Re: NH TV News

[ASchinella@aol.com]

	With all due respect to Paul, and not to go off on a huge rant here, but the
media isn't liberal, it's corporate. Period. Their interests are to
shareholders and owners and not to the viewers, the people or the
neighborhoods they cover. And personally, I am so sick and tired of hearing
the consistent flush of the "liberal media" conspiracy. It is nonsense.
Oliphant is a liberal I will give you that, but Broder? He is
moderate/centrist if anything. And for every Dan Rather, there is a Limboob;
for every David Nyhan there is a George Will; for every Ray Suarez, there is a
felon like Liddy; need I continue?? 
	I saw a great column done by Molly Ivins a couple of years ago. She is
unquestionable progressive and in this column, she wrote down the names of
every pundit, editorialist, talk host, writer, reporter with a bias, etc.,
anyone with a spin in their writing and she found that the majority were
conservatives, followed by moderates/centrists, followed by liberals, with
just a handful of progressives. I wish I had saved that column so I could
recite it every time I hear the conspiracy.  
	I like a balance in my reporting. That is why I buy both the Boston Herald
and the Boston Globe everyday and I must say that beyond the op-ed pieces, the
news is covered the same! I also check both the Concord Monitor and Manchester
Union-Leader web sites for NH news. That is why I watch more than one news
channel or broadcast. As far as local TV news, a hard line left or right
opinion is virtually non-existent. Sure, you could say that they give
overwhelming coverage to gun violence, which only creates more fear of crime
and movements for the conservative death penalty or more liberal gun control,
which we have just seen in the state legislature. But leftist at WBZ? Come on.
Dan Rea is one of the most conservative reporters in town. Look at their radio
talk hosts: Bruds, Raleigh, Sowyrda; all conservative. On "Five on 5," the
Sunday morning discussion show on WCVB, you see an unbalanced opinion toward
the corporate. You have ex-talk show host Avi Nelson, ex-NH Gov. Steve
Merrill, Paul Sullivan of the Lowell Sun and Jeff Jacoby of the Globe,
rotating, all conservative. And who do they have for "liberals"? Educator and
Clinton apologist Hubie Jones, consultant Micho Spring and Pro-business, free
trade nut Joan Vennochi from the Globe. That is the best they can do, Big
Business Liberals? And we really don't want to go to WRKO now do we? I mean,
Howie Carr is funny (sorry Dan) but is a right winger, with Limboob, Dr.
Loudmouth (Who calls sex "fornicate" anymore?), Morning Bore Blatz, etc. The
only one who counts for anything is Jerry Williams and he is AWOL more than he
is on and Tai, who is basically doing an AM version of his FM show. 
	As for the networks, they are owned by big corporations who care nothing
about fairness or balance. They only care about the bottom line. But let's
look beyond that for a second. Let's look at former CBS owner Larry Tisch, a
rightwing zealot who threw money at every anti-communist cause he could find.
Now, why would Tisch pay millions to Rather if he hated liberals? Because
Rather got good ratings maybe? Let's talk about ABC, which was owned by
CapCities before the Mouse took over. The Village Voice wrote a great article
about 14 years ago on how CapCities was connected to the CIA and would be
briefed about covert ops "to get the best coverage." Backing covert ops? Real
liberal. And GE owning NBC: Did anyone see that happytalk piece on nuclear
energy about six years ago? "In France, nuclear energy is doing great
things... blah, blah" It was a infomercial for GE nuclear generators
practically. What they forgot to tell everyone is that France has nowhere to
put their nuclear waste! Fox is real liberal; Murdoch just loves welfare
babies and govt. finance health care doesn't he? That is why the FoxNews
byline is 'judge for yourself' or something. And with all the nuttiness of Ted
Turner from Clinton News Network fame, sure is a liberal but is he really?
Would a liberal give a billion dollars to the UN or would he give it to
Habitat for Humanity? 
	As far as Jack Heath goes, he was never a very good reporter and was quite
biased in his reporting. It is one thing to have an opinion but if you are a
reporter, you are supposed to cover the whos, whats, wheres, etc. and try very
hard not to have an opininon. If you are an editorialist, fine, but most
reporters are not. And even if they aren't, wouldn't it be worth hiring a
balanced viewpoint to match it? I would think so. 
	I emailed my mom, who has spent the last 25 years living in NH, about the
Heath announcement and she said "Good, some competition for WMUR!" I said
"Yeah but now you have two pro-business, conservative news shows." She said it
didn't matter so long as there is competition. Everyone should note that my
mom is bra burner feminist lefty from the old days so who knows, huh? 

In a message dated 6/23/98 6:23:15 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
hopfgapr@sprynet.com writes:

<< Please, Jack Heath has nothing on the Tom Oliphants and David Broders of
the
 world. The USA media, as a whole, is left of center, and certainly left of
 the public-at-large. (What was the poll, 89% of print journalists supported
 Clinton vs. 40+% of Americans voting for him).
 
 I'll make a deal, shut down NPR and the Washington Post, and we'll shut down
 Jack Heath and the U-L.
 (Let's talk Concord Monitor and Portsmouth Herald, two NH papers that are
 left-of-center politically.)
 
 

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