Indeed, What Liberal Media? MSNBC drops Altercation

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Press freedom and the exercise of freedom of expression in today’s mass society are for those who own the means of communication—especially television: A relatively small number of large corporations or, more specifically, their managers and large stockholders. These people are ultimately guided by profit imperatives and the desire for good relations with those in government that protect their private interest—not the public interest. And, of course, they control who has access to today’s most important media and who has not. Eric Alterman wrote in his book What Liberal Media? The Truth About BIAS in the News persuasively about this state of affairs and conservatives’ false claim that the major news media in the United States are slanted in favor of liberals and their left ideological preferences. Now MSNBC fired Alterman by notifying him that MSNBC.com will cease its support for “Altercation,” Alterman’s ten year old blog. It seems that General Electric and NBC are now removing the last remnants of liberal voices along with the appearance of some kind of political balance in their offerings.

Actually, one should not be surprised about this move. ABC News, CBS News and NBC News along with CNN have moved steadily into a direction that the far right in the Republic party demanded for a long time. To have Fox News is not enough; they want to dominate all television and radio networks. It took the right wing more than twenty years to pressure CBS into firing Dan Rather. I was never a fan of the anchor but one thing was always clear: He did not shy away from asking tough questions of candidates and office-holders of both parties—including presidents. Compare that to today's star anchors and hosts of political discussion programs.

The right wing should be pleased with Katie Couric’s first week in her new $15 million-a-year job that included such a pleasant visit with President Bush in the White House and a stage for Rush Limbaugh in a segment of her regular “Free Speech” feature. As if the right extremist host of a radio show with the largest audience around needed an opportunity for free speech on the Evening News! But Katie and CBS News certainly made a point last week. Now, the right wing will be happy with MSNBC’s decision to remove “Altercation” from its web site.

Much has been written about the opportunities that the Internet and especially blogs offer literally anyone to become a citizen journalist or pundit. When I last checked, Technorati surveyed more than 53 million blogs—not a good prospect for bloggers to reach a somewhat large audience, unless they are already well known (i.e., Arianna Huffington of The Huffington Post) or become affiliated with the web sites of well known media organizations.

What happens when those media corporations pull the plug on a blog on their heavily visited sites?
In the case of Eric Alterman the good news is that the powers that be at GE, NBC and MSNBC will not silence his voice. Within a week, “Altercation will move to “Media Matters for Americawith the new url www.mediamatters.org/altercation. We need a marketplace of ideas with a wide range of voices that are actually read and heard.