The Ramparts Begin To Crumble
By Randall Nunn (07/14/04)
As the presidential campaign rolls on, it is becoming more obvious every day that the media has virtually abandoned any pretense of objectivity and has become a partisan participant in the political battle. If Bush wins re-election, the media’s power will be greatly diminished and it is fighting desperately to prevent that.
Since only about 18% of the voters in this country consider themselves liberal and about 41% consider themselves conservative, liberals can continue to hold power only so long as they can continue to monopolize the dissemination of news, education and opinion and gain more time to both refine their propaganda and intensify their message in hopes of indoctrinating the young, the confused and the disaffected.
The 2004 election will be the high-water mark of the liberal media. The media has apparently decided to throw everything into this fight, holding back nothing in reserve. They are willing to risk whatever “goodwill” they have with some of the remaining readers and viewers who are less ideologically committed and who have not tuned them out as yet. Whether conservatives agree 100% with President Bush’s policies or not, this fight must be won in order to regain some semblance of balance in our culture and prevent the “nanny state” from taking greater control of our lives.
A recent Wall Street Journal article gives some indication of the media’s predicament. According to figures from Nielsen Media Research, viewership in the latest season (September 2003 to July 2004) among adults 25 to 54 years old is down for all three networks. The largest decline (15%) was for NBC Nightly News, with CBS Evening News, having the smallest share of the 3 networks, almost holding even. The thing that struck me in looking at the Nielsen numbers was that the combined total viewership in this important 25 to 54 year old group was 9.2 million. When you consider that Rush Limbaugh’s audience is about 20 million and Sean Hannity’s audience is about 12 million (admittedly containing some outside of these age groups), it shows that conservative ideas are on the ascendancy and liberals are fighting a rearguard action while the networks try to figure out a strategy to grab “mindshare” and audience from the conservatives. They obviously have not come up with a solution and their desperation is growing along with the realization that their forces are dwindling and their message of anti-Americanism and elitism is losing its appeal, except among die-hard leftists and rebellious youth trying to emulate the anti-war crowd of the 70’s, thinking that such activism is still cool and hip.
With the availability of talk radio, the Internet and outlets like FOX News, the liberal elitists are losing control of the message. There are many sources today and the once powerful role of “anchorman” is losing its clout and its appeal. Is there anyone left in America who doesn’t realize that Peter Jennings and Dan Rather have a liberal agenda? Tom Brokaw strives to appear a little more mainstream, but who among us would classify him as a conservative? The president of CBS News opines that viewers of the evening news are “making choices based on content, not just the anchors.” I have a news flash for him—to change content, one must go somewhere other than the three networks. And this probably explains why the news audiences of all three networks are declining. Intelligent viewers are going to FOX News, the Internet or are simply turning off the television and turning on the radio. From a content perspective, the choice between Dan Rather and Peter Jennings is rather like the choice between “The Simpsons” and “South Park”—we know what we are going to hear, even though the main characters may look a little different.
Gloomy as the evening news numbers look for the major networks, they may have more bad news on the horizon. If all those Hollywood types and “opinion leaders” who promised to leave the country if Bush is re-elected make good on their promises, the networks will have that many fewer watching their nightly hokum.
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