( - promoted by Carnacki)
Jeff Cohen is the founder of Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, one of the pioneers in the cause of media reform. The group has offered well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986.
He is the author of the 1995 book "The Way Things Aren't: Rush Limbaugh's Reign of Error" one of the first investigations into the inaccuracies of conservative talk radio.
He was the producer of MSNBC's "Donahue"program in 2003, but his time at the network was cut short when the show was canceled. An internal memo from network heads showed that the program was axed for opposing the war with Iraq, despite the fact that it was MSNBC's number one show at the time.
His book "Cable News Confidential" tells the story of his experience as an on-air pundit at the cable networks. He served as communications director for Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential bid and has also worked as an investigative journalist and a lawyer for the ACLU.
In most "conservative vs. liberal" debates on cable TV, they often take a hard-right, activist conservative and pair them with a centrist, establishment Democrat. As a result, the debate frame is limited to the center-right. Do you think this is an intentional effort or are the producers of these programs simply ignorant as to what an actual liberal is?
It's more of the former. It's more a conscious effort to construct a spectrum that would comfort those at the top of the media and those in our political elite. I think they understand that a center-right spectrum won't get them into trouble with corporate sponsors and won't get them in trouble with the Bush administration.
It was constructed during the Reagan era. I've been talking about this issue since the 80s. It's not a new thing. It didn't begin with "Hannity and Colmes" on FOX news. The major factor is this is their comfort level - these are their beltway friends. Their idea of the American spectrum is the rightwing of the Democratic Party and the rightwing of the Republican Party and thereby excludes close to 50 percent of the country.
I think it's mostly a conscious, semi-conscious "This is the establishment spectrum and this is the spectrum we're going to put on our channel." A slight percentage of the problem is just their ignorance, but mostly it's going to their comfort level. They're going to the establishment voices that are funded by corporations on both sides - the Democratic voices that are corporate friendly and the Republican voices that are corporate-friendly.
It's rare on TV that you see a pundit that is firmly aligned with the labor movement. I was one and I was a huge exception. Very rarely do you pundit on TV, a regular pundit, who sees himself aligned with the peace and justice movement. I was one of those and one of the only ones. But on TV, you see all sorts of pundits that are aligned with the rightwing movement. Patrick Buchanan has been on American television day after day for 25 years.
Recently, a number of new media reform groups have been formed and the Conference for Media Reform has been drawing crowds from across the nation each year. It seems like the cause is gaining a lot of momentum.
Right. FAIR was the pioneer on the national level in 1986. We saw, a few years ago, the media reform movement really start stirring in the battle against the FCC's rules changes which would allow the media titans to grow even more titanic. That battle was massive. It included a new group called Free Press. Common Cause and Moveon.org got involved in that heavily. So it wasn't just FAIR and some of these groups that had been around for years. Eventually, even rightwing groups joined the coalition
Wasn't the NRA was a part of this fight?
Right. The NRA was one. There was something called the Parents Television Council led by Brent Bozell. But it was a movement started by progressives, powerful progressive forces.
After 20 years of working in this field, what's it like for you to see the cause taken up by so many others?
Now there are all sorts of bloggers that do media criticism regularly. Media Matters for America is doing great media criticism, so yeah, it's thrilling. I write about it in my book - several blogs got together when Chris Matthews compared Michael Moore to Osama bin Laden - that and a bunch of other amazing feats of verbal linguistics. You're finding that responding to corporate media, or what a lot of bloggers call the MSM (mainstream media). It's just a delight for an old-timer like me to see. because I feel I helped spark it.
What do you feel is the best way for activists to work, by challenging the lack of balance in the mainstream media and attempting to reform those institutions or by trying to build an alternative media infrastructure?
I've always been about three areas for media activism: one is you confront the MSM straight on and demand broader debates, demand both sides to a news story.
The second is to build independent media. They may not have the resources that the corporate-owned media do but they certainly are not hemmed in by corporate ownership or sponsorship. They aren't timid. The two go hand-in-hand when you're building independent media, as we've seen from the bloggers. And we've seen it from FAIR, which has a magazine, a radio show, a Web site and a newsletter. When you build independent media, a good thing is to be a check of corporate media, to expose their involvement in censorship. It helps you build your independent media at the same time you're showing the sheer comics of the MSM.
And of course the third area is to fight for long-term media reform, to stop further consolidation of the media and to fight for reforms at the local and national level which will make the media more diverse and more democratic.
I see all those things going together. When I started FAIR in the late 80s/early 90s, people would say, "Why do you bother critiquing the mainstream media? Why don't you just build your own? Why don't you build an alternative to that?" I said, "Well, we're doing both." FAIR built a magazine, a radio show that's on 130 stations and now a Web site. You can still be an independent media outlet while pointing out the shortcomings of corporate media. And it's silly to complain about the corporate med without building something of your own that can reach people.
Do you feel that the mainstream media is getting better and addressing to these concerns?
I don't think so. First of all, the independent media has never been more powerful. Not all of them are that left, but at least they're passionate. They believe in issues and they're not silenced or intimidated by corporate money. The independent media is booming and it's booming because the corporate media is getting worse. It's becoming more tabloid and more irrelevant, so I don't see it getting better.
I love that independent media are showing their shortcomings. We see this huge uproar largely waged by independent media pointing out all of their inaccuracies. I see the independent media growing as a result of censorship and bias in the MSM and that's a good thing.
The Internet has revolutionized the way these groups connect and organize, as well as providing a faster way of distributing information.
You're right. Thank god for the Internet, which is the first point of distribution. Almost everything else follows from it. At this point, with bloggers working all day and Web sites posting new information, by the time a magazine like Mother Jones comes out or it's on the air at Air America, the information is already out there.
The Internet is an incredible resource for disseminating information and it's really quite telling that progressives have taken to it so effectively. It's a medium of dialogue. It's a medium of debate. It's a medium where, if you attack something, you post it so people can see what you're talking about.
Obviously, progressives and independent media flourish in a wide- ranging debate. The Limbaughs flourish in a totalitarian, demagogue style where one person pontificates to the many. And Limbaugh doesn't give his sources or if does give the sources, he lies about them. If he's got to attack something, he lies about it before attacking it. Limbaugh and O'Reilly have those tendencies, whereas the ethic of the Internet is if you attack something, you post what you're attacking so someone can see both sides.
It's not surprising to me that more intellectual, more independent-minded and more progressive people take to a more democratic medium and why the rightwing dominates talk TV and talk radio, which are more of the old style totalitarian model where there's a pontificator and the rest of us listen. |
