On the very day CBS is supposed to be releasing the results of their internal study of the Dan Rather Affair, Bill Moyers–on the brink of his retirement–had this to say:
“I’m going out telling the story that I think is the biggest story of our time: how the right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee. We have an ideological press that’s interested in the election of Republicans, and a mainstream press that’s interested in the bottom line. Therefore, we don’t have a vigilant, independent press whose interest is the American people.”
Well, I have to admit Moyers is half right. The right-wing media would like to see Republicans elected. But idea that the other “mainstream” press is impartial borders on the comical–and not just because of the aforementioned anchorperson. I could fill up this page with instances, but why bother? The over-riding issue is actually more economic than political. Media satraps like Moyers depend on the mythology that the media is impartial to preserve their class position in the marxist sense. This goes all the way down to journalism schools which for their own survival must promulgate the idea of impartiality in order to give themselves a “professional” veneer. Yet human life, indeed the written word itself, contradicts this.
The case of Moyers’ beloved PBS is one of the more obvious examples. The idea that government would have an “unbiased” news outlet is undemocratic on the face of it.
MEANWHILE: Is this Moyers’ replacement?
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24 Comments
1. RogerA:I thought Moyers was an idiot when he worked for LBJ; if anything, he has grown increasingly out of touch with reality. Presumably Fox News and some talk radio is the “right wing press” to which he refers. That fails to explain the MSM, PBS, and NPR and their ideological propensities.
Dec 10, 2004 - 9:51 am 2. Bostonian:This is a classic case of projection.
“Satrap” is a great word for the guy.
Dec 10, 2004 - 10:02 am 3. chuck:Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
Remark
At an absolute minimum, the Establishment Clause was intended to prohibit the federal government from declaring and financially supporting a national religion, such as existed in many other countries at the time of the nation’s founding.
Sound familiar? I think the underlying principle is the same.
Dec 10, 2004 - 10:02 am 4. Duke:All I know is that the Right Wing press is a horror story so bad I cover my eyes whenever I see it. Get my news from News Max? WND? Town Hall? Jesus. I get my news from the Daily Jesuit, two porn sites, and Roger.
Dec 10, 2004 - 10:05 am 5. ricpic:Porn sites? That woke me up.
Dec 10, 2004 - 10:17 am 6. Lola:Geeeeez louise. All I can do is just roll my eyes. Sheesh. Good thing he won’t be around anymore.
Dec 10, 2004 - 10:34 am 7. Matt Evans:Who in the hell is the “right wing media”? Fox News, Conservative Talk Radiio and bloggers ? MSM complaining about “right wing media” is like watching the biggest kid on the playground cry for his mommy because the chess club is making fun of him.
Do these dinosaurs of big media actually believe this crap or is it just a parting shot at the people that helped Bush carry the election ?
Dec 10, 2004 - 10:39 am 8. chuck:Do these dinosaurs of big media actually believe this crap…
I think they do. It’s just that no sane person could possibly hold opinions that differ in the slightest from their own. Thus any disagreement is due to the goosestepping propagandists of the MSM.
Why could one not say the same of our own dissatifaction with the MSM? I think in our case the numbers on the percentage of liberals in the media give some substance to our complaints. Likewise, the stories that don’t get reported and those that do. But it isn’t easy to see how to quantify such things. Rather than complain, it is probably better to have variety, that way we can all make up our own minds. Perhaps variety is the core complaint of such as Moyers.
Dec 10, 2004 - 10:51 am 9. Knucklehead:Which two porn sites? I’m very dissattisfied with the quality of news coverage at my favorites. I think they are engaged in a transparent coverup of their naked social biases.
BTW, do the Moyers and Rathers of the MSM believe that their actions and the work they do forward “the interests of the American people”?
Let’s just take Rather’s relentless pursuit of the TANG story. Even if everything he wished to prove about Bush’s TANG service was completely and irrefutably true what possible service would be done in the interest of the American people? It would take one of the truly great investigative acts in history to demonstrate that any American suffered in any way even if the story was true.
Yet if any significant portion of the claims of the Swiftvets against Kerry’s service and actions following his service were true it would not be much of a stretch at all to demonstrate that Americans (and others) suffered as a result of those actions.
Yet the Brilliant Mr. Rather somehow saw the TANG story as pursuing the “interests of the American People” and the charges against Kerry as unworthy of looking into.
These people are nihilistic fools. (Using this definition of “nihilistic”: The belief that destruction of existing political or social institutions is necessary for future improvement.)
The interests of the American people is best served by having the likes of Moyers and Rather retreat to their yachts and mind their own business.
Dec 10, 2004 - 11:13 am 10. jedrury:I am amazed how Bill Moyers got blessed by the PBS and liberal media at the same time he made
a fortune by televising his high octane brand of liberal smart talks with writers and the media.
Lest we forget the past, Moyers was a major part of the LBJ White House and its flawed management of the Vietnam War. He escaped and covered his tracks. One might hope that Robert Caro in his third installment of the LBJ biographies might shed some well deserved light on Moyers and his role.
Dec 10, 2004 - 11:47 am 11. RogerA:I saw a wonderful quote about Fox news–sorry I cant remember the source, but it said something to the effect that Rupert Murdoch noticed a niche market for his network conservatism: half the population of the US.
Dec 10, 2004 - 12:09 pm 12. notthisgirl:I have to laugh to myself when ever I hear, see, or think about Bill Moyers.
Bill Moyers lives in the town next to mine. This town can not be ANY more snooty-tooty … and VERY, VERY Republican.
Dec 10, 2004 - 12:33 pm 13. timmah!:“how the right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee”
Yep, I remember the good old days, when even the right-wing media was left-wing. I mean way back, when National Review supported Castro and Che, and you could always count on the American Spectator crowd to be organizing a strike or a protest or some kinda rally. Not like today, geez, you can’t throw a brick at Fox News without hitting someone farther right than that Nazi Hiss. Ain’t it a shame.
Dec 10, 2004 - 1:18 pm 14. Rhod:Moyers is either a parasite or the ultimate capitalist. I’m not sure which. He parlayed a brief association with JFK into a career of eyebrow-knitting and pontification in various media forms, demonstrating over and over what a narissistic common-room lightweight he is.
In my mind, he’s always been a trompe l’oeil intellectual, fit only for PBS or other outlets where depth is contrived and imitated rather than pursued. Moyers is the “This Old House” of deep subjects. Interesting sometimes, but always leaving out the hard and important parts.
Dec 10, 2004 - 1:24 pm 15. Rhod:I should have added the the brief association with JFK was Moyer’s stint as deputy director of The Peace Corps, which I think was more important to Moyers than any connection with LBJ. When Moyers left Washington in the 60’s he pulled the curtain down on Johnson, who was important to Moyers as long as it mattered to him and no longer.
Dec 10, 2004 - 1:36 pm 16. RandMan:Democrats like Moyers just can’t get over the fact that the country, as a whole, has been trending to the Right since Vietnam. For them, it is evidently written somewhere that the Democrats are supposed to be in charge, and when they are not, it is a defacto Dark Age for the country. Oh the horror!
Dec 10, 2004 - 2:39 pm 17. Bob:“The case of Moyers’ beloved PBS is one of the more obvious examples [of the bias in media]. The idea that government would have an ‘unbiased’ news outlet is undemocratic on the face of it.”
But wait a sec … PBS’s slant is liberal, isn’t it? Ostensibly like the rest of the “mainstream media”? But the government is in the hands of the Republicans, isn’t it? And has been for years, hasn’t it? Why would a Republican (and thus conservative-leaning) government foot the bill for a liberal PBS? Oy, am I confused!
Dec 10, 2004 - 3:37 pm 18. chuck:Bob,
As I understand it, PBS is no longer really supported by the government. They run ads and beg. But they retain some of the cachet of an organization not brutalized by the almighty dollar, lol.
Dec 10, 2004 - 4:02 pm 19. richard mcenroe:This is the same Bill Moyers who was LBJ’s consigliere for IRS tax harassment of LBJ’s enemies, right?
I’m just askin’…
Dec 10, 2004 - 5:32 pm 20. ahem:Actually, he’s still missing a big story: the story of how a Liberal-Left media had its foot on the neck of the American public for more than fifty years, but how the public finally realized it and revolted.
Dec 10, 2004 - 5:45 pm 21. tsol:“anchorperson” ?!?
Is Bill Moyers gender in question?
Dec 10, 2004 - 6:38 pm 22. The Fop:“Good evening, I’m Bill Moyers. Tonight we’ll be discussing the fact that, due to President Bush’s economic policies, 98% of all Americans are starving to death. A little later on we’ll discuss a poll that I took myself which indicates that 98% of all US soldiers and their families opposed the war in Iraq. But first, a special report on a breaking story that you probably heard about on the evening news……Jerry Falwell and an armed militia of Evangelical Christians have stormed the White House and the Capitol and have effectively taken control of the federal government.”
Dec 11, 2004 - 2:06 pm 23. EBrown:It’s nice to see the “In your heart, you know he might” guy shove off.
Dec 11, 2004 - 10:20 pm 24. saltaposaurus:To quote Barry Goldwater, who was somewhat familiar with Bill Moyers’ “work”:
“Every time I see him, I get sick to my stomach and want to throw up.”
Dec 12, 2004 - 10:30 am