okay, so it’s almost a done deal that we have George W. “Quincy” Bush as our president, and frankly, i’m releived. not so much that we have another Bush as president (heh heh.. you said Bush.. heh heh.. you said Dick) but that we have finally made up our minds. even though it took a bunch of senior citizens in bathrobes to make up our minds for us, it’s done. i mean the supreme court here, not the florida oldsters.
well, almost.
dammit if Gore isn’t still going to fight. and, if i were the clear winner of the popular vote, but lost by electoral votes, i’d be a little touchy, too.
frankly, i’m sick of it all. whoever ends up our president, whether it’s Bush, Gore or Strom Thurmond (hey, it could happen) the actual people here will still put bumper stickers on their car saying things like “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted for Nader” and get on with their lives, grumbling about the president, whoever it ends up being.
but the reason i’m writing this is that some people, in the cause of an ‘impartial press,’ have been ranting about the perceived liberal bias of the media. okay, perceived, my ass. the pronounced liberal bias of the media. if you’re just now perceiving it, you’re a little behind the curve.
of course the media is liberally biased, everyone who works in the media is a liberal. with few exceptions.
when i worked at the university newspaper, everyone i worked with, writers, editors, artists, photographers, everyone, in fact, but the sports staff, were decidedly liberal democrats. our editor-in-chief was a militant lesbian who was not to be disturbed on production night whilst Xena: Warrior Princess was on. nobody had a problem with it.
who else but those more liberally minded individuals pursue careers in the media? majors in writing, literature, history, philosophy, and the other (wait for it) liberal arts, tend to be more right brained, creatives, open minded, rebellious, attention-seekers. thus, careers in front of, as well as behind the cameras and bylines of the media are natural for these kinds of people. they also know they’re going to make less money there, but be happier, than if they pursued careers in business.
so it’s only natural that the media is biased. it doesn’t take a rocket scientist (also a hotbed of liberal sympathies) to figure out why. hell, i’ll bet the only republicans in most TV studios are the camera operators. unless they’re unionized…
and who ever said the press was required to be impartial? where in the constitution does it forbid the press to take sides? if anything, the first amendment mandates that the media take the unpopular side, if only to maintain the balance of powers. if the country were to take a decidedly liberal turn, as in decades past, i would expect the press to become more (though not entirely) conservative.
in the future, as trends like the growth of Internet media are showing us, the media will be more the voice of the people than ever before. take Slashdot for example. trends in politics, technology, and social policy are easy to measure when the people effected by them are the ones writing the stories, getting quoted in more ‘mainstream’ outlets.
and, in a way, that’s what i’m doing here. after all, i have to do my part to maintain the liberal bias in the media…