Tonight Dan Rather will step down as anchor of \CBS Evening News"" 24 years after he took over that post from Walter Cronkite. With his retirement, right-wing pundits will lose their favorite target for false claims of liberal media bias. Thus, it seems high time to set the record straight. Let's put this as simply as possible: There is no pervasive left-wing bias in television news, from Rather or anyone else.
It makes sense to falsely accuse the media of bias. Since everyone thinks his or her own opinions are right (by definition), some conclude that others disagree only because they lack important information. Who didn't provide that information to the benighted masses? The media. Consequently, I've seen many groups claim media bias against them, including Christians, Jews, Muslims, conservatives, liberals and even bigots. They can't all be right. Additionally, calling neutral reports biased against you helps make reports that favor you seem fair, giving a strong motivation to claim bias even if the media slants in your favor.
So we know why they claim media bias. We also know why it's not true. Counterexamples spring readily to mind. When ""Democracy, Now!"" anchor Amy Goodman visited campus this weekend she noted that, in the two weeks surrounding Colin Powell's presentation of ""evidence"" at the United Nations, network news presented hundreds of pro-war guests, but only three who favored peace. Nearly every newspaper in the country supported the North American Free Trade Agreement. Every network had photos from Abu Ghraib, yet they delayed displaying them until CBS finally broke the story. The list goes on.
Similarly, the numbers just don't add up to prove liberal bias. When the nonpartisan Media Tenor Ltd. studied news sources in 2001, they discovered 75 percent of partisan sources were Republican, compared to 24 percent Democrat, with only 1 percent independent. Liberal media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting found that in 2002-03, 47 percent of think tanks cited in mainstream media were rightist, while 39 percent were centrist. Leftist organizations brought up the rear with only 13 percent. Even that so-called bastion of liberal journalism, National Public Radio, had 61 percent Republican sources compared to 38 percent Democrat.
As some wags are fond of saying, the media are only as liberal as the conservative corporations that own them. Five companies control almost all that we see, read and hear. Last fall, Sumner Redstone, CEO of Viacom (parent corporation of CBS, MTV and Comedy Central, among others) publicly announced his support for Republicans. Viacom has blocked attempts to buy commercials that were anti-Bush, antiwar and pro-homosexual. Similarly, the Sinclair Broadcast Group forces its stations to air its Vice President Mark Hyman's conservative screeds. They made headlines by preempting local programming for an anti-Kerry documentary.
Even though Phil Donahue's show had the channel's highest ratings, MSNBC cancelled it for ""delight[ing] in presenting guests who [were] anti-war, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration's motives,"" according to a leaked memo. Producer Jeff Cohen explained they ""were ordered by management that every time we booked an antiwar guest, we had to book two pro-war guests. If we booked two guests on the left, we had to book three on the right. At one meeting, a producer suggested booking Michael Moore and was told that she would need to book three right-wingers for balance. I considered suggesting Noam Chomsky as a guest, but our studio couldn't accommodate the 86 right-wingers we would have needed for balance.""
So much for accusations of bias generally, but what of Rather himself? The aforementioned studies showed Rather's program on CBS was actually slightly more heavily pro-war (75 percent) and Republican (76 percent) than the network average. Though Rather was certainly very fond of Clinton, he was even more fawning toward Reagan after the former president's death. Of President Bush he's said, ""George Bush is the president. He makes the decisions, and, you know, it's just one American, wherever he wants me to line up, just tell me where. And he'll make the call."" These are hardly the words of a liberal firebrand.
Finally there is the ""Memogate"" issue. Rather rushed to press with a story critical of Bush that wasn't properly sourced and has been deservedly raked over the coals for it. But the very fact of this scandal suggests there is no pervasive liberal media bias. I'll repeat the essential facts: The independent investigation found that partisan bias played no part in the story and could not determine if the memos in question were actually counterfeit. In any case, Killian's secretary testified that the content of the memos was accurate, even if their authenticity was questionable. It would be trivially easy for a liberal media to spin this as either an honest mistake or a verified truth. And yet the media echo chamber did neither.
I won't defend Dan Rather as a journalist. He's made many mistakes in his long career, from such unsubstantiated ""scoops"" as reporting terrorist attacks that never happened on Sept. 11 to last year's ""Memogate."" He has failed to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. But he certainly doesn't deserve the ""liberal"" label with which he's been tagged for so long. We should acknowledge as much tonight when he steps down.
opinion@dailycardinal.com.
