The “liberal” media never spoke as relevantly on politics as the more optimistic liberals may have thought. The Right has been too right about the quality of much “liberal” media: it just didn't cut it. But their objections were all wrong, off to the wrong point. The problem, way back when the media was less skewed towards the right, was not so much bias against conservative views, although that happened sometimes, but rather a bias against presenting useful and relevant information. The media wasn't so much about liberalism. The media, especially Cable news, was (and still is), tending far more towards hysteria.

The 24-7 info-tainment environment inherently favors reaction, and so it is no surprise that most of the media is now tending towards the reactionary, the over-patriotic, and the beating of war-drums. Of course it is skewed more to the right and helping the government spread propaganda, willingly. Your typical journalist, caught up in the national minute-by-minute news cycle, did tend to give some liberal answers in studies attempting to sort out their political tendencies. But the nature of the industry, the lifestyle, and the class of close associates, has had significant effects upon the mindset and personality structure of these journalists.

When Chris Mathews (of MSNBC's Hardball) spoke at Johns Hopkin's campus on December 8, 2002, he answered some questions about media censorship and/or bias by pointing out that people with a more conservative tendency are more likely to go to business school, but those with moderate or liberal tendencies are more likely to go to journalism school; a sort of natural selection process occurs, but conservatives can't complain that their voices aren't out there. He also noted that some journalists and journalism students pose as more liberal even if they are moderate, because that get's them a certain image of the cutting edge journalist being progressive. Mathews stated that basically he hasn't seen any real censorship in the media regarding his own work. He does not believe he has ever been asked to report things a certain way because of conservative views of his bosses, does not believe he has ever been asked to tone down his views due to pressure from the government or GE. Conservatives are the CEO's, owners, and managers of the major papers, while the liberals write a lot of the commentary. He spoke eloquently on the role of commentators the likes of Limbaugh and O'Reilly in feeding of the concerns of angry white men, posing as a regular guy who is put down, etc. It was refreshing to hear some honesty and insight, but there are problems with the media he did not get to either because of time constraints and competing lines of thinking, or because he does not have the mindset to see farther, because he is too much within the culture of the media on the Hill.

The social environment of the most prestigious news circles is definitely not working class. They are well above median income, and have priviliged contacts who can help them out with most problems. Many people they deal with every day have an enormous amount of wealth, power, or influence. That is the social reality, the day to day perspective. The nature of personal concerns expressed by this crowd reflects their social position, and the climate that they work in – non stop pressured and reactive info-tainment, ratings, and the “progressive feelings” or personal irks of well-connected well-to-do colleagues. I don't care so much how liberal or progressive your sentiments are... if that is your world, if these are your colleagues, what are you doing to keep in touch with the rest of America? What is the basis of any liberalism or progressivism among media personalities? Is the basis sometimes, as Chris Mathews implies, an image instead of a core set of principles, instead of a rooted worldview? Relevance exists to the extent that someone remembers what it was like for them outside of that media culture, outside the circles of the privileged, if they “rose from below”, or else they are somehow in touch with what it is like for the majority of people who try hard but do not have influential protectors or assurances of stability, deeply aware that most people do not or cannot get such amazing amounts of success, or do not succeed at all.

It is not surprising that many who succeed in “pulling themselves up” to success feel that anything is possible with the right attitude, in America, especially today. To generalize from a single example, or a handful of successes, is a common error. We all tend to generalize. We can do so according to our experience, or according to what we are told by someone we respect, or because we are afraid of the alternatives. We may even generalize about our life and opportunities according to what we are told by those we resent or who actually know nothing about our life. Media personalities that “made it” from obscurity or from lower classes, who are now surrounded by influential people who encourage them, are understandably impressed with the good will of some people who work within the system to make it better, make it more accessible to those who otherwise would have no chance. But that is not relevant to the experience of the bulk of Americans, and CANNOT be, unless the bulk of influential people become patrons or more patronizing of us folk down here, or unless we assert our value and use our inherent power by protesting, going on strike, support each other, etc.

When 9-11 hit, the factions of the media who tended to hysteria beforehand, and who had also previously been expressing some liberal sensitivities, became especially transfixed. I'm not sure if for some it was a beatific vision, albeit one with underlying horror like stigmatta. Others seemed to be effected by a sort of mental paralysis, or a fog, along with many of the rest of us. But the demands for constant re-exposure to the images of the falling towers, the hammering media, the ratings sensitivity, for years has been shaping them, far more than the rest of society.

Of course they understand the desire for stability. Where would they be without the influential people who look out for them, leak to them, protect them? Where would they be without constant Cable service? That isn't a joke, this is something that effects their livelihood, as banal as it seems. Put it in perspective, what would happen to you if the bus system shut down and you depended upon it because you did not have a car? Terrorism can disrupt our entire society, and many were asking what if? And of course they understood the desire to fight in self defense, to find the people responsible and do something. And in their minds, helping the ratings of the administration, pounding and hammering the optimism for America to win, banging the drums against our enemies, is the natural thing for them to do, their contribution to show they care, or at least to do what they know how to do, and to ensure life as they know it.

As long as they weren't being asked to blatantly censor themselves, many of them were inclined to volunteer to self-censor, and were comfortable promoting values of standing behind the president by being less critical, hysterically jumping on opposition voices, to crush it to react against the horror of terrorism, but covering up the zeal a bit so they don't look just like O'Reilly. Idiom, you know. Like Sir Lancelot in Monte Python's Quest for the Holy Grail. Each one has their own style, but essentially many are in lock step, VOLUNTARILY. All of a sudden, many in liberal media circles had some appreciation of Israel's position dealing with suicide bombers. Their world has shaken. They were, like many, disoriented. But their warped little work-climate and the “norms” of their social reality had definite effects upon many of them.

This is scary stuff. Many in the media are choosing to do the job of a propaganda department, volunteering to be small McCarthy hopefuls, excusing the consolidation of power in the Executive branch, rallying against immigrants, and thinking the best of police agencies in dealing with dissidents who might be terrorists.

The ones who have capitulated never were Liberals, may never have even been Moderates. That would assume some political principle or orientation. They had a media orientation, a hysterical job climate, and rewards for being sensational and demagogic as long as it sounded “progressive” -- what else could be expected from them but rampant patriotism, continuing Demagoguery, and support for war against Iraq? Do you expect them to understand anti-war protesters when even the ones who are against the war can't recognize a bad analogy between this proposed action and others in American history? When someone claims the relationship between the coming war against Iraq is no different than the way America acted in Yugoslavia or in WWII, and the anti-war Donahue or Mathews let that go unchallenged, all I can say is they are in a fog, themselves. Iraq isn't in civil war. Come on, that came to my mind in a split second. Iraq isn't currently fighting several of its neighbors to expand it's control in the region. No one in the middle east is asking us to help their currently active fight against Iraq. If anything like that happened, there would be more of an analogy to past actions. Except for our country's injustice towards Native Americans, this type of action is a clear break from even the bad military policies of the past.

Donahue floundered about angry white men, putting the most vocal reactionaries on stage to represent white people, and failed to distinguish between quotas and affirmative action, or different types of affirmative action. Too few speak about affirmative action defined as choosing a minority when two actually equal candidates are in front of you and you are going to flip a coin anyway. Too few speak about the more general economic plight of all working class people, black or white. Too few speak about what it is like without a safety net, to be under-employed, or over-worked, and speak of it all connected together.

But then, what can we expect? I'm pleasantly surprised when there are voices in the mainstream media that reflect a genuine concern and serious attempt to relate to the plight of others. Is the medium, itself, the message: reaction, quip, sound-byte, polarized panel, ratings, advertisers, 24-7 competition?