Insulting CNN To Shift The Center
Insulting CNN To Shift The Center
Rant #9(Opinion)
Originally March 8, 2020; Posted March 10, 2020
Why is CNN the scapegoat of the right, rather than MSNBC, which has more clearly liberal commentators? I'll tell you why: by attacking a fairly neutral news station as "liberal," it makes right wing nutjobs who oppose basic facts and Democrats look a little less crazy to people who pay less attention to politics. The public starts to believe this bullshit narrative about CNN marking the epitome of the far left.
First of all, let's clarify some semantics here. Terms like "media," "mainstream media" and "the liberal media" get tossed around a lot, often interchangeably. Media is really just any medium of communication: TV, newspapers, even this website all technically comprise the media. CNN and Fox News both equally fall under the label of 'media.' Those two would also make up the "mainstream media," which pretty much just includes big names in news that have far-reaching audiences. The New York Times and Washington Post, Vox.com, NPR, Wall Street Journal, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC...all these big names are a part of the "mainstream media." Yet critics of the left often lump mainstream media in with "the liberal media," a term used to denote the supposed bias among reporters and news agencies which leans left and demonizes conservatives in many ways. So when somebody alleges CNN and "the mainstream media" always cast Trump in a negative light, they really mean the perceived left side of the media: Fox News also makes up the mainstream media, and they do anything but cast the president in a negative fashion.
It should be acknowledged that many journalists do have a slight bias, regardless of their attempts at objectivity or not. However, it does not construe a 'liberal' bias, but rather a 'cosmpolitan' bias. Ironically, CNN correspondent Jake Tapper characterizes it very well when asked the question:
"Yes I do but I also think it's more complicated than just liberal bias. I think there are a lot of hard-working reporters in NYC and DC who have never fired a gun, or never worked a 9-5 manual labor job, or lived in the middle of the country, or worried about their next paycheck, or have anyone in their family who serves in the military and I think that creates a cultural bias."
More accurately, this worldview could be considered a 'cosmoplitan' cultural bias rather than a liberal political bias. Oftentimes, the two or perceptions of the two overlap: for example, educated, upper income and urban journalists interact more frequently with people of different cultures than, say, somebody in rural Oklahoma. Also, the profession itself attracts a certain personality type that seeks novelty, truth, a variety of perspectives: all things that can align with liberalism as it is understood.
In addition to that, news networks on TV have dozens of shows, reporters, etc, each with their own views on issues and message. Many of these journalists try to remain completely objective and simply get to the bottom of a story, while in recent years a sort of para-news has emerged, with the advent of political talk shows and lengthy interviews with guests whose number one most common phrase is "I think." The distinction between the two has progressively blurred, making it harder for many consumers of media to differentiate opinions from straight news.
As an average though, taking all of these factors in to account, analyzing pre-2016, CNN had a mildly center-left bias at most. Since then, after suffering ceaseless attacks from this president on both their network and reporters personally, and not to mention covering the repeated wrongdoings committed by the president, CNN's appearance to Trump supporters has become that of a lefty Democratic network, earning this classification because it 'opposes' the president (they claim). Yet objectively digging into the president's abuse of power and reporting on his actions that led up to impeachment doesn't inherently try to target Trump on grounds of a particular political leaning. It simply states the facts as they are understood at that time by the network's reporters. Sometimes--extremely often, during the Trump era--those facts don't look so good for the president. The say shoot the messenger, a proverb that Trump's base has apparently never heard. Or, they just don't trust it. Either way, not only does all this cause people on the right to disregard CNN (and other media more broadly), but it convinces less informed folks who overhear these relentless insults to then think CNN is super liberal. If that assumption determines their bearings, then MSNBC comes off as practically socialist, all while making Fox seem less crazy far right.
And that there might be the endgame. By making a fairly centrist source of information appear far left, it gives the far right Fox News the illusion of falling closer to the center of the political spectrum. Alternately, by scrambling up the messaging, consumers of news hear all these bad things about the president, and that he lies, yet they also hear the president say that the 'fake news' won't stop trying to bring him down. Who does this low-information individual, or person already inclined to think conservatively, go on to believe? By confusing the truth, it at least gives Trump and his allies the chance to capture people's reality, and hold it hostage.
Additionally, by spewing so many lies, Trump, Fox News and the right send all kinds of false and skewed messages in every direction, which will make their way into the minds of many. It is very likely that every person will not fact-check or hear a counter-argument to every claim they've heard from a right wing source. In all fairness, politicians and others on the left do this same thing, broadcasting information twisted to their bent. Some of those include people on cable news or other places in the 'media.' At least these left-leaning or allegedly left-leaning sources more frequently tell the truth.
Alas, today's right wing often tends to mix up political bias with level of accuracy. Truth. Jumbling the two causes multitudes to accept lies AND Republican doctrine all in one package because Fox News broadcasts a certain take on current events and Trump says all other news is fake. It's a sickening strategy, really.
Unlike Fox, CNN's reporting has a much better record of saying things that aren't lies as well as an attempt to stay objective. Of course it has its opinionated reporters and commentators. Even then, If CNN represents some radically liberal faction, then I suppose reality has a radically liberal bias. Well-respected fact-checking site Politifact.com reveals that statements made by pundits on Fox News only turned out to be true 21% of the time. Meanwhile, 61% were some variation of untrue (ranking as mostly false, false, or "pants on fire") and another 18% considered 'half-truths.' Move over to CNN, and you find the exact opposite: only 21% fell into any of the levels of untrue; 23% came up as half-truths and the remaining 57% were true. Keep in mind this breaks down the veracity only of pundits, paid contributors, etc. Straight news reporting tends to convey news stories with a bit less bias and more truthfully, though not necessarily; even Fox's "straight news" lost its objectivity at some point, as shown by its portrayal of the impeachment proceedings.
Thus, the constant claims made by Trump, Republicans and what one could accurately dub the "right wing mediaverse" that deride CNN attempt to either shift the window to move the center, or totally overload people with contradictory stories so as to cancel any criticism out--a strategy we've seen develop in recent years among authoritarian governments. Nonetheless, if CNN really represents some radically liberal faction, then I guess reality has a liberal bias.
Works Cited:
-Politico, Jake Tapper on media bias.
-PolitiFact, true or false statements on cable news.
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