And there never has been.
A trait amongst those of us on the right is to complain about what we term the MSM, the mainstream media. That’s where we first go wrong. They are not mainstream at all, but mostly hard left. See? There I go again.
However CNN, NBC, ABC, etc. have every right to be leftist. We are upset because we long for a time that never existed, an era before the 1960s when the press was supposedly objective. What we conservatives really mean is we yearn for a return to a time when most of the media agreed with us. For a pre-counterculture liberal, say like Scoop Jackson, would have a lot in common with conservatives today. So, for that matter, would bygone era newsmen like David Brinkley, Frank Reynolds (no, not that one), and Ed Murrow.
Their prism was generally ours. Why did it change? Because the detritus protesting in the antiwar streets of the late 60s moved into the newsrooms. Their post-modern ideological heirs are even worse. So we got beat in that battle and are complaining about a currently lost cause.
Every news entity is biased to some, or to a great, degree. We know the majority lean hard left. We have Fox News Channel who leans right, though they used to be solidly right. Their editorial programs are still strongly conservative and do winning ratings battle with CNN and MSNBC each night. As their straight news division may fade into a pathetic attempt to be all things to all people, OANN and Sinclair Media may take up the slack. We don’t do too badly ourselves here at OpsLens.
I guess it is a uniquely American attribute to want media fairness. Foreign press are blatantly biased. In the UK, for example, you know what side The Guardian is on, as opposed to The Daily Telegraph. They may report the same facts, but the interpretations are poles apart. To ask otherwise is to desire the exceedingly improbable, as every person comes with their own biases and prejudices that will be reflected in their opinions, values, and outlook on life.
This is as it should be because vigorous debate in the marketplace of ideas is the hallmark of liberty. We should recall Voltaire, who said that the views we most disagree with are the ones we must make sure are heard. For that in the longer term guarantees the ability of our own free speech.
So stop whining about the leftist press all the bloody time —and I am guilty of this in the pathological sense— and switch your primary sources to other media venues of your own taste. Like here.
As we see from the current ratings of CNN, if enough of us do that we won’t have any room left to whine because the free market will deal with the likes of Jake Tapper and his ilk soon enough.
