Newsbusters' Tim Graham takes MediaWeek's Mike Shields to taskfor criticizing Bill O'Reilly for pointing out the obvious.
What did O'Reilly do? He argued that MSM newspapers had dug their own grave, economically, because of their obvious political bias. And so Shields asked O'Reilly,
So what if The New York Times’ political coverage leans left? Point it out. Disagree with it. But root for its destruction?
What other American industries do you want to die because their politics are not to your liking, or that of your boss, Roger Ailes? Who else do you want to see tossed out on the street?
To which Graham retorts:
Shields doesn’t seem to realize that if a paper like The New York Times publishes our terror-fighting secrets, that might look "un-American" to many – and it’s certainly not so "un-American" to root for the "un-American" media outlet to struggle.
Media outlets certainly don’t root for the average workers in the industries they don’t consider in the "public interest" – everything from tobacco to oil to coal to the makers of SUVs. In their own mythology, they're supposed to report "without fear or favor." So why can't media critics tell newspapers what might be ailing them?
The Cable Gamer doesn't doubt that Shields, Graham, and, of course, Bill will continue to have their say. But what strikes TCG is the fundamental truth of what O'Reilly and Graham have said--of course the MSM antagonized Middle American right-of-center sensibilities. You know, the country that now rates itself as pro-life, according to Gallup.
And so I decided to illustrate it, using that same quadrant-chart, above. I put the liberal MSM--which is to say, the MSM--into that lefty quadrant. And as argued earlier, I put Glenn Beck in the libertarian sector. And Sean Hannity in the conservative sector. And Bill O'Reilly clearly straddles the populist/moderate sectors. (Yes, this map lists the red sector as "authoritarian," but most other versions of this chart call it "populist." And that's how I would characterize O'Reilly, as a moderate populist, ideologically--although admittedly, a populist with an unerring eye for the story and a sharp tongue and quick wit.
But back to Shields. So you see, Mike, all your MSM buddies have voluntarily crowded themselves into a little ghetto, and it has cost them. Badly.
