Talking Media Bias

With Clifford Allan Potts

This article is from the February 2008 Unto the Breach Newsletter

Clifford Allen Potts is a published author. He is an old-school, Conservative Democrat, and he is an honest observer of current society and the media. He holds a BS in Telecommunications Management, technical certifications, and advanced training in Radio Broadcasting. His first two books are available through WordTechs Press. His CD, Radio Daze, is available through Lulu.com.

CRUSH: How are you Cliff?

POTTS: Doing well, Crush. Spent last night working the ITC in Fort Worth, TX. It was quieter than usual. Did have to babysit a couple of drunk students from Texas Christian University. They were heading to Dallas and being foolish in public. It always amazes me how normally decent people can become absolute morons when they get a few drinks in them. We got them on the train to Dallas, so we did our job: Everyone goes home at the end of the day.

CRUSH: I read that you have a Ph.D. What in?

POTTS: I do have an honorary Ph.D. in Metaphysics. It is a ministerial degree earned, if you want to call it that, for the three years of work I did compiling the research and experiences documented in Radicals, Religion, and Revelation. It exist to catch the attention of the Media to promote the written work. That is part and parcel of the Media frenzy and circus which we are exposed to on a daily basis. They love titles. Me? I think that is hype. The individual work should rise or fall on its own merit, not because of the title attached to it. Others argue otherwise.

CRUSH: Well that leads us right in to our topic. Would you say that there is a bias in our media?

POTTS: There is a bias, but it is not as intentional as people perceive it. It is a complex dynamic of human behavior and personality in conjunction with the business need to focus on given demographics to move the advertiser’s products. The studies were initially done during the late forties, early fifties by CBS when Edward R. Murrow was coming under fire for being to liberal. This was in the days when the fairness doctrine was in full effect. The conclusion by CBS’ legal department was that bias is a natural result of any individual news anchor’s own perceptions and personality. It is unavoidable.

The FCC, for the most part, accepted this view as well. That may seem like a bit of a simplification, but it remains relatively true today. Knowing this, broadcasting companies began building news teams which would work well together to form a harmonious approach to the news broadcast. The result was that CBS leaned a bit to the left with Murrow and Cronkite, and NBC leaned a bit to the right with Huntley and Brinkley. The FCC was watchful, but remained appeased as long at the two main players did not get blatant in their bias.

For the most part they remained within the six degrees of separations. That is the fictitious monitor which places an arbitrary subject zero mark on the air; a line is drawn at three degrees to the left and to the right of that zero mark. As long as the reporting remains within the six degrees one way or the other everyone was happy. This was back in the days of the GI Generation’s victorious homecoming and it was an understood social dynamic. Using this to set the stage for the demographics, advertisers then could effectively aim for the market they were trying to reach. That is the sole purpose in U.S. broadcasting, to sell products to a given demographic.

In the 1960s, Cronkite caught moon fever, along with most of the United States. This put CBS in the top ratings. Chet and David of NBC, while solidly conservative did not embrace the lunar race. They covered it, but not with the same passion and enthusing (if you will call it that) as Cronkite. The slightly liberal skew of CBS became the mark for the voice of broadcasting. However, it was not the only voice. It was simply CBS’ voice, but it was listened to because it was the voice of the Moon race. Anyone who still remembers those glory days of Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo, remembers the passion of Cronkite’s humanizing reports on the progress of the race. He was spellbinding, because we were all spellbound by the great adventure of the late 1960s and early 1970s. I can tell you that in all honestly, until the Shuttle launches became so mundane, I myself did not miss a single launch; I even faked being sick a few times so I could stay home from school to watch ‘em. Those who were not alive at the time when the Saturn Five reached into the heavens on a chariot of fire, cannot begin to under the true ecstasy of raw exploration. We were THE U.S.A. and we were going to the moon! Even now words fail to convey the magnitude of those events.

The downside was that TV reporting in general began to pick up CBS’ editorial tone. WE were THE U.S.A. in SPACE, but we were also the “ugly” American at home and in South East Asia. ABC was not much of a player until it found its voice in a mixture of internationalism, science fiction, and the Baby-Boomer Rock and Roll. It was Shindig and American Bandstand which gave ABC its bias. It was playing to the younger generation. As the Vietnam War became more and more of an issue, it followed its demographic into the jungle. With it came the disinherited voices of young men scared to death in a savage war of attrition. That came about roughly with Tet in 1968. Prior to that the coverage was pretty much as it had been with World War Two.

Two of the three networks, and that is all that there was back then, had a left leaning voice. This created a perception that the whole industry was left leaning … I think it also planted the idea that it should be left leaning. This seemed to be the perception as B-boomers grew up and took their place in TV broadcasting.

CRUSH: That’s good background. You mentioned Walter Cronkite and the Tet Offensive. When he told America that Vietnam could not be won, the war was lost on the home front. LBJ said that “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.” We have had almost five years of negative reporting on Iraq, but we are still there. In fact, the Democrats have now largely given up on Iraq as a campaign issue. What does that tell you about today’s media compared to Cronkite’s era?

POTTS: To be honest, due to the wide variety of outlets 100+ channels all copying one another the media today is kind of a mish-mosh of mixed messages. What is so funny, due to corporatization and the loosening of the rules of who can own what in which market, there are but a few real owners. The ownership of the outlets is very limited. When this was brought to the attention of one congressman by a consumer advocate, the congressman replied, “Are the people buying the dog food?” You see, we have a commercial-based media, as long as people are buying the products, no one cares about the message being presented. In a way nothing has changed, you just have more of a selection of the same pabulum. The real issue is what is the message and that changed in the 1970s and 1980s. For lack of a better phrase, we got into an schema best described as “internationalism.” The shift was less focused on the politics of the people, and more of a cheer-leading for corporate internist. In some ways this was a sociological shift to the days before 1934 and the FCC. Both the right and left concede that the airways were best served by market factors. That may or may not be valid, but it is where we are at today.

CRUSH: Well, GE owns NBC. With GE standing to benefit financially due to their alternative energy technology, how would you say market forces come into play as far as the man-made global warming movement?

POTTS: It won’t. The broadcasting units are business entities in themselves, and they are money machines. They bring in revenue stream based on the demographics of the audience. They sell dog-food, cola, soap, coffee, This has not changed much since the 1930s. I would not be too concerned about NBC’s parental organizations ventures. From what I am seeing now, NBC is not really a player anymore. They seem to be scrambling to find themselves. Had to say what will come of it. Think tank experts on both sides of the political spectrum like to say that variety is everything, however, people are creatures of habit. They seek their comfort level. NBC lost the skill to make people feel at home … in their own homes.

CRUSH: Where do today’s media outlets like FOX News, CNN, and NBC fit in to the six degrees of separations?

POTTS: FOX News has pretty much fixed itself. It has an audience and has taken the criticisms to be responsible to heart. In the early days it was all about getting attention to gain audience. It was, at best, an outlet of tabloid journalism. I am surprised we never saw a series on “Bat Boy.” Now, they look more like the old NBC. They understood their base audience was conservative and they went back to the play book of the 50s style NBC. As to the programing of FOX in general, it is worth noting that Geraldo Rivera is caricature of the Walter Winchel of post World War II.

CNN was Turner’s baby. He wanted a globalized news network to promote the ideals of internationalism. This is straight out of the post Vietnam U.S. cultural climate. He is a child of his times. That is pretty much what it is still today. It may be considered liberal, but it is not a liberalism that is core to the mainstream values of the average citizen of the U.S . It is a good informational feed, and it still sits within that six degrees, but … well, I am not impressed. There is too much of how great the world is, and how bad the U.S. is. I kind of ignore it and just gleen the information.

MSNBC is, now, following the same pattern of CNN. I keep getting the impression that Bill Gates is not too fond of his fellow citizens, and that leaks through the programing. And, it shows in the ratings. MSNBC is, for lack of a better term, a bottom feeder these days. It would not surprise me if they all but vanish.

I would like to see someone, say ABC for example, who actually understands American liberalism. Like the liberalism of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt. That is what I see when I read about liberalism in the U.S. I am a great fan of FDR. His programs saved my dad and mom during he depression, but he was not liberal, he was socialist. The distinction is somewhat lost these days. We need a broadcasting conglomerate who really understands, at a gut level, the distinction. When that happens CNN will go by-by.

CRUSH: What about the breaking point? I mean, the tipping point when the mainstream of Americans have had enough. Take Rosie O’Donnell for example. She went off the deep end, and a lot of people decided enough was enough. The sponsor lists of The View were circulated, and alot of people I know quit consuming their products. She was out of there in a flash. I know The View is different, but just recently, CNN conducted a Republican debate with multiple Democrat operative plants. And wasn’t it just last year when they showed footage they obtained from our enemies of American soldiers being killed? Do you think that outlets like CNN and MSNBC will “get with the program?”

POTTS: Well, I think the tripping point has been reached. How many people have tuned out? I don’t have numbers, but notice that talk radio is loosing in the “Arbs.” I have. I use to work at KLIF. KLIF here in DFW has lost share to NPR. That is hard to calculate because NPR does not subscribe to Arbitron. They don’t need to. Arbitron is the mythic rating system which has been in place since 1956 or so. They are how radio and TV track their audiences and demographics.

More to the point the alternatives are rising. Not so much X radio type of thing, but with the I-Pod jacks in cars. Even the net has become a major provider of news. People select what they want to read. CNN went to a net style format to attract a younger demographic, but they still are not getting the numbers. In general I think people are tuning out, and looking for what they need as they go along. I know the Internet has facilitated this populist movement.

CRUSH: Liberal newspapers nationwide are losing subscribers faster than a speeding Prius. MSNBC is… well, MSNBC. Katie Couric isn’t faring too well, either. Do you think that media moguls like Les Moonves or Ted Turner will be forced to sing a different tune in order to keep selling advertising?

POTTS: For all his wealth, Ted Turner has some serious personal issues. He divorced Jane Fonda for converting to Christianity within weeks of her announced conversion. Obviously he has some serious issues with religious bigotry. A lesser figure in the media would be shunned for such a stunt. He is wealthy enough to rise above public criticism and consternation over his blatantly illegal views of people. While being no big fan of Hanoi Jane, I have to wonder if his attitudes towards Christianity have permeated the hiring practices at CNN. Too, one has to wounder about his opinions of Jews, Muslims, Hindu, and Neo-Pagans … to name a few. Aside from that he is the epitome of an Internationalist attempting to perpetuate a message of globalism as a solution. His version of globalism , the stock and trade of CNN, seems to be based on a Woodstock approach to life: Keep the music playing and ignore the decaying situation around you.

I am somewhat nonplus concerning Les Moonves. He comes off, as do most media execs, as a hard nosed megalomaniac dictating what people will watch in spite of the reaction. He has a level of tolerance, or lack of, that is cut in stone. This is one of the big problems with conglomerated media. One man dictates what the people will hear, see, or read. All we can do is shut it off … and that is what is happening. They are being shut off, or more to the point shut out.

Let’s face it as dramatic as the events of 9/11, or Hurricane Katrina were, except in the specific area of occurrence was there any reason for 24/7 streaming of non-news. It is one thing to keep the nation appraised of an event, but after the first five hours following the event, with the lack of any new events, we could pretty much get the picture of the event without the extensive coverage. More to the point what could you or I do about it from where we were at. You have to remember I was in broadcasting school that day, it was the biggest story of the decade, I was covering it for our school’s station … and for all I could do, there was nothing I could do.

CBS, CNN, and even FOX are losing market share because people are tuning out. We do want to know what is going on the day the event occurs, but we do not really want to be told what to think. Will that change? Yes. If we have something that can only be described as World War III where we are all, more or less, equally threatened, then we will pull together and the differences will be reduced to a matter of style and not message or political philosophy.

CRUSH: Well, thanks for your time, Cliff. It’s pretty obvious that you know how to swim in the deep end of the pool when it comes to the media. I hope the readers enjoy reading you as much as I did.

POTTS: I thank you for being gracious enough to allow me to explain my perceptions on media bias. It does exist. It is a by-product of human experiences. However, the main goal of the media is to make money through the sales of advertisement. It is not exactly a political agenda, per-say, it is more of aiming at a perspective demographic and giving them what they want to hear so they will stay tuned to see, and possible buy the products offered. That is what I learned in Radio Broadcasting School, and it seem to pan out in observations of the media. Again, thank you for your time.

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