The Liberal Bias of the Press

Following is an adaptation of an unpublished Letter to the Editor written in September 2000 regarding the liberal bias of the mainstream news organizations

To the Editor,

Your recent editorial "Bush vs. the Press" was on the mark and prompted me to write about the most underappreciated story of the decade regarding press bias.

In 1993 and 1994, during the first two years of the Clinton administration, the liberal press dropped their guard. The liberal members of the press developed a distaste for the Clintons over that time, probably as much for what they didn't get done as for what they did. Regardless of the reasons, news coverage and commentary by the mainstream press during the months leading up to the 1994 Congressional elections was not complimentary to the Clinton presidency to that time.


As I watched the coverage, often in disbelief, I began to expect the November 1994 Republican landslide. Why? Because I've always believed that if the American people were ever given balanced political coverage they would vote conservative, because on balance we are a conservative people.

Night after night during 1994, the Dan Rathers and Peter Jennings of the world tsk, tsked their way through reports of what the Clinton administration was up to. As I said, I could hardly believe my eyes and ears. Now, I'm not saying that I expected the degree of the rout, nor the winning of both houses of Congress. But I am saying that I did expect a rout and was not surprised at its extent.

Following the historic rout, two major conclusions were drawn by the involved parties.

First, in an effort to comprehend the incomprehensible, the Republicans went searching for the reason for their unanticipated success. After all, they did not expect such a rout. They settled on the Contract with America and Newt Gingrich, i.e., it happened because Republicans have such great ideas. Now I will wager that not one voter in five had heard of that Contract prior to election day, that not one in ten could recite one point in the Contract with certainty, and that not one in fifty cast their vote on the basis of what was in the Contract with America. Yet, in a "Well, pat me on the back for coming up with a winning idea" mood, the Republicans drew the wrong conclusion from the rout, a conclusion that they trumpeted loudly and that resulted in the elevation of Newt Gingrich to the highest Republican ranks for a time.

The second conclusion was drawn by the liberal media. While the Republicans were patting themselves on the back for their "winning ideas" the media was coming to its senses. They discovered the implications of providing voters the unvarnished truth, to their horror. Unlike the Republicans, who drew the wrong conclusion from the rout, the liberal media drew the correct one and vowed never again to repeat their mistake.

All that it takes to understand and appreciate the ability of President Clinton to get away with virtually any outrageous action that he desires (and he certainly has) is to realize that the liberal media will never again refuse to back their candidate, regardless of the detriment to the country.

The lessons to be drawn from this by Republicans:

First, stop kidding yourselves. Your ideas didn't win the 1994 election; the liberal media gave it to you by default.

Second, stop kidding yourselves: Conservatives will never get fair treatment from the vast liberal elements of the press. The last six years of President Clinton are ample verification of this.

Third, reassess the opposition. Your true opponent is not the Democrats, who can be convinced, cajoled or compromised with, but the liberal media, who cannot ever again be convinced to be impartial, especially after 1994.The way for conservative ideas to win in America, a conservative country, is to cut off the blood supply of the liberal tumor we call the news media. They want information for a story? Fine, but they shouldn't get an hour of face-to-face with the politicians they've dumping on for years! Let them do their own digging or better yet let them read the face-to-face interviews written by the people that Republicans can count on to treat their ideas fairly. Get the most offensive among them off the campaign buses and planes and out of your offices.

Do this, and all hell will break loose. But do it to the worst offenders, and cite specific instances of biased, underhanded reporting and simply cut them off. In time the truly honest reporters will realize that things have gone too far and they will be glad that someone had the sense to restore order. But so long as conservative reporters continue to get blackballed the way they do by their counterparts it isn't going to happen without conscious effort on the part of conservatives in positions of power.

Take a day or so and research the news leading up to November 1994. You will see that I am right. I know I am, because I watched it unfold, kept pinching myself that it was not a dream I was watching, and was therefore expecting a rout. Seriously.

Present Day Thoughts

It appears to me that John McCain, once supposedly beloved by the very media pack that now is solidly in the tank for Barack Obama, has taken the tack I suggested above. It's no coincidence that Sarah Palin, who has demonstrated a remarkable ability to handle herself in public and to defend her ideas, even when the interviewer is as hostile, aggressive and condescending as Charles Gibson, is being withheld from the mainstream press. Why feed such a pack information when all they will do is twist and distort, pick and choose, until the words written bear no reflection of the words originally spoken. Oh, they will sound the same, as when Gibson reassured Sarah Palin that he was exactly quoting her on God and war, and when Obama took Rush Limbaugh's actual feed for the anti-immigrant ad, but they will not reflect the original intent.

The real lesson that Republicans should have drawn from the 1994 rout was that the game is rigged as long as Republicans continue to show outward respect for the reporters that bear them nothing but ill will. Until they realize that and start excluding them overtly and explaining to the public why, the battle will alway be lopsided. Maybe the McCain campaign has figured this out?