"Weapons of Mass Distortion: The coming meltdown of the liberal media."

National Review has an excerpt from Brent Bozell's new book "Weapons of Mass Distortion: The coming meltdown of the liberal media." Here's an illustrative anecdote:

...The media's pervasive bias determines precisely which stories are (and are not) covered, and in how much detail. Indeed, the media elite deliberately attempt to set the national agenda through their coverage of the news.

I have learned this firsthand in a career spent closely analyzing the news media, but the point was driven home to me several years ago at a meeting with a Los Angeles newspaper. The Media Research Center had just released an exhaustive study regarding liberal bias in the news media, and I was scheduled to meet with the editorial board of the (now-defunct) Los Angeles Herald-Examiner to discuss the report's findings. When I arrived, however, I was ushered into the conference room and met by a solitary figure, a member of the editorial board obviously pegged with the unsavory assignment of listening to this pesky conservative. The ponytailed hair and the cold body language - he silently pointed me to a chair - hinted that this would be anything but a productive meeting. I made an opening statement, then passed him the voluminous report we were to discuss. Without bothering to open it, the editor shoved it back at me and unleashed a vitriolic harangue against conservatives. Niceties flew out the window as he snarled, "All you conservatives care about is making money!" Clearly we weren't going to discuss the report, so I asked him what liberals like him cared about. Without bothering to deny my description of his ideological persuasion, he quickly shot back, "You just don't get it: We are the social conscience of this country and we have an obligation to use the media..."

Politics · Thu, 07/08/2004 - 08:29 · Importance: 1