From: nate@psygate.psych.indiana.edu (Nathan Engle)
Subject: Re: A fine opporitunity for flaming liberal flameage
Keywords: conspiracies
Organization: Psych Department, Indiana University
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 17:09:29 GMT

zeus@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Mark Gansle) writes:
>By and large, the print media industry is either sympathetic to or whole-
>hearted endorsers of liberal agendas.

    I would agree with that.

>So while there exists no conspiracy per se, there *is* a wide-
>spread shelving of conservative columns which gives the appearance of a 
>conspiracy.

    Appearance. That's the word I was looking for. As we all know, 
appearances can be deceiving, so all I'm curious about is whether there's
documented evidence for even a single newspaper which lists:

    1) The columns for which that paper purchases rights on a regular
        basis,

and 2) An actual breakdown of the number of purchased columns which 
        make it into print (listed by liberal/conservative bias) 
        which demonstrates an active attempt to censor conservative 
        views.
        
    From Rush's CC commercial I get the definite impression that he's 
claiming that liberal newspapers actively go out and buy conservative 
columns with the explicit goal of preventing other competing newspapers 
from running them. This is obviously doesn't stop the CC; it competes 
with other newspapers using the fact that it runs all the conservative 
columns as its main selling point. 

   I'm not trying to say that there is no liberal bias in most major 
newspapers; there is. What I'm trying to get at is that I wouldn't be 
surprised if (since the conservative columns are going to be published in 
the CC anyway) the reason those liberal newspapers run less conservative 
columns is simply because they don't think their readers will be interested 
in them and consequently don't even bother to buy them. Basically, I think
it's a fallacy to claim that conservative columns are being purchased 
and shelved to prevent them from being seen. That tactic can be defeated by 
any person with enough smarts to subscribe to the CC, so it seems to me that 
you'd have to think that those liberal editors are really, majorly stupid to 
believe that they would go out and waste their money like that. They have 
bottom lines too, and liberal agenda or not I would think they'd have a 
tough time justifying that expenditure to their accountants.

    I'm sure that there are conservative columns that are purchased by 
liberal newspapers, and I'm sure that sometimes those columns get canned.
I'm just not at all sure that the reason for canning them is a media
conspiracy. There is certainly a lot of room for bias in deciding what
runs and what doesn't, but it just really stretches my imagination to 
suggest that those editors buy columns with the expressed purpose of 
not running them.

>So while there is no conspiracy, there certainly is a distinct tendency to
>liberalism in the nation's newspapers.

    No argument on that point. I just don't find Rush's "shelving" scenario 
very convincing (although even a single documented case might change my 
mind).

    I would have thought that there were plenty of good reasons for 
subscribing to the CC without falling back on this "media conspiracy" 
stuff.

--
Nathan Engle                        Software Juggler
Psychology Department               Indiana University
nate@psygate.psych.indiana.edu      nengle@copper.ucs.indiana.edu
Newsgroups: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.rush-limbaugh