My family has always been staunchly Republican. A big reason for that is because they are of the fundamentalist Christian faith that Richard Nixon played on in 1968 to win the Presidency, now known as the Southern Strategy. Nixon played upon the nostalgia of Southern voters that were in the midst of social revolution at the time, laying the reason for their turmoils at the feet of the Democratic Party. Life-long conservative Democrats switched parties. In doing so, he created a consolidation of voters that were resistant to social changes and upset about anything remotely progressive. During his presidency, as failures in Vietnam and the Watergate scandal kept slapping him in the face, he would lay the blame for all his problems at the feet of "the media" who refused to give him an inch. His voters, who connected very closely to him through his charisma and sly political prowess, watched as their conservative champion got raked through the coals, whether he deserved it or not beside the point. The fact is that conservative voters never forgot and sure as hell wouldn't forgive "the media" for his downfall.
There's a reason that I quotation marks around "the media". During these ordeals, conservatives were furious about the fact that few if any major news organizations gave him the benefit of the doubt. Bear in mind that Nixon was the first Republican in office since the '50s and the media had swooned over The Kennedy dynasty and were for the most part patient with Johnson. And yet it was Nixon that was criticized. It's not hard to believe that there was bias in the media against Nixon, especially when it seemed the hits just kept on coming. It also didn't help that Nixon himself wasn't very good at taking criticism and even worse at deflecting it. So his base supporters turned their ire against all the news organizations that brought him down in total under the auspice that they were out to get him because they were against him politically. It was at that point "the media" became "the LIBERAL media". It doesn't matter than there were pro-conservative magazines and conservative journalists in the New York Times and on the networks.
Remember that Nixon's followers weren't just the elderly or red-state. Nixon made fans in colleges as well. As the counterculture became more prominent and accepted, the new outlaws were College Republicans, children of affluent families, of middle class nuclear households, of households who saw ruin in progressive liberalism. In Nixon they found a champion as well. They learned from him, worked with the Republican party on his behalf. They would use his tactics to create a fervor in Red State America over the next two decades and unleash their vision in 1994. And the one thing that they never forgot was their greatest enemy wasn't the Liberals, it was the media.
All of this is important for me to explain the complex and curious relationship that both conservative leaders and voters have with the media and why conservative media is so frustrating. Politicians need the media in order to promote both themselves and their policies to general public. News outlets get the message out, but in most cases, they have to create context as well. It is this context that sells the news source. CNN and NBC can report the same event, but the each reporter might have a different context that attracts a certain viewer. This also determines which reporters and outlets the politician speaks to and how they respond to better get their message out.
Now, in general, the media isn't really liberal, despite popular beliefs. News, in the age of advertising, feeds upon sensation, a change in the status quo. If someone goes about putting pants on horses, that's news because it is a break from the status quo. Conservatives, by definition, are hesitant to change. The status quo is default in Conservatism. Liberals embrace change. The news feeds on the prospect of changes. But the media also loves to find different angles on stories. If a Conservative wants to cut funding for welfare, the media will want to find someone that this will directly affect in order to get the human story. This irritates the right because such a move might influence the mood against their policy. Should this irritate them? In a way, yes. Soundbites make for great television but they also don't allow for nuance. The media's job is to prolong the story in order to keep viewers coming back. But this isn't always against conservatives. In fact, conservatives over the last two decades have used this practice to their advantage.
Let's take the Bill Clinton sex scandal for example. Clinton had sex outside of marriage with a staffer in the White House. He lied about it. Conservatives created an atmosphere of conspiracy around it in order to keep media interest in it. They kept this story in circulation for years as they tried him and impeached him with the knowledge that they wouldn't remove him from office or that he would serve any time (as infidelity wasn't a criminal offense). But that wasn't the point. The point of the entire exercise was to show that the Republicans in congress were more powerful than the president. This show of power might have been just enough to help their presidential candidate gain enough votes to win (we'll discuss Bush v. Gore another day).
During the last fifteen years, conservatives have declared war on and yet frequently use the media. The media doesn't care if these politicians hate them or not as long as they get something that they can show on their respective channels to keep viewers interested. The politicians don't care if the media asks a question that they look badly answering because they have their backup, a virtual safe haven where they can field easy questions and say whatever they want.
Conservative media might have started out in periodicals, but by the 80s, they found a new format that allowed for interactivity and solidarity on a level never seen before. Talk radio allowed for passionate rants against the powers that be, arguments against enemies where total control was given to the host, and the ability to give voice to political communities both local and national. The modern conservative wasn't interested in a debate, instead they were looking for a show. During the 90s, talk radio became the place to find like-minded conservatives to lick political wounds and celebrate victories. The only problem is that because they only really spoke individuals that they approved of, it created a bubble reality. This would be compounded with the founding of Fox News Network, the first pro-conservative cable channel dedicated to news events and interpreting them through the politically conservative lens.
The bubble reality created by this gave its participants the impression of a country within a country. That those who didn't agree with them are somehow either inferior or an enemy. Because dissent isn't tolerated, those whose political beliefs are different were heretics trying to ruin the country. They have become the thing they believed "the media" was back then.
For the most part, I believe that most conservative politicians only feel a partial hatred towards "the liberal media" that they let on. They like the feeling of legitimacy that comes with having a CBS microphone in their face, a cushy spot on "Meet the Press". But they are quick to remind themselves that those outlets will mercilessly crush them if given the chance. They're right, but it's not just conservatives.
Conservative media consumers, on the other hand, are encouraged to not just mistrust the media, but to hate them. They politicize non-political news in order to maintain solidarity with their preferred sources. They accept only the news that the bubble gives and refuse to corroborate it with other information. This last part is the most terrifying. It should be standard practice for anyone who reads the news to verify important information through different news media. Don't just accept one source, find another that has a reliable source of its own. Knowledge should be a cornerstone of American political thought, given how our political choices affect the world.
A look on Facebook shows me that my grandmother sides with the Israeli Prime Minister on Iran, linking an article from Breitbart. My cousin thinks the liberals snubbed American Sniper because of politics (I've seen all eight movies, American Sniper was the worst of the lot, politics aside). Everybody is entitled with their opinion, of course. And with their preference as to where they get their information.
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