OpEd Contributor
Media must not cave to Left’s pressure to ‘fix’ themselves
By: Noel Sheppard, OpEd Contributor
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March 26, 2009
Empowered by what they perceive was a huge victory in the much-publicized battle between Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart and CNBC’s Jim Cramer, activists on the Left are exerting their will on all media outlets to conform to their “progressive” specifications.
One overt example is the Fix CNBC campaign launched by former members of MoveOn.org and supported by liberal activists such as the Daily Kos’s Markos Moulitsas, Media Matters for America’s Eric Burns, the Nation’s Christopher Hayes, and the Center for American Progress’s Eric Alterman.
The online petition read: “CNBC should publicly declare that its new overriding mission will be responsible journalism that holds Wall Street accountable. As a down payment, we ask you to hire some new economic voices – people who have a track record of being right about the economic crisis and holding Wall Street executives’ feet to the fire.”
CNBC has already caved to such pressure by not only making former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean a regular contributor, but also inviting Arianna Huffington to be a guest host on March 31’s “Squawk Box.”
This latest announcement came within hours of her left-leaning Huffington Post featuring an attack by the George Soros-funded ThinkProgress on regular “Squawk Box” host Mark Haines.
What was his sin? Having the nerve to be scared by President Obama’s desire to cap executive pay. Horrors.
Just as pernicious albeit less obvious, liberal websites have been tremendously active attacking contrary opinions, regardless of the source.
When conservative bloggers expressed disgust with President Barack Obama’s Special Olympics gaffe on “The Tonight Show,” Salon’s Alex Koppelman mocked those having the nerve to do so.
On top of this, the self-proclaimed “watchdogs” at ThinkProgress and Media Matters are busily cherry picking supposedly offensive snippets from those having the nerve to say or write anything they don’t agree with. Laughably, such edit advice extends to the Obama-loving Chris Matthews irrespective of his obvious support for Democrats and liberal policies.
What this means is the goal is not to create a fair and balanced media which many on the Right desire. Hardly. What these folks strive for is a complete and total elimination of all opinion and viewpoints that are not in complete and total lockstep with their own.
Put a frighteningly different way, they want all news-oriented television programs to resemble MSNBC’s “Countdown” with Keith Olbermann, all radio to resemble Air America, and all print publications to resemble “The Nation.”
This means that it isn’t just conservative media members who should be concerned, for even those in the center, and potentially left of center, are targets of these extremists’ disaffection.
This is why it’s wrong of CNBC to in any way alter its content or staffing in response to pressures from these folks.
More importantly, it is wrong for those in the center and on the right to feel cowed by these anti-free speech authoritarians, for America was founded on the guiding principle that a multiplicity of opinions was necessary for our nation’s survival.
With democracy and capitalism under attack by those who believe government is more important than the individual, there have been few times in our history when it was more essential for those that disagree with the country’s direction to stand up and be counted.
Anything less is a dishonor to those who have fought and died to give us such liberty and will likely be paid for with more than currency in the decades that follow.
Noel Sheppard is associate editor of the Media Research Center’s NewsBusters.org.
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