Deterring Democracy

MRC Watch Dept. - A wide diversity of opinion is both emblematic of and critical to a healthy democracy. The often excruciatingly narrow spectrum of views allowed in the mainstream corporate press is a fundamentally conservative bias, but it's one the writers of the Media Research Center--always making such a show of being so centrally concerned with combating "bias"--will never acknowledge. Indeed, in the face of it, the MRC's writers seek to restrict the spectrum even further. A lot of the articles they craft for the org's Newsbusters blog are merely devoted to scandalizing the fact that anyone with whom they disagree is ever allowed to offer their views in a major media outlet.

Today, for example, Tom Johnson throws a spotlight on an article in Salon entitled "The U.S. military is a national security threat." The article's basic argument is summed up in its subheading: "America's armed forces are a massive drain on resources that could otherwise strengthen the country." Johnson doesn't challenge any of the significant evidence the article marshals in favor of this premise. He doesn't offer any counter-argument or point to anyone who has. He certainly can't object that the contrary view, in favor of ever-increasing military spending, is given inadequate attention in the corporate press. He simply spotlights the article as if the fact that any such view was even published is, in and of itself, scandalous.

This is standard operating procedure at the Media Research Center, where deterring a vibrant media democracy is part of the mission.

--j.


[This article was written for MRC Watch, a blog that doesn't care for the MRC's efforts to deter media democracy.]