Thursday, December 12, 2002 :::
Michael Kelly writes about liberal and conservative bias in the media.
I don't think any media organ has shifted to the right lately, and the New York Times has shifted from left-leaning to untrustably-ideological. What's true is that some right-leaning media outlets have grown to some prominence. The broadcast-network news programs still tend slightly to the left (mostly in story selection, though once in a while Dan Rather says something blatantly leftist), and CNN is still more left than right, but Fox News has grown up in the last few years to surpass it. Likewise, much of what's on the Internet is right-of-center, and there certainly weren't a lot of news sources on the Internet ten years ago, not counting Usenet, which was not a reliable source for facts -- someone asked me in college once about a rumor he'd read on the Internet, and I said, "if you read it on the Internet, it must be true." It was more obviously sarcastic when I said it than it is now.
To sum up, the liberal media haven't moved to the right or shut down, but they've lost some significance as alternatives have grown up. Which is ideal, really.
::: posted by Steven at 4:25 AM
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