Musea E-mail Club #445 Media Bias Quote

This quote from Michael Parenti from an essay, “Methods of Media Manipulation. from the book Impact of Mass Media. It originally appeared in The Humanis in July/August 1997! But its assessment of the overall state of the media is even more relevant today. See what you think. And when someone complains that the media is too liberal, you might show them this.

“Media bias usually does not occur in random fashion; rather, it moves in the same overall direction again and again, favoring management over labor, corporations over corporate critics, most whites over low-income minorities, officialdom over protestors, the two-party monopoly over leftist third parties, privatization and free market “reforms” over public sector development, U.S. dominance of the Third World over revolutionary or populist social change, national security policy over critics of that policy, and conservative commentators and columnists… over progressive or populist ones… The built-in biases of the corporate mainstream media faithfully reflects the dominant ideology, seldom straying into territory that might cause discomfort to those who hold political and economic power, including those who own the media or advertise in it.”

Tom Hendricks (editor of the 16 year old zine Musea)