What Kepple really seems want is a media that spouts his brand of political rhetoric, not someone else's. As the ownership of the mass media has grown ever more concentrated, media bias has crept steadily rightward. Kepple is simply being dishonest in equating criticism of Newt Gingrich with media liberalism. It's a dishonesty that comports nicely with the campaign of those on the right to portray Bill Clinton as some radical hippie, when the reality is that he is as conservative fiscally (and almost as conservative socially) as the last "establishment Yalie" we had in the oval office - George Bush.
What is particularly ironic about Kepple's stance is his call for objectivism - for "the media" to rely on the obstensibly unbiased feeds of the AP and Reuters. If liberalism has infected CBS, how is it the Associated Press remains immune to the virulent agenda of the left? The truth is that the same news that zips over the press wires streams down to our cable boxes, albeit gussied up to attract a TV audience possessed of attention spans too short for the New York Times. The mass media are guilty of bias, no doubt. But it is a bias toward the status quo, toward "centrism" as a political ideal. Leftist political zealotry on the evening news is bad for business, and therefore bad for networks.
Yes, Ben, the media focus on the bad over the food, whether covering Newt Gingrich, or Bill Clinton, or the weather. But don't blame the left for this. Blame that platonic ideal you worship down there at the Review - the market. The media show bad news, we watch. The media show good news, we yawn and switch to Hard Copy.
Jason Gull,
2L, The University of Michigan Law School