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Rachel Maddow Calls Out The Media’s Conservative Bias
On her MSNBC show Rachel Maddow called out the Sunday talk shows for their conservative bias.
Here is the video:
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Rachel Maddow began, “I will admit right off the bat this is petty. I’ll admit it, but it is also true, and it has got to drive Democrats and the White House absolutely nuts. Here it is. Republican Senator Dick Luger, Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani, Republican former congressman Tom Davis. The Bush administration’s CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden, the Bush Administration Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Michael Chertoff, the Bush administration’s Homeland Security secretary, the Bush administration’s defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, the Bush administration’s vice president Dick Cheney, the Bush administration’s vice president’s daughter Liz Cheney. The week the Obama administration announces it has killed Osama Bin Laden that’s the guest list on the Sunday morning political talk shows to talk about it.”
She continued, “The Sunday shows are supposedly the apex of political debate. The pulsing, throbbing heart of what’s going on in American politics. Is the biggest story in American politics right now now retirees from the Bush administration and how they feel about stuff, plus Dick Luger? Honestly this is the roster, this is Sunday morning in all its thundering seriousness? Now among those nine Bush administration officials and other Republican politicians there were three outliers, Senator John Kerry, also a former White House communications director Anita Dunn and one current White House official Tom Donilon the national security adviser but the week the Obama administration announces Bin Laden is dead the measure of serious and importance in Washington is 3-1, Bush administration and Republican officials. Why is that?”
You, me, Rachel Maddow, and anyone else with a set of eyes knows why Republicans were featured on the Sunday shows. The corporate controlled media wanted to make sure that the Bush administration got to take credit for the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Maddow won’t come out and say it because she works for Comcast, but the truth is that since the late 1990s the Sunday talk shows have catered to the conservative point of view.
When I originally wrote about this on Saturday, I pointed out the obvious conservative media bias that was involved in the decisions to book six former Bush administration officials compared to one current Obama White House official. This was a conscious decision by the people who book the Sunday shows to feature the pro-Republican point of view.
From 1997-2005 Republicans had an advantage on the Sunday shows. During the Clinton administration more than half of the guests were conservatives. During Bush’s first term 58% of the guests were Republicans. These numbers have only gotten worse over time. Today, at least a 2-1 Republican to Democrat advantage is the norm.
I disagree with Maddow on one point. There is absolutely nothing petty about this issue. She knows that in politics those who control television control the message. This isn’t about complaining over who got more bookings. Progressives have argued that Democrats are bad with messaging, but in the case of the death of Bin Laden, Democrats had a message but the media chose to ignore it and fill the airtime with Bush administration has beens.
If Republicans rule the airwaves they get to shape public perception and reaction. Bias creates an uneven playing field for discussion and ideas. The public ends up less informed. This is why media bias in any form matters. It matters a lot. I know it is hard for those who work in the mainstream media to directly confront conservative media bias. Rachel Maddow has recently discussed why the media won’t cover liberals, but because she appears on Meet The Press from time to time she may have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to the scope and danger of conservative media bias.
Conservative media bias is very real. Instead of going halfway on it, Democrats need to confront it and challenge the mainstream media. There is nothing trivial about wanting to see both points of view represented in the media, but until Democrats demand equal treatment conservative media bias is here to stay.
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25 Responses to Rachel Maddow Calls Out The Media’s Conservative Bias
SpaceyG on Twitter
May. 10th, 2011 at 10:11 am
Just glad she doesn’t live and Georgia and has to watch The Georgia Gang.
english saddle
May. 10th, 2011 at 10:20 am
She said everything you wrote last weekend. I’m glad she did but when will MSNBC consider working the weekends? This is why I read here!
daisydem
May. 10th, 2011 at 10:30 am
What can we do about it? We are seeing HuffPo and CNN (two sources I did use during the early days of the campaign … that I now refuse to go to, because the focus has changed, the bias may be less obvious than FOX but it is still there.
daisydem
May. 10th, 2011 at 10:31 am
p.s. When Cheney disappears from this Earth or is no longer able to vent through that snarl, Liz will recede into the netherworld also. I am so looking forward to that day … I pray for that day.
Dee
May. 10th, 2011 at 10:53 am
Further confirmation of this is with the ad nauseam coverage of Bagger protests/events over the past few years. Example – CNN riding with the paid for by Koch Bagger Buses and having a number of paid hack reporters at the Bagger Convention in Nashville, covered Live.
Then there is the lack of coverage of protests/events such as those in Wisconsin and other states. Wisconsin was only covered by some when forced to as it was not going away. Some (left) gatherings were totally ignored as if non-existent. If not for blogs, many would never know anything happened.
Reynardine
May. 10th, 2011 at 10:54 am
I have commented on rightist presstitution before, but I will state that it began as a real phenomenon in the Reagan era, when, as one columnist reported, the press began “circling the wagons” around the glibly charming, mean-minded, senescent actor who had ballyhooed his way into the Presidency at the head of a clique determined to make mindless status-seeking and heartless snobbery “cool” again. In this, they had substantial success, but not yet enough. Abolition of the Fairness Doctrine and deregulation of the press industry, though, paved the way for what was to follow. The death or retirement of the old-time journalists, the acquisition of media outlets by corporate conglomerates whose business was not news, and the consolidation of papers and telejournalism led to the rest. Now the same interests are barking for the abolition of net neutrality. What will happen to blogs like this one if they succeed?…
Jason Easley
May. 10th, 2011 at 11:14 am
Don’t worry, thanks to readers like you sites like this one will still be around without net neutrality. We’ll just have to fight harder to be heard.
Reynardine
May. 10th, 2011 at 1:44 pm
In truth, I am honored, and hope to deserve it.
Anne
May. 10th, 2011 at 11:02 am
They will go to any lengths to give GW even a smidgeon of credit. Although it’s a well-documented fact that he diverted his attention from catching Bin Laden to the Iraqi war, these folks would give all the credit to GW if they could and none to President Obama. The only reason they don’t try that tactic is that too much evidence favors our current president. They can no longer run on the meme that Democrats are “soft on terrorism,” so they have to try selling gullible Americans on the idea that torture, especially waterboarding, played a part in Bin Laden’s demise. The fact that they invited very few people who actually were involved in taking out Bin Laden in 2011, instead inviting a surfeit of people from GW’s administration, clearly shows their bias.
jlt
May. 10th, 2011 at 2:38 pm
This is more about keeping cheney and rumsfeld out of jail than attempt at getting credit! Remember they did not give Carter credit for the release of the hostages–that he TRADED ARMS TO THE CONTRAS FOR!
They do not want to take credit for the Economic problems but do want illegal torture to be complicit to avoid jail for their cronies!
Contact the shows and producers and their sponsors..That is the only way this will be corrected! Thank you -as usual Ms. Maddow!
Sally
May. 10th, 2011 at 12:12 pm
But Fox is still pushing the ‘victory lap’ nonsense today. There is no one in DC less likely to do any chest-pounding than our President, and it drives them crazy, so they just lie and say he is. My sister in Colorado who listens to Rush all day told me in 2008 that she hated Obama because he’s ‘so arrogant.’ Really? I never thought of him that way then, and am more convinced now that he is not, but that meme lives on through Rush and Hannity. And if there is no counter to that, these people keep on buying what the right is selling, regardless that it is s*** on a stick.
john
May. 10th, 2011 at 1:25 pm
what is this dude talking about?
Nasty Liberal
May. 10th, 2011 at 2:03 pm
Are you “dude,” john? Clearly you’re clever, whatever.
Sue in Minnesota
May. 10th, 2011 at 1:25 pm
Today the weight of this is crushing my spirit. I’ll live to fight another day, but the state of our MSM, the level of their influence and the smallness of my voice is for today, daunting if not depressing.
What do we do, how can we effectively fight this, beyond the e-mails, the blocked channels and ultimately the cancelled cable subscriptions. Our household has become increasingly politically motivated as to how and where our consumer dollars are spent. But we are but a drop in a very, very big bucket.
Thank you to those that contribute here, my sanity depends on your perspective and reason, your tone and articulation. Where is the donate button?
F Joy
May. 11th, 2011 at 2:33 pm
Amen
Wilson
May. 10th, 2011 at 2:42 pm
Here’s the thing. The majority of Americans don’t watch those shows. They’re too busy having a weekend. In their minds, Obama is president and Obama caught Bin Laden.
Nobody but the nut jobs are handing Bush any credit for this. This is much ado about nothing.
Shiva (Moderator)
May. 10th, 2011 at 3:15 pm
there is little that the Democrats can do about it. Osama bin Laden became famous under Bush, the mass murderer in any story connected to him(OBL) will be connected to George W. Bush, the mass murderer.
Why they are interviewing the very people who quit looking for Osama bin Laden I understand. it’s the story. It’s tell us your side of the story and never once is it why didn’t you go after Osama bin Laden?
And worse if we quit watching the shows they will turn conservative. There is very little we can do about the media. I’m not sure what the answer would be
scotty
May. 10th, 2011 at 3:39 pm
Can someone please tell me who this Rachel Maddow is? She sounds kind of funny but I have never seen her show. Is it on TV or just the internet?
Shiva (Moderator)
May. 10th, 2011 at 4:47 pm
Scotty, Rachael is a news caster on MSNBC at night. I think around 9 or 10 pm
Tim P
May. 10th, 2011 at 4:49 pm
lol @ all these posts stating various Bush presidency info obtained from liberal media news sites, which, by the way, is the majority of news networks. i’m really not sure what you people are whining about. you already have NPR, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC…. what more do you want? the president and his administration has ALL THE AIRTIME THEY WANT, WHEN THEY WANT IT, do they not? now you are complaining about one sunday morning’s shows? petty, indeed.
quit looking for osama? when did that happen? you must have him confused with Harry ‘this war is lost’ Reid? you people’s inability to grasp the WHOLE picture is beyond me. you all SEEM pretty smart. but to ignore the fact that, had we NOT been in Iraq, who knows where we would be today. who knows if we wld have ever captured the person that gave us osama’s courier’s name. who knows what Iran would have done by now. who knows if there would still be a thirst for freedom in the middle east JUST LIKE THE BUSH NEOCONS SAID THERE WOULD BE. after learning whats been going on in Pakistan, who knows what would have easily emerged from there already had we NOT been in the region?
the end will justify the means. wake up
Shiva (Moderator)
May. 10th, 2011 at 5:05 pm
no, we were talking about George “shut down the CIA for bin Laden department” Bush. and we would be right here. Just like we always have been if we had not gone into Iraq based on the George W. Bush “I lied to take us to war” president.
NPR is not liberal. CNN is not liberal MSNBC is, and the three major networks are hardly liberal but quite frankly they are not conservative either.
Bush had nothing to do with catching Osama bin Laden. his people never acted on the data because they were stopped. The data in the hot Osama bin Laden isn’t even a year old
Walter
May. 10th, 2011 at 9:45 pm
Let’s ignore for the moment that Rachel Maddow deliberately misled her audience by omitting interviews conducted on other Sunday morning shows. There’s a better question to be asked here: was Katie Couric showing a conservative bias when she interviewed Sarah Palin during the 2008 presidential campaign? Following the death of the most famous terrorist on earth, it’s not completely unreasonable to interview people from the administration who declared the War on Terror and who presided over 9/11 and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Interviewing conservatives does not indicate a conservative bias.
Back to the facts. Google “sunday talk show lineup may 8.” The first result shows:
FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): National security adviser Tom Donilon; former Vice President Dick Cheney.
MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Donilon; former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff; former CIA Director Michael Hayden; former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.; former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
THIS WEEK (ABC): Donilon; Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S., Husain Haqqani; former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Donilon; Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.; NATO’s secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
Tom Donilon was interviewed _four times_; Maddow also failed to mention Rasmussen and Haqqani. In fact, the only network which interviewed mostly conservatives was NBC at 2/3.
Reynardine
May. 10th, 2011 at 9:49 pm
Mr. P., we have heard all these talking points before. Either come up with something better than what are supposed to be thought- terminating cliches, or pull the ramrod out of…
Chris Brownwell
May. 11th, 2011 at 3:42 pm
Haha. That’s funny “Conservative Media Bias” Haha. “Bush had nothing to do with the capture of Bin Laden.” Oh, my sides are hurting, that’s so funny. And they said liberals don’t have a sense of humor.
Shiva (Moderator)
May. 11th, 2011 at 6:46 pm
Obviously you think he did have something to do with it, but Im sure you dont know what it was. Do you Mr Jones.
And no, god had nothing to do with it either. No matter how hard you try to justify it