You oft hear of the “liberal media bias.” Whether it’s movie producers, journalists, news broadcasters, or even your run of the mill blogger, modern media drives the liberal agenda. Despite the inordinate amount of time devoted to this conversation, the merits of the claim are highly questionable. The majority of media henchmen may identify themselves as Democrats or liberals, but the media puppeteers are anything but. Take for example the multimedia empire of Rupert Murdoch. It seems highly unlikely that the self-identified conservative billionaire media mogul would allow his outlets to push liberal propaganda around the world. The same holds true for Viacom, Clear Channel, AOL, Disney, and MSNBC, who along with NewsCorp control the vast majority of all media production. If you would like more information on these topics check out: media conglomeration and ‘The Myth of the Liberal Media.’
It wasn’t all too surprising then to see Jeopardy hopping on the conservative bandwagon with a rather implicit affirmation of the conservative economic agenda. The category was “The Economy.” (Interestingly all of the contestants avoided it until the end, which brings up an entirely different question regarding the public’s understanding of a whole cadre of policies that arguably affect them more than any other.) The five questions, or answers I should say, all required responses that delineate the five biggest talking points for conservative economists, particularly in recent years.
The category began with a discussion around demand-pull and supply-push inflation: the conservative’s primal fear. It then proceeded to the question of subsidies, an economic policy choice bemoaned by conservatives in public, but nonetheless supported when the beneficiary is big business. Next came the debt ceiling along with a graph illustrating the seemingly exponential growth in public debt. I think everyone is aware of the conservative stance toward the level of public debt. Afterwards came a quick jump to unemployment, reminding Americans of the unprecedentedly low unemployment levels under Republican President Eisenhower and the historically high levels with current Democratic President Obama. And finally the cherry on the top: the gold standard, every conservative’s nostalgic dream. Given the broadness of the category, it is rather interesting that all five answers address the five topics most discussed by conservative economists and politicians.
Now I may be reading into this more than I should. Jeopardy’s owner, Sony, probably does have a conservative slant. It is after all a large transnational corporation. But to purport that the producers were actively trying to push a conservative economic agenda is probably more imaginative than real, although I would not put it past them. Nonetheless the questions are illustrative of the conservative driven national discourse. The questions did not for example address the growing wealth gap, stagnating wages, or rising poverty. Nor did they compare the unemployment rate when President Bush left office with the current rate. It just makes you wonder how the unfounded liberal media claim still penetrates the national discourse, in the face of so much evidence saying otherwise.
