CENTRIST MEDIA

posted by James Reel

I haven't blogged in the past few days because the temptation has been too great to make some sort of political comment, and this is not a political blog. You can probably guess where I stand on many issues from the mere fact that I write for an alternative weekly--but it's not safe for you to make assumptions about anyone's politics just because they work in public broadcasting. Here at KUAT radio, I'd guess that the liberals and conservatives are pretty evenly balanced. (I count Libertarians and their sympathizers as conservatives: free-market Republicans who lean liberal on social issues.) So don't let me hear you complain about the "liberal media." What's the most talked-about cable news network? The arch-conservative Fox News. Which direction do almost all the talk-radio hosts you're likely to hear lean? Right. Have the nation's major newspapers gone easy on the Bush Administration after having obsessed over trivial and non-existent issues during the Clinton Administration? Obviously. There is a very strong, loud conservative voice in the American media, and only in comparison to that does centrist public radio seem to skew to the left.