Seminal talk radio personality Rush Limbaugh has long been critical of the size and scope of government on his popular program, The Rush Limbaugh Show, as well as the relative bias of “the liberal media.” Today, however, he took it a step further, proclaiming that it is no longer simply bias we are seeing from these sources, but a full-blown alliance between news organizations and the state. Take a look:
“It is bias, but it’s gone beyond that. I think now that the media exists to defend the state. The media exists to defend the Regime. The media considers itself to be part of the state, the government, whatever term you want to use. But “state” has a special connotation to it in this lingo the way I’m using it. It used to be that the media was suspicious and doubtful. You remember the old phrase — what is it — ‘holding truth to power’ or something? ”
“But what that meant was that people who are more powerful than the rest of us are gonna get special attention and special accountability, because they had so much power because we had elected them. And they have that much power, so they were gonna be watched and they were gonna be analyzed. That stopped happening. There is no watching. There is no analysis. There is nothing but pure defense of the state. That’s what the media has become. And so here I am.”
Limbaugh may be an ideologue, but his assessment is astute. CNN, for example, used to be a fairly objective source (relative to its competition at Fox or MSNBC); but, very recently (within the last year or two), they have turned sharply left. Fox News fans, back in the day, used to joke that CNN stood for the “Clinton News Network.” Many conservatives, however, actually preferred CNN’s commentary in those days, because it was much less partisan than that of its competitors. Now, however, the “Clinton News Network” may very well be an accurate portrayal of the network’s political proclivity.
Earlier this year, one of CNN’s own reporters, Jake Tapper, expressed outrage at his own colleagues and peers for their “ridiculously sycophantic” questions directed toward Hillary Clinton as contrasted with the much more difficult ones leveled at Donald Trump — including queries like these:
“Secretary Clinton, is it setting in that you might be making some serious history here tomorrow? People just come up to you and they get tears in their eyes. Do you feel the weight of what this means for people?”
The Washington Post recently did some research, looking into media bias claims, by comparing the headlines and tone of over 21,000 articles written by 8 major media outlets. The resulting data chart demonstrated a significant overall bias in favor of Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump — despite her infamous (and numerous) personal inconsistencies.
What do you think? Is Limbaugh right? Has the media largely become the lapdog of the government— begging for scraps at the table of the State? Let us know on Facebook or in the comments below.
