Liberals Want Their Own Network

A group of progressive media activists covering the Democratic National Convention in Boston plans to launch a new television network to counter the conservative news coverage they see on Fox News and CNN.

The group includes one of the producers of the Clinton documentary, The Hunting of the President, and the author of a book about corporate influence on politics, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: The Truth About Corporate Cons, Globalization and High-Finance Fraudsters. Also on board are a veteran record producer, multimedia producers for the Democratic Party's website, leftist bloggers and the former head of the Dean Media Team Network, which produced online ads for the Howard Dean presidential campaign.

Just as the Dems this week surprised pundits with a show of Republican-style unity, those to the left of the party (and to the left of Al Gore, who is starting his own TV network next year), insist they can get their act together, too.

"That's what I'm doing right now," said Micheal Stinson, who helped arrange the Boston meeting, SummitNet04, and who runs the Take Back the Media website. "I'm herding all of the cats."

Stinson said he wants the best progressive journalists and online publishers to join the New Media, the name he uses for the planned network. Editorial standards at the network will be high, he said.

"This is about the issues. This is for real," said Stinson.

Stinson is meeting next week in New York with other New Media planners, including Greg Palast, a reporter for BBC TV and The Guardian newspaper in London. There, the group will begin reaching out to investors.

Palast, the author of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, has strong media business ties. He said he believes the New Media network has a good shot at getting on the air, particularly given the film and TV success of Michael Moore, who has proven there is money to be made with a liberal message.

Many of the activists worship Moore and Janeane Garofalo, who are at the convention this week. And they are eager to build on the success of Fahrenheit 9/11 and the promise of Air America, the still-struggling radio network where Garofalo works as an on-air host.

Many of the summit's participants expect Web content to converge with television programming over the next several years. Stinson said the progressive media already have a solid Web audience, which will embrace a cable television network with similar content. "It won't matter if it's the PC or the TV," he said.

But the New Media network will be at the mercy of the cable TV giants, said an executive at Nielsen Media Research. "They will have to persuade companies like Cox Communications to carry them, and that won't happen if Cox doesn't like the product," he said. "I think Al Gore may have an easier time with the cable companies than they will."

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,64378,00.html

If the obviously right leaning Fox News Network is a bad thing because of it's obvious leaning, will a liberal news network be a good thing? IF so, won't this be the same as saying "well it's ok because they do it, too?" :D

[ 08-03-2004, 07:16 AM: Message edited by: Ronn_Bman ]

Yeah, I think the social ills of the industrialised consumer 'West' go far beyond the petty political leanings of television news networks. A liberal news channel will achieve nothing other than the further polarisation of U.S society. Not that I'm a fan of the Fox network... bah, but I'm ranting again....

If corporate greed actually can spawn a network that spends time ferreting out and attacking corporate greed...

The snake is eating its own tail again?

CNN conservative? bwahahahahahaha

My thoughts exactly. :D

More power to them, ain't this a great country you don't like what somebody is doing you can do something else. I hope it does better then their attempt at a radio network, competition helps weedout the weak and unprofitable, making the whole better.

My thoughts exactly. :D </font>[/QUOTE]Same here.

Anyone who thinks of CNN as "conservative" probably thinks back on the "good ole days" of the USSR fondly.

What one of the foremost conservatives has said on the topic of the liberal media myth:

http://www.makethemaccountable.com/m...beralMedia.htm

“Bill Kristol, perhaps the most honest and intelligent conservative in Washington (excluding, of course, that funny, friendly, charming McCain fellow). ‘The press isn't quite as biased and liberal. They're actually conservative sometimes,’ Kristol said recently on CNN. If Chris missed that one, he might have come across a similar admission by Kristol offered up in the spring of 1995. ‘I admit it,’ Kristol told The New Yorker. ‘The whole idea of the 'liberal media' was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures.’”

and


The coverage of the Dem convention at this is revealing. Check the archives or type CNN in the search bar.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200408080001

edit- here is clearer link to the dem convention coverage:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200407250003

[ 08-10-2004, 05:42 PM: Message edited by: Chewbacca ]