Today Politico Arena asks:
Is Media Bias Today a Bigger Problem than Money in Politics?
My response:
It’s hardly surprising that a new Rasmussen Reports survey shows that “more than half of Americans think media bias is a bigger problem in politics today than the money that flows into campaigns.” After all, despite draconian restrictions imposed by modern campaign finance laws, individuals and organizations are still moderately free to contribute to campaigns. So liberty aside, the sheer volume of such contributions checks against “corruption,” whatever some may believe.
Media “corruption,” by contrast, starts with the academic system that filters people into the media. And the academy, as has been documented countless times, is overwhelmingly of the left. Indeed, I lecture regularly at law schools, which are little different, ideologically, than journalism schools. And only this week I learned from a student who was in a position to discover the party registrations of his faculty that not a single professor at his school was a registered Republican — not one. Nearly all were registered either Democrat or Green. The Federalist Society, which sponsors my lectures and those of many other conservative and libertarian speakers, was created precisely to try to counter that institutional bias.
And that, one could say, is why Fox News was created as well — to try to bring a different view to American media. By the reaction of the “mainstream media,” however, you’d think that someone had invited a skunk to the garden party. What better evidence of their bias? Not that Fox is always “fair and balanced,” mind you, but as compared to what? MSNBC? CBS? NPR? Pacifica Radio?! (That the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, including Pacifica, continues to receive taxpayer funding is nothing less than a scandal.) With the entrance of Fox, Americans have an alternative, and they’re turning to it in droves, which only further infuriates the establishment.
So yes, here again the people are ahead of — or perhaps more honest than — the establishment. They know bias when they see it, and there’s plenty to see in the mainstream media. Just ask Hillary Clinton about how she was treated during the primaries.
