Wire service follies

I've written several times (most recently here) about the 'we don't make news, we just report it' mainstream media's institutional bias against smaller parties in particular and outside-the-box views in general.

Ideologues claim there is a right-wing (or left-wing) bias in the media. But this is really more an attempt to shape the media than to analyze it. For years, the right claimed the media suffered from a 'liberal' bias. And the news media pushed toward the right in reaction. In fear of controversy. The left finally noticed that this was working and started attacking the media's 'conservative' bias, hoping that they can push it back.

This misses the point. The real bias of the corporate media is against non-traditional views. Let's be honest: Ralph Nader and Noam Chomsky are as unlikely to get mentioned or interviewed on the networks as Pat Buchanan or the head of the infamous Minutemen jihadists. The media sees its job not to report or reflect all points of view or even most, but rather the ones a few inches on either side of the center. It wants predictability, not controversy.

One of the most egregious perpetrators of bias against smaller parties is the Associated Press. While the average citizen can turn to many TV channels, magazines and websites for national and international issues, most Americans get their information on state and regional issues from their local newspapers. While some major metropolitan newspapers do have their own reporter at the capital, most local newspapers rely on the Associated Press for coverage of state issues.

Since public perception of state issues is viewed almost entirely through the prism of the AP, whether their coverage is expansive or limited is a crucial question.

Here in New York, the AP has almost completely ignored the non-major party candidates running for state office. No mention of Green gubernatorial candidate Malachy McCourt or any of the other smaller party candidates. Most other media oulets have followed its lead.

The AP is running a weekly series of questions and answers with two (but not all) of the candidates for governor: Democrat Eliot Spitzer and Republican John Faso.

Presumably, they ignored the smaller party candidates because 'there wasn't enough room.'

Different papers ran different excerpted different versions of the piece but among the hard hitting questions answered by the two men:

-Who pays the house bills and balances the family check book?'

-What would you do about traffic congestion in and out of Long Island's Hamptons? (this segment was deemed relevant to its readers by a central NY paper!)

-Have you ever used marijuana?

So the AP didn't think readers would be interested to know what smaller party candidates thought about education funding, Iraq and dredging of the Hudson River. Yet the wire service magically found room to say that both men smoked pot but only one balanced his family's checkbook.

We certainly wouldn't want the beautiful people from suffering through those nasty traffic jams.