But as one with some insider knowledge, I just think some attention needs to be paid to what was really the seismic shift that happened with, particularly, the networks, within the last 25 years. They stopped being independent, and in existence to serve a mandated purpose at least as much as they were in existence to make money - and became pure profit-making enterprises. (In the sense that they became divisons of corporations determined to make profits. Which meant that they needed to become cost-cutting, profit-making divisions of said enterprises.)

You might - some people might - recall that there was a time there when the Tisch organization owned CBS, before Viacom bought it. For about twenty minutes. Larry Tisch’s idea was to do away with the news division altogether - the hell with news, it costs money. When he found out that the terms of the license that permits them to use the airwaves wouldn’t allow that, he was happy to sell it.

It’s all about money, and the orientation of Disney, GE, and Viacom is to make it, while spending as little as possible doing so.

There are some funny examples, such as the idea expressed by a wire writer in advance of the 2000 election that Cheney was chosen to provide “gravitas” to George W Bush. Remember that? It was, truly, hilarious: every talking head in North America spewed out the word “gravitas” the next day on the newscasts, and, given that it’s a word you don’t hear every day, it stuck out like a sore thumb. It made the universal reliance on a single source GLARINGLY apparent. (And, of course, should have been embarrassing as hell for the news biz - but wasn’t.) People like, again, Limbaugh; put together whole montages of every talking head in the country’s use of the word, and it was funny as hell!

But the word was not a democrat talking point: it was an AP writer being imaginative. And every network, and station and anchor in the country being solidly, spectacularly UN-imaginative.

They’ve always been unashamedly liberal, yes. But they used to have to be honest. When Walter Cronkite went on the air during the Tet offensive in 1968 and blew his own already-tattered reputation to shreds, it was a hell of a lot closer run than most people know as to whether he was going to get back in the building next day for any purpose other than to clean out his desk. There were several folks - serious folks, whose opinion counted - in Black Rock who wanted the sainted “most trusted man in America’s” ass fired through the nearest window right then, at that moment; and if it happened to be a 53rd floor window, well, fine.

Cronkite got away with it, he took a calculated risk and he survived. But he very nearly didn’t, a lot more nearly than you know. And notice, a few years later, nobody made the least effort to stretch the mandatory retirement age for him, either, like they did for Brinkley at ABC, or even the ass Rather a few years later at CBS. He went from “most trusted man in America” to “here’s a cupcake with a candle in it, happy retirement - get out” in about eight seconds.

So yes, they’ve always been liberal, that’s just the way they are - and the “why” is a good question. I don’t have a good answer. Went to J-school myself a while back, don’t recall that I found it overwhelmingly liberal. In those days they were still training us as journalists, and you had to have proof - solid sources - for everything, so I guess it was, at the time, a much more technical deal than it has become. (”I don’t care what you say, but you’ll say it in literate English, and you’ll have a source with a fact behind every sentence - and you’ll keep in mind that no one outside your immediate family gives a good goddam what YOU think.” - Prof Tim Cohane, circa 1968)

I guess it was different than.

Some Bill’s Bites posts, some things I excerpted and linked but I’m sending you to the original post. I may rearrange the order of the items within this post as I add new things that I think belong above the

You ain’t never had a friend like me Bookworm The mainstream American media is in trouble, big trouble. Whether in TV land or in print, the big outlets are seeing their market share dropping and dropping, to the point where