On conservative media bias
A lot of folks on the left will tell you that the media has an innate conservative bias, just as a lot of folks on the right will say it slants leftward. Personally, I think the media has a bias toward sensationalism more than anything else, and that when it foregoes sensationalism and covers serious news, it becomes so clouded with the dogma of objectivity that suddenly everything must have two sides. Each segment on global warming must have an expert who defies the entire scientific community by claiming that global climate change isn't happening, or that at the very least, it's a natural process that has nothing to do with our affecting the planet.
Meanwhile, each segment on evolution being taught in schools must include an expert on "intelligent design theory," despite the fact that intelligent design fails to fulfill the very definition of a scientific theory -- that is, "systematically organized knowledge applicable in a wide variety of circumstances that analyze, predict and explain the nature or behavior of specified phenomena." (at least as far as the dictionary is concerned).
It's getting to the point where a special on the Holocaust will have to include a Holocaust denier.
But outside of obvious exceptions like Fox News or the Wall Street Journal editorial page, I don't think the media truly has a conservative bias. But then... well, then there's Pat Robertson.
Riddle me this, ace: How is it that a batshit-insane nutter like Pat Robertson can spout off predictions about coming terrorist-induced doom, and everyone from CNN to our own Sun-Sentinel covers it as though it were meaningful news?
Pat Robertson, alleged lunatic
This exception, The Pat Robertson Corollary, as I'll call it, has been a constant thorn in my side when I try to make the case that the mainstream media does not have a conservative bias.
Now, wait a sec, you'll say. The media has plenty of American lefties on.
Bullshit, I'll respond. They may, but nowhere near as far to the left as Pat Robertson is to the right. When's the last time you saw Noam Chomsky on CNN? Hmm?
When the opposite number is Pat Freaking Robertson, you can't hold up Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi as a legitimate response from the left. Because if you do that, you have the center-left arguing against the far, far, mentally disturbed right, and you wind up ... somewhere in right field. The conservatives win, and the media therefore is biased toward them.
So where's Noam? How come his latest crazed bombardment of American power isn't splashed all over the media? And it's not enough to respond that Robertson is a religious figure, and these media are just covering religion, a subject of interest to most Americans. Pat Robertson is a snake oil salesman with a lot more in common with Judas than Jesus, so spare me the platitudes.
What gives here? I cannot believe that there truly is some sort of conservative mass media conspiracy. What is it? Has the whole country strayed so far into the Big Dumb of Bush World that Pat Robertson has come to be seen as a legitmate commentator on world events? When did we all swallow the red pill, and just how far down does the rabbit hole go?