Another nail has just been hammered into the coffin of the so-called mainstream media, an institution I like to call the lamestream media.
A press release accompanying a Gallup poll that has just been released says, “For the fourth straight year, the majority of Americans say they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. The 57% now saying this is a record high by one percentage point.”
For years, I have been talking and writing about bias in the mainstream media, liberal media bias to be precise. I have said there is no conspiracy. The network TV anchors don’t go to work in the morning, summon their top lieutenants, dim the lights, pull down the shades, give the secret handshake and salute and then say, “How are we going to nail those conservatives today.”
I was a correspondent at CBS News for 28 years and I can assure you that despite what some on the Right may think, it doesn’t happen that way. I wish it did, because no one would put up with that kind of blatant bias. The way it really happens is worse.
The problem is groupthink. There simply are too many liberals in America’s big, important newsrooms. News executives worship at the alter of diversity, but what has it gotten us? White liberals and black liberals, male liberals and female liberals, Latino liberals, Asian liberals, gay liberals and straight liberals.
I have no quarrel with racial, ethnic and gender diversity. It’s not a good thing to have the news filtered only through white men. But what about some intellectual diversity in the newsroom? How about a little diversity of opinion?
No, I don’t want those opinions turning up in straight news stories. But just as we need women and minorities in the newsroom in order to get a different perspective on the news, we also need conservatives to add their perspective to the dominant liberal news culture in our newsrooms.
