Why liberals in the media present conservative views when a liberal is president. It's happening again!

By Ed Knudson

It's happening again. When Bill Clinton was president I noticed he had a difficult time getting his messages across through the liberal media. That is, when liberal correspondents would interview him, and members of his administration, the questions they would ask were the very talking points that conservatives had been making at the time.

Now it's happening again with Obama as the stimulus or "recovery" bill is being debated in Congress. When he or others of his administration are interviewed they are asked questions echoing the objections Republicans have been making, to the degree that the reasons for supporting the bill are not able to be expressed and heard by the listening public. Right now this is happening to the degree that the fate of the bill has become uncertain. The media is giving the benefit of the doubt to conservative critics rather than to the new administration, even concerning a critical piece of legislation designed to begin to correct the economic collapse that happened under the previous conservative administration. It is amazing to me.

Why does this happen? First of all, the media does trend liberal. Most correspondents are educated, and in today's world to have gone to college is to become more liberal. So, most representatives of the media are conscious of themselves as "liberal" more than "conservative." So here's what happens. The liberal media person when interviewing a liberal politician says to himself or herself: "I am liberal, therefore I have to demonstrate I am fair, so I will question this liberal politician extensively." This happens to the degree that the interview is dominated by negativity; the liberal politician cannot get his or her message clearly communicated.

But when interviewing a conservative politician the liberal media person says to himself or herself: "I am a liberal, therefore to be fair I have to make sure that this conservative politician is able to make his or her points." The conservative doesn't get questioned based on what liberal politicians are saying, but is able to get his or her message across.

The end result is that in the liberal media the conservatives get their message across but the liberals do not. This is not a small thing. What is seen on the liberal media, which dominates more than conservative media, is taken to be significant by large numbers of people. It may be that liberal policy cannot be implemented in the United States ironically because of a liberal media.