Republicans Rule Radio But Democrats Rule the Internet

October 5, 2007 · Filed Under Liberal Bias, Liberals, Opinion, Politics, Republicans

I read an interesting article on Reuters today that compares the Conservative domination of talk-radio with the Democrats domination of the Internet and Blogosphere.

Having failed to find commentators who can draw the millions-strong audiences of conservative radio stars like Rush Limbaugh or Bill O’Reilly, liberals have turned to political blogs and Web sites to respond to airwave attacks.

“We (conservatives) have continued to rely on talk radio for information while liberals have gone out and developed these great blogs like Daily Kos and Huffington Post which is kind of like their talk radio,” said Robert Bluey, director of the center for media and public policy at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank.

Liberal Democrats (Progressives) are targeting both Limbaugh and O’Reilly, charging the right-leaning radio hosts have crossed the line with recent comments about anti-war soldiers and blacks.

The article goes on to point out that Both controversies were stoked by reporting on liberal Web sites, most notably on mediamatters.org, before politicians stepped into the fray.

On Friday, dailykos.com continued to post about Limbaugh, while huffingtonpost.com linked to Media Matters, which offered readers a link to contact their local radio stations to complain about the conservative host.

I see one distinct difference between Conservative talk radio and left-wing websites. That difference being a little thing called truth. While most of talk radio does indeed have a Conservative point of view, for the most part they don’t outright lie or make stuff up.

You may disagree with what is said on O’Reilly’s radio program or Sean Hannity’s, but they don’t intentionally deceive anyone.

That is simply not the case with the left-wing websites. MediaMatters.org for example deliberately lies and quite simply makes stuff up. They claim on there site that they exist to monitor “conservative misinformation” in the media.

Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.

The reality is that Media Matters purposely tries to damage people by creating phony controversies and smear campaigns. What has really kicked things up a notch is that all the lies and distortion are no longer relegated to a tiny, vicious corner of the web. What we think of as “legitimate” news organizations like CNN have started running with the outright lies that Media Matters creates.

Transcripts and audio of Bill O’Reilly’s radio program where he allegedly made “racist statements” about blacks were made available on his website. Media Matters outright lied about what O’Reilly said and in what context he said it. Even after Bill sent CNN the transcripts proving the Media Matters story false, CNN ran with it anyway.

So I don’t believe you can compare the garbage that comes out of the left-wing Blogosphere with anything heard on talk-radio. Sites like Firedoglake and Daily Kos aren’t interested in political discussions. There interests lie in smearing anyone who disagrees with them and disseminating a steady stream of propaganda.

By Chris Jones