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Editorial: The Left Leaning Media |
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by Dan Veaner
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Friday, 05 September 2008 |
 I have definitive proof that Hollywood and the media lean toward the left. Conservatives have made this charge for years, but now it's official. Here is how I know:
Hollywood first. On Tuesday night's 'America's Got Talent' this week they paired off contestants for the elimination announcements. One of the pair would go on to the next round of the competition, the other would be sent home. Most of the winners were on the left. The ones on the right hand side were more likely to be sent home. That proves that Hollywood leans toward the left.
My media example is more insidious. It has to do with the commercials on XM satellite radio. You can listen to the major television cable news networks on XM, and I tend to flip between CNN Headline News and Fox News, depending on which one is not broadcasting commercials at any given moment. You don't actually hear the television commercials on XM -- they sell their own and broadcast them instead.
It has not escaped my notice that the commercials they play on Headline News are for things like GoToMyPC.com and other business services. But the ones they play on Fox, more often than not, are for male enhancement products. Is XM sending a subliminal message that conservative listeners are somehow not manly enough? That they are wanting in the bedroom? I think their choice of commercials speaks for itself.
People whose sympathies lie on the left complain that the right has a lock on talk radio. That might be so, but who listens to talk radio anyway? Even when I agree with a host I generally can't stand to listen because of the posturing and the intensity of attacks that are often meaningless, infused with meaning only by the level of intensity, I suppose.
I recently found myself in an argument with someone who was arguing that it is OK for entertainers to shout out their politics during their shows like the Dixie Chicks did when they infamously dissed President Bush during a European tour. He said I should know a band's politics before going to their concert and if it would offend me I wouldn't have to go. He seemed amazed that I actually just like music for the music of it and don't know or care about the band's political views. Or that if I pay to hear a band play all I want to hear is the band playing.
If you pay for an apple and they give you a lemon you can get your money back. I think it should be the same with the news media and entertainment. After all, I live in a state that has a lemon law.
I am probably naive, but I want things to be what they are. I want music to just be music. I want news to actually be news, untainted by opinion or bias. And I want a talent show to just be a talent show. And yes, politics to just be politics.
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