At some point the phrase, “liberal media,” became part of the accepted public dialog.

Perhaps “accepted” isn’t the correct word, as some have taken the tack that, “No, this statement is false, the media isn’t liberal at all. Here’s proof…”  I have never found their arguments convincing, although obviously I have my own bias on the situation.  For purposes of this Brain Bubble, I’m going to take it as given that, as a rule, the media really does lean left (for common definitions of “media” and “left”).

In any event, the concept, the meme, is known, understood, whether you grant its premise or not. And I think you tend to find agreement on both sides that the media really is liberal (with some notable exceptions).  On the right, of course, the liberal label is a club, a weapon of attack. On the left, we find both apologists and deniers; there are deniers on the (supposedly) neutral ground as well.

The Vice-President recently cited the TV show, Will & Grace, so I’ll just use W&G (also known as “WaG“) as Exhibit One. And before W&G there was Ellen, and even earlier Northern Exposure.  And that’s just a single segment among many liberal points of view. Television, that daily invader of our conscious lives, brings many such segments. There are conservative segments as well, but they tend to lie in current events channels rather than in entertainment channels.  Even Fox serves very different sectors between its programming for young entertainment and its programming for, say, Fox News.

So assume the premise is correct, at least in terms of the main content most people watch. Hollywood is a nest of liberal lefties.

But people rarely seem to ask, “Well, why is that?”  Maybe there’s something to be learned in the question. Or in the answer.  (Or maybe the answer would make the question moot, and that’s why people tend to avoid asking, “Why?”  They might have to accept the conclusion!)

The idea that one side “won” and somehow ended up with the lion’s share of “the media” is silly. The “media” evolves constantly; new shows arrive in a steady stream. If anything, all those rich corporations and money-holders should have “won.”  The media, after all, is owned by huge corporations.  (Think of it: the infrastructure owned by money and power, but the content created by lefties and liberals. A marriage of convenience if there ever was one.)

No, the Media is liberal because it consists (generally) of educated, experienced (world-wise) people who are more prone to see a bigger, connected picture of the world than someone with a more narrow education or background. A broad education tends to make one a progressive thinker. Once you see the big picture, you tend to lean left (or so goes my theory).  I would go further to say that once ones eduction is both broad and deep, progressive (liberal) thinking is almost a certainty.

It’s interesting to wonder if, as the corporations become stronger and stronger, will the media become more puppet-like? Is corporate ownership the real reason CNN has become useless and irrelevant? I’ve mentioned before that MSNBC TV has become, to my mind, as big a joke on the left as is Fox News on the right. Is it because their corporate masters can not afford insightful, real news? I can’t help but wonder. All I know for sure is that none of them are watchable any more.

Here’s the real question: As cable  TV in general fades away, replaced by the interweb, what—if any—bias will the interweb show? The interweb offers something society has never seen before in terms of its sheer scale and volume. It provides a vox populi platform the likes of which history has never seen. It’s already affecting society in big ways; those changes have only just begun.

Finally: Is the interweb self-selecting? The internet was. A certain level of technical skill was required, and early on access was restricted. The early internet was semi-difficult to “read” (get data from) and very difficult to search or “write” (put data into). Now it’s all trivial. Writing data to the collective public mass is trivial and searching is easy. Anyone can get on the interweb!

So now, increasingly, we’re all here.  That’s something new under the sun!