COLUMN: The media need to not take sides
The persistent influence of leftist and liberal editors, journalists and reporters in America leads to a bias that misinforms, and constitutes a serious problem inherited by the 21st century.
America is being attacked by the liberal media. President George W. Bush recently spoke out about the media. He explained how the media are only bringing back negative information on Afghanistan, Iraq and the economy. This was a bold move for the president. He attacked the very people who have the most power to hurt him in 2004. The fact that Bush spoke out against the press shows that we as Americans have a serious problem at hand. A 1998 Gallup poll showed 46 percent of the public thinks the news media have a political bias (27 percent said it was liberal, 19 percent said conservative). Network television was seen as the most biased. When Newt Gingrich wrote and published his book he made $400,000 from the sales. This was a large deal to the media. When Hilary Clinton wrote and published her book she made $8 million and the media praised her on it. The media hope to help the public forget that, at this point in his presidency, Bush has accomplished far more than Clinton had. By the negative news, are they hoping that the voting public will forget that a tax cut has been passed, congress has developed a long-term energy policy and the Patients Bill of Rights is now heading in the right direction? Yet, all we continue to hear about in the news is negativity toward the administration.
In Bernie Goldberg’s book “Bias”, he criticizes NBC, ABC and CBS as “delivering the liberal bias.” Goldberg spent 28 years as a reporter and producer at CBS. The problem with a political bias in the news is it sways public opinion. It creates the group-think mentality and the conservative causes are dropped.
In the world, the liberal media have been playing a large part especially in Brazil. The leftist influence in the media is one of the factors behind the recent anti-North Americanism. Our once-common alliance has been tried by this and will now need political work in order to heal our South American ties.
Information bias is always reprehensible and it has not only been used by liberals and leftists. However, it is leftists that have mostly taken advantage of it. To protect ourselves against misinformation and chaotic news we need to practice logic, common sense and objectivity.
Spencer Lloyd is a junior majoring in business information systems. Comments can be sent to shlloyd@cc.usu.edu.