Conservative Columnists Greatly Outnumber Progressive or Liberal Columnists

Media Matters has a report out that shows the tremendous conservative advantage in columnists that are published by American newspapers. This is a quote from the report:

Sixty percent of the nation's daily newspapers print more conservative syndicated columnists every week than progressive syndicated columnists. Only 20 percent run more progressives than conservatives, while the remaining 20 percent are evenly balanced.

In a given week, nationally syndicated progressive columnists are published in newspapers with a combined total circulation of 125 million. Conservative columnists, on the other hand, are published in newspapers with a combined total circulation of more than 152 million.

When you consider the tremendous advantage that conservatives have in the electronic media with their own network, Fox News; the advantage they have on talk radio; and the advantage they have in newspaper columnists, it is remarkable that they sincerely believe that there is such a thing as a "liberal" media. It is also remarkable that in spite of all these advantages, they still can be beat in honest elections.

How Media Supervisors Influence What Information You Receive

If you click on this entry's title you can read a blog post by former Washington Times reporter George Archibald. Archibald claims to be the first reporter hired by the Washington Times outside of the original founding group. The Washington Times is a paper owned by the Moonies and is a wingnut media outlet. Now, this former reporter is a true believer, no doubt about it, and the reason why we are recommending his article is not that we agree with him. It is because his article contains fascinating examples of how editors and other media supervisors determine and define what is news.

Often media personnel like to deny how they shape the news by the story lines they chose to present. They act as if news stories just magically appear. Well, that is simply not true. There are literally millions of stories that the media could present, but only a relatively small number get presented. Every story that is presented appears because of the conscious decision of someone to present the story. In corporate media there are a number of such persons. There is the author of the piece, his or her supervisor, that person's supervisor, and depending on the importance of the story, maybe another person, perhaps the publisher, owner, or station manager.

These decisions are why labor issues aren't covered by most major news outlets while we hear about Anna Nicole Smith and her demise ad nauseum. These decisions are why the negative aspects of trade agreements aren't usually presented to the public and why, until recently, Bush was presented as just "a regular guy", even though he was raised, and remains, part of the economic elite of America.

It is also why blogs are much more individualistic in outlook. Usually they are run by one person, or a small group of people, and they have a particular bent or outlook. The writers are not supervised by people who may have a different agenda than the writer of the story. It is also why blogs can, if they chose, get ahead of a story, because the writer doesn't have to work through a bureaucracy, so to speak.

Find Out Who Owns the Media

The Center for Media Integrity has a really cool website in which you can find out who owns the media in a particular area using zip codes as a search term. You can see how this works by clicking on the link for the search page for the 44256 zip code by clicking on the link in this entry's title. The map that the site uses is interactive and you can find out ownership for both cable and broadband television stations, radio stations, and newspapers. The map allows you to change the area that you are looking at and to zoom in and out to make the area bigger and smaller.

The site tells you who owns what and links to websites of the owning companies. It is good to know which company owns what in the event you are organizing campaigns to pressure advertisers, or you want to know where to send complaints or inquiries.