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"The Media is Liberal" Should Be a Compliment to Liberals
by Craig Burton

I keep hearing conversations wherein a conservative person states disdainfully that the media is liberal, and a liberal person responds back that this is not true. They argue vigorously about it.

I listen and smile. I think they're each defending the wrong side of the debate.

If there is a lull in the conversation (there usually is not), I sometimes interject a soft-spoken question: "When you say that the media is "liberal", to whom are you comparing the media?"

The conservative responds along the following line of logic: "The media is more liberal than Joe Average. And thus the media tries to influence the 'average' Joe's thinking with their liberal agenda."

"So," I restate his position, "you believe that the media -- folks with advanced college degrees who have been studying and discussing the world's events for decades -- are more liberal than Joe Average, with his 100 I.Q., high school education. A guy who works very hard, so hard that he probably doesn't have time to read?"

"Yes, that's the problem! Joe is being bamboozled. The masses are led like sheep by the liberal media."

"Well," I scratch my chin, "if Joe is NOT more LIBERAL, than it must be because he isn't listening carefully to the opinions of the better-educated people who have studied the data. Why do you suppose that average Joe doesn't listen to these better educated, liberal people? Oh, yeah, right--he's too busy."

If people ask me whether I think the media is liberal, I say that the more educated and the better informed one becomes about all sides of any issue, the more they will have compassion and understanding for all sides. In most cultures, this compassion gets a person labeled as a liberal. So, I suspect the better-educated media will always be more liberal than Joe Average.

If the well-educated folks who study the world the most ever become the people with the most conservative opinions, I'll give that point of view greater credence.