There has been a running thread on this blog — and throughout American culture the last couple of decades — about ‘liberal media elites.’<\/p>\n
The narrative goes something like this:<\/p>\n
A semi-coordinated network exists of Hollywood types, news executives, celebrities, writers and musicians.<\/p>\n
This network pushes a broad progressive agenda that is at odds with the silent majority of Americans, who tend to be more traditionalist, more conservative.<\/p>\n
This outline of the culture war doesn’t make any sense any more. The most powerful — and best coordinated — part of our media culture is conservative.<\/p>\n
At a time when Air America is going under and big newspapers like the New York Times are imploding, Fox News and Rush have emerged as the elite megaphones of our age.<\/p>\n
But I’m skeptical that our media culture ever worked in the way that conservatives claim.<\/p>\n
From Ronald Reagan to John Wayne to writers like H.L. Mencken, we’ve always had powerful right-of-center voices in our media. <\/p>\n
Our media have also been controlled by fiercely conservative corporate interests, from GE to Newscorp.<\/p>\n
Another sign of the conservative media elite’s long history emerged this week with the New York Times’ expose of Paul Harvey’s longstanding government ties.<\/p>\n
The article details how Harvey coordinated his conservative views — and his massive broadcasting power — with the interests of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI.<\/p>\n