But ignoring a newsworthy keynote speech -- at an event the press corps itself set up -- doesn't go unnoticed anymore. Internet stables for liberals, like the behemoth dailykos.com, began rumbling as soon as the correspondents' dinner was reported in the mainstream press, with scant word of Colbert's combustive address.

This is trouble for the media. It has been losing customers to bloggers and Web sites for years. This won't help. The media's implosion of silence could be one of the final reasons many liberals use to not turn on TV news. It's not like they feel a vested interest in the industry anyway, since it has been bought and parceled by conservatives.

There is Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, that Pravda of GOP propaganda and breeding ground for Bush appointees. There are the networks' Sunday news shows that give more face time to Republicans. There are cable news channels like MSNBC, where Republicans have programmed the shows and hired on-air Republicans and conservatives-lite, from Tucker Carlson to Joe Scarborough and Chris Matthews. Some TV watchdogs even chronicle these conservative media daily, backed up by transcripts and video clips from TV news shows, in the expansive Web site, MediaMatters.com.

On cable, only CNN still plays the journalism-school middle ground most of the time, questioning liberals, moderates and conservatives with equal skepticism and respect. Clearly, in terms of advertising revenue, CNN alone cares to attract the disposable income of American viewers of all political stripes.

To liberals, this must be somewhat puzzling, since the rest of the conservative media primarily sides with a president whose approval ratings stand at 32 percent, a whisker better than Nixon's before he resigned in disgrace.

Liberals find true solace on TV only in the fake news of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" and "The Daily Show," a place where Jon Stewart merely has to show actual clips of Bush speaking, or Condi Rice, or Cheney, or Donald Rumsfeld to elicit laughter at their hubris. If NBC News let in audiences during its broadcasts, those people might also laugh at the president.

But the TV news corps, the unthinking and unblinking herd of pack journalists, prefer to laugh with the president, and kiss many viewers goodbye.
doug elfman chicago sun-times
- bill 5-07-2006 6:39 pm




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