNBC won't touch,

much less the networks. The TV networks and big national papers (NY

Times, Wash Post) have swung to the right quite a bit. They don't

really question the status quo all that much. They hire more and more

conservative columnists and run more and more fluff. It's very sad.

The industry is very much in flux and anyone with a job in journalism

is just grateful to have a job at this point. For the most hard-

hitting investigative reporting, you generally have to go to the

shoestring Internet or newsletter operations (CounterPunch,

Truthout.org, etc.) plus the above three. Salon.com has good writing

too. I'm sure I've failed to point out a few.

Jeanmarie

For a very realistic look at

On Aug 23, 2009, at 7:17 AM, Suze Fisher wrote:

> > Well, given that a true leftist is totally against corporate

> influence

> > on society, and wants to restructure the society from its roots

> > (radical), whereas liberals differ slightly from republicans for

> > strategic reasons because they believe

> > that these differences will best preserve the control of the rich/

> > powerful - it is an important difference.

>

> OK, let me get this straight...you say that TRUE leftists are totally

> against corporate influence on society, but the leftist media you

> referenced

> earlier is not reporting on the corporate theft of $23.7 TRILLION

> dollars

> from us citizens?

>

> Suze

>

>

> __._,_.__

>

>