The SCLM

Bloggers often refer to the SCLM. It's an acronym that stands for "So Called Liberal Media". Do you get as tired as I do hearing the media called "liberal"? It is anything but that. The article I want to share with you today takes on that myth and also paints a picture of what a truly liberal news organization would look like. In an article entitled, "The Liberal Media", David Podvin discusses the issue:

Conservatives insist that the major problem with American politics is the bias of the liberal mainstream media, but the liberal mainstream media is a childish myth, not unlike unicorns or leprechauns or William Bennett’s virtue. The real problem is that democracy becomes a farce when votes are cast based on corporate propaganda, and in a nation where a network anchorman recently was fired for telling the truth about his employer’s amoral political benefactor, corporate propaganda is the coin of the realm.

As George Soros and other wealthy Democrats analyze the best ways to subsidize the improvement of the American political system, they should realize that nothing would improve this country more than having a powerful liberal media to counteract the reportorial charlatans of the Fortune 500. If journalists were allowed to expose the Republican Party’s blatant criminality, the conservative movement would quickly be discredited and disempowered. As a result, there would be no wars of conquest resulting in massive loss of innocent human life. The Treasury would not be looted for the benefit of multinational conglomerates. Federal judgeships would not be reserved for segregationists and theocrats. The environment would not be used as an industrial septic tank.
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Since the mainstream media is irredeemably corrupt, liberals need to have their own communications infrastructure. The dominant medium in the United States is television, so to communicate effectively the progressive cause requires a national TV network that unapologetically presents each day’s events from the liberal perspective. The narratives must be kept simple and feature good guys versus bad guys because for most Americans nuance is a foreign language.
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A liberal broadcasting network would act as a braking mechanism on right wing disinformation campaigns, and that would severely inhibit the proliferation of conservative urban myths. There should be entire shows devoted to reviewing the other networks’ broadcasts for the purpose of fact correction, with a permanent debunking unit specifically designed to spring into action whenever the corporate media practices character assassination against liberals.

I hope this is possible. The absence of a watchdog, free press is what makes me really depressed about the current political climate. I simply don't watch television news anymore - nor do I read my local newspaper for world news. I read international newspapers on the internet and spend a fair amount of time each day doing just that. But most people won't. Most people will believe what the mainstream press feeds them. And that is very worrying indeed.