Bias In The Media - Redux

The most intelligent man I know also happens to march with the GOP elephants, although, contrary to liberal mandate, this has not shut down his considerable brain power. In conversation last year he suggested that, just perhaps, there is a liberal bias to the mainstream media.

At that time I was more firmly aligned with the Democrat donkey brigade and accused him (politely) of being part of that vast right-wing conspiracy that so undermines liberals' efforts at perfecting American life.

He gave me a few examples where network talking heads, TV news documentary shows and powerful daily newspapers all slant leftwards, even as they claim to stand straight and objective. To prove my point that he was nuts and his vision was skewed by his own bias, I began paying close attention to the language the news readers use and their points of view they employ in their non-stop coverage of the political scene and all things Bush.

I've written an essay here about my findings -- which basically substantiate my Republican friend's viewpoint that indeed there is a pervasive liberal bias to the news that affects Americans' viewpoints daily. Finally seeing this with clarity nudged my political stance from left to center.

In my favorite waste-of-time literary chat room, which population is about 99% knee-jerk liberal, I dared to suggest last week that media bias is rampant. I still have virtual scars from the jackal attack that ensued. New to the chat room that day was a person who claimed to have worked for some years for CBS news. He led the pack of jackals, demanding I support my claims with specific examples.

I'm not good with specifics (unsupported opinion being so much easier and more accessible) and the whole issue of media bias is so blatant, so obvious to me now that my fingers stumbled over themselves and I couldn't provide examples on the spot.... so I did a little research, just for the sake of my own crushed pride (NOT that I'll ever broach that subject in the chat room ever, ever again!)

The book BIAS, A CBS INSIDER EXPOSES HOW THE MEDIA DISTORT THE NEWS, by Bernard Goldberg, says everything with facts, with detailed specifics, that several of my blog entries have been pointing to for months. Goldberg was a veteran reporter and producer for nearly 30 years for CBS news, having won seven Emmy Awards during that time. He speaks from an insider's vantage point while still maintaining the perspective of reasonable objectivity. After his original piece on the subject appeared on the Wall Street Journal op-ed page, he was soundly chastised by the CBS powers and his contract was not renewed. Interestingly, he has provided in the afterward of the book copies of letters from his peers and other intelligentsia that support his position and applaud his chutzpah in writing about it.

Even though the book was published in 2002, its points are even more salient today in light of the growing outcry against perceived liberal bias. If you're at all concerned about the picture of current and historical events that is sketched daily by the mainstream media, I suggest you spend $11.16 at Amazon and read the book for yourself. Here are just some of the highlights:

• In discussing the absence of a conscious liberal conspiracy to manipulate the news, Goldberg makes the point that I've tried, so far in vain, to make with my chat room adversaries. If the slant of the news conforms to your own world view, your own bias, you will never see the bias present, which is why so many liberals become apoplectic at the suggestion that bias exists. As Goldberg says,

"It may be hard to believe, but liberals in the newsroom, pretty much, see NOW and [Laurence] Tribe and even left-wing Democrats as middle of the road. Not coincidentally, just as they see themselves. When you get right down to it, liberals in the newsroom see liberal views as just plain...reasonable."

"No need to identify Patricia Ireland as head of a liberal women's group, because to the media elites her views are not leftist. They simply make sense. They're simply reasonable. After all, she's for abortion rights without restrictions, isn't she? She's for affirmative action, isn't she?"

"To mainstream America, these are major elements of the liberal agenda. But to the liberals in the media, these aren't liberal views at all. They're just sensible, reasonable, rational views, which just happen to coincide with their own."

• In a chapter entitled "The Most Important Story You Never Saw On TV" Goldberg discusses the lack of fairness in presenting more than the popular (feminist) views in any story about working moms and day care. I myself have concerns about this subject discussed here. Goldberg says:

"The argument here is that once again the elite journalists on television have taken sides." "The problem is that they don't let the other voices on. The ones who say that most toddlers are better off with their own mothers than with day-care workers and that most adolescent kids would do better if a parent were home after school instead of being alone and 'fending for themselves."

• He goes on to state that in reporting on a 2001 government-funded study on day care, which indicated less than sterling results for kids' behavior, both CBS and NBC used the word "controversial" in describing the study... no less than four times.

"The feminist response to any "controversial" news about day care is to call for more federal laws and subsidies to improve the quality of day care."

• Goldberg gives examples of both CBS and ABC evening news detailing exactly those sentiments then says,

  "....aren't there any voices we might hear from the other side, from all those women who would rather not work outside the home, who would rather spend more time with their children..." "Why is one point of view valid and the other nonexistent on the evening news?"

• In his chapter "How About A Media That Reflects America?" Goldberg discusses the left/right mix of reporters themselves. In a 1996 survey of 139 Washington bureau chiefs and congressional correspondents,

89% said they voted for Bill Clinton in 1992, compared with just 43% of the nonjournalist voters.
7% of the journalists voted for George Bush; 37% of the voters did.
2% of the news people voted for Ross Perot while 19% of the electorate did.

What party do journalists identify with?
50% said they were Democrats
4% said they were Republicans.

When they were asked, "How do you characterize your political orientation?"
61% said "liberal" or "moderate to liberal"
Only 9% said they were "conservative" or "moderate to conservative."

"James Glassman put it this way in the Washington Post: '"The people who report the stories are liberal Democrats. This is the shameful open secret of American journalism. That the press itself...chooses to gloss over it is conclusive evidence of how pernicious the bias is'"

"Thom Rosenstiel, the director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism says, '"Bias is the elephant in the living room. We're in denial about it and don't want to admit it's there. We think it's less of a problem than the public does, and we just don't want to get into it.'"

The virulent partisanship of the last 20 years seems to have made many of us blind to any/all virtues of "the other side," whichever side that may be. In our blindness, we also seem to have become unable to see the manipulation and bias that occurs every day in print, every night on network and cable news. If you're at all curious about this phenomenon, read Goldberg's book.

As for me, my DVR is now set to record the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS. In one sweet move I'm eliminating network and cable news shows AND all those irritating commercials.

Liberation or Enslavement - One Perspective

I think I was the first of the "women libbers" -- even before Gloria Steinem and friends altered the spin of the Earth.

As a very young child I never understood why my dad went to work six days a week and my mom didn't. She spent most of her time reading, writing letters, riding herd on the housekeeper and running out to movie matinees. It simply did not make sense to me that women didn't have to "go to work," and I vowed at age eight that I would never live a life similar to my mom's, which I saw even then as boring and empty.

I know, I know.... stay-at-home moms generally work their fannies off, and they're doing arguably the most important job on the planet. Don't get your undies in a twist -- read on - I'm certainly not attacking that concept.

I grew up in the very black-and-white era of the Eisenhower and early Kennedy years, before the radical 60's took hold. There was a stigma attached to working moms when I was a kid, and it wasn't just in my own little narrow world. "Good moms" were homemakers, pie makers, baby makers and loving wives. "Bad moms" were often divorced and working out in the world, with not nearly enough time for their kids. "Bad kids" very often came from these broken homes with a working mom. Very cliche, but in those times and in some limited ways, also regrettably true.

But, even in that culture and as young as I was, it still didn't seem right that my mom had what I perceived as a free ride. I just didn't "get" it. Of course women should work too -- why not?

As soon as I had finished school and started my first job, the workplace inequities of that particular time made even less sense to me. "The bosses" were, of course, nearly all men -- the worker bees all women. The term 'sexual harassment' had yet to be coined, but the concept was certainly one most young women were familiar with. It was simply a fact of life -- as routine as the disparity in responsibilities, opportunities, wages and benefits.

I don't remember if there was a single inciting occurrence that pushed my consciousness across the feminist event horizon, but at some point in the 1970's I realized I wasn't alone in my anger and frustration with the male-dominated business world. I realized the power and empowerment of other like-minded women.

My job in the retail lumber industry couldn't have been a more macho setting, nor could the company have been more closed-minded to women's advancement and success. Every step up the ladder was a battle, and my threats to resign often echoed off the walls. I even developed what I termed my "pee pee philosophy," which stated simply that a penis was an obvious requirement for the title of manager, the annual bonus, use of a company car and a reserved spot on the summer deep sea fishing trip... no matter the qualifications and experience of the person with a pee pee deficit.

I made so much noise at just the right time (when militant feminism rocked corporate America and important legislation loomed) that I eventually became the first manager in the company's history, with all the incumbent perks. (OK, I get seasick, so I passed on the fishing trip, but I at least had the pleasure of at last refusing that particular invitation.)

So what's the point, besides a trip down nostalgia lane? The point is -- I wonder now if I, if all of us who fought that war and kicked our way through the glass ceiling were, in the end, right.

Of course a woman should be paid the same as a man for the same responsibilities. Of course women should have the right to pursue whatever career appeals to her. Of course educational and advancement opportunities should never be limited by gender. What I'm questioning is the wisdom of our choices in light of where women stand today.

Scratch a married working mom and you'll find a frazzled, harried woman with more stress than she's ever had before. She not only has the pressures of an increasingly demanding career, but in the majority of homes she is also the master scheduler and CEO. Dad is certainly more involved with the family than in previous generations, but it's mom who's putting it all together.

Check out single-parent families and the majority are households with mom at the helm, doing everything on her own with little or no help from anyone. This may not have changed much as there have always been women who have had to support their families -- but the sheer number of those women is greater than at any time in our history, by choice or by chance, and the weight of both career and family life has increased exponentially.

It's impossible to find meaningful statistics on the physical, emotional and mental health of working women today. For every study "proving" a negative impact of the combined responsibilities of a career and family there is another study "proving" that women working outside the home are actually healthier and more fulfilled.

For every study of the negative impact of this situation on children there are other studies showing a rise in independence and achievement of these same kids.

We've recently been told that the divorce rate is down considerably -- (but then, so is the marriage rate.) I'm crossing my fingers that the divorce statistic is credible as there is an abundance of long-term data documenting its deleterious effects on children. According to Minneapolis' Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten, "One recent study, for example, found that boys from an intact, married family are half as likely as others to end up in prison as young adults. According to another study, the single "most important explanatory variable" behind the three-fold rise in youth suicide over the last 50 years is the "increased share of youth living in homes with a divorced parent."

Trying to get a handle on what's really happening is similar to weighing the pros and cons of paper versus plastic bags in the store, or deciding if coffee and chocolate really do have health benefits. Each side of the issue can "prove" its particular viewpoint with a quagmire of questionable studies and statistics.

• Strictly from my own perspective, I see women in their late 30's, with well-established careers, just now starting their families...and with the gloomy prospect of using their Social Security checks to pay for their shoes to dance at those children's weddings.
• I see many women who would really prefer to stay home with their young children. Instead, they face years of unwanted employment just to finance a more lavish lifestyle.
• I see families so busy with over-planned lives that they rarely have any time to just be together, or just plain "be." Many kids have no idea what free time is, or what life might look like without a coach, a teacher, a uniform or car pool.
• I see families moving from one upscale home and neighborhood to another and yet another, each more expensive and financially draining, and who pay for that luxury with high-powered jobs.... and children wearing designer clothes who are schlepped to daycare.
• I see women certainly fulfilled in their careers and certainly fulfilled in their roles at home, but who bear a burden of stress that manifests in physical ailments and god knows what kind of mental and emotional pressure, taking god knows what kind of toll on their overindulged, over-scheduled kids.
• I see women who think they celebrate the choices they've made but who secretly long for a simpler life with closer ties to those most important to them.

I see what changes have occurred in the family landscape and in the lives of women and I wonder.... what did we early feminists really set in motion?

With the perspective of age and vantage of history I have to ask, how wise were we pioneers?