Two recent media controversies in the news - the AOL-Time Warner merger and the discovery of White House-funded anti-drug message placement within prime time network sitcoms and dramas - suggest that the liberals' greatest problem with the major media is with... the liberals who run it. The AOL-Time Warner merger caused great hue and cry from liberals claiming the impending media monopoly threatens to leave only the voices of the so-called media moguls. Left-wing critics always automatically assume that these powerful plutocrats are some sort of proto-capitalist Steve Forbes supporters. In this merger, the biggest financial player is Ted Turner,... continue reading
Last week yielded episodes 5,471 and 5,472 - approximately - of the long-running, appalling, fascinating soap opera "Has Hollywood Lost Its Mind?" The first episode centered on Dr. Laura Schlessinger, whose social conservatism complements Rush Limbaugh's political conservatism for millions of radio listeners. Next fall Schlessinger launches a weekday syndicated television program, "Dr. Laura," which Paramount will distribute. This does not make some liberals very happy. Given that Schlessinger's traditionalist approach to morality in general and homosexuality in particular is highly unpopular in anything-goes Hollywood, it's not surprising that some at Paramount, according to Brian Lowry's column in the January... continue reading
I am one of those who find prime time broadcast television to be a vast wasteland of gratuitous sleaze and stupidity. Watching it, you can almost hear your brain cells decompose. But I do like to watch television, so I normally find something worthwhile on cable outlets like the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, or A&E, these networks being rich in classic movies, documentaries, and the like. The only problem with these otherwise fine historical presentations is that one must be constantly on guard against the left-wing activist using his show to make the Great Political Statement. Mercifully, it doesn't... continue reading
In an unforeseen development, political reporters came down from their sugar high from all the sweet talk on John McCain's presidential campaign bus, the so-called "Straight Talk Express." It began with a Boston Globe story on January 5. McCain, who still has a day job as the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, had written a to the Federal Communications Commission on the pending sale of a Pittsburgh public television station involving entrepreneur Lowell Paxson. The Globe noted that Paxson and his law firm have given $20,000 to McCain's campaign, and the day before he sent one letter to the... continue reading
The protagonist of Tim Robbins' first movie as a writer-director, "Bob Roberts" (1992), is a criminally corrupt conservative Republican U.S. Senate candidate who, thanks in large part to his talent for media manipulation, defeats the noble liberal incumbent and thereby serves the interests of the thieving, drug-running military-industrial alliance that really runs this country. Back then, propaganda was what one expected from the outspokenly leftist Robbins, who had made an acting name for himself in films like "Bull Durham" and "Jacob's Ladder" and a lesser political name on causes like "abortion rights" (for) and the Gulf War (against). Around the... continue reading
In much the same way that 1998 could be designated the Year of the Intern, 1999 was the Year of the School Shooting. On December 17, ABC collected a time capsule to declare who we were for the Americans of 2100, Diane Sawyer muttered "perhaps nothing worries Americans more about who we are than the issue of school violence." Reporter Judy Muller wondered: "As we bury the time capsule today, we can only wonder what Americans will make of all this a hundred years from now. Will they be appalled that weapons were once so accessible? Will there be stricter... continue reading
As the 1900s headed for the history books, I suppose it's only logical that the liberal media would ruin the moment with bone-headed reminders that their first draft of history remains unchanged despite the reality that the facts keep marching on past them. On the liberal PBS echo chamber "Washington Week in Review," host Gwen Ifill suggested, "we went through decades of Red-hunting, Red-baiting, fear of communists and then all of a sudden the Berlin Wall, that symbol of everything that happened...fell." Last year, French author Stephane Courtois offered Americans "The Black Book of Communism," with 1120 pages detailing the... continue reading
Founder and President of the Media Research Center, L. Brent Bozell III runs the largest media watchdog organization in America. Established in 1987, the MRC has made "media bias" a household term, tracking it and printing the compiled evidence daily. Mr. Bozell is a nationally syndicated writer whose work appears in publications such as Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The New York Post, The L.A. Times and National Review . Below is a collection of 1999 News columns. December 30 ABC's Slanted Sex Education Lesson December 22 Gail Sheehy's Unlimited Access December 16 Remembering 1999's Lows... continue reading
Founder and President of the Parents Television Council, L. Brent Bozell III leads the only Hollywood-based organization dedicated to restoring responsibility to the entertainment industry. The PTC at http://www.parentstv.org features the Family Guide to Prime Time Television which aids parents in making informed viewing decisions for their children. Mr. Bozell is a nationally syndicated writer whose work appears in publications such as Wall Street Journal , The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The New York Post, The L.A. Times and National Review . Below is a collection of 1999 Entertainment columns. December 28 Hefner's the Man, Unfortunately December 21 1999:... continue reading
Our hallowed TV anchors often present the latest public-policy research with some very partisan guidelines. Receive a liberal study. Promote the liberal study. Project the liberals as nonpartisan and extremely knowledgeable. Keep that impression going by allowing no conservative experts to question their conclusions or their agendas. The liberal Kaiser Family Foundation and the Alan Guttmacher Institute, which is affiliated with the nation's largest abortion provider (Planned Parenthood), recently released studies that worried that abstinence-only sex education is now used in a third of public schools and the trend is growing, thanks to abstinence education funds from Congress. On ABC's... continue reading