Radio talk show host and author Laura Ingraham is one of the most pleasant additions to the roster of unabashed pro-life advocates in many a year. Like author Ann Coulter and columnist Michelle Malkin, Ingraham is an unspoken pro-lifer who combines real insight with laugh-out-loud humor. It makes for great radio and is enormously helpful to the cause of unborn babies.
I did not see last Tuesday's edition of "The Today Show," but I heard a lot about it on Ingraham's talk show last Friday. What transpired is very instructive because The Today Show and objective journalism are like two trains passing in the night.
We mention the background of the guest, David Brock, only because it gives context to the questions co-host Katie Couric asked of him. For those who don't know Brock, once upon a time he made a career out of eviscerating liberal Democrats.
"And then somehow," as Couric described it, "you had what might be described as an epiphany, depending on your political views where you either went to the dark side or saw the light, depending on how people view your views now." In other words, Brock now skewers conservatives.
Couric gives Brock oodles of kudos and, of course, lots of valuable exposure to his latest hit job, "The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy." The thesis of the book is that the Conservative Huns have stormed the Media Castle, and, having seized control, they're now the ones "setting the agenda."
Having said all that, what attracted Ingraham's attention and (because of her) mine was something wholly unexpected coming from Couric. Couric, we should remember, is a card-carrying member of the Media Elite who routinely goes tough on pro-lifers and throws bouquets to abortion advocates.
[This is not just off-the-cuff opinating. Bernard Goldberg reminds us in his book, "Arrogance," that Couric marched with Whoopi Goldberg at a pro-abortion rally. We didn't know this until Couric interviewed Goldberg who inadvertently spilled the beans. ]
But Couric asked the following of Brock:
"What about the allegation that liberals really do kind of control the mainstream media and, and the airwaves. You dispute that notion. But most people, I think, on the street would say the media it tends, tend to be more liberal than conservative."
Brock: "Right."
Couric: "Why is that perception out there, do you think? And, and aren't most people in journalism, primarily, except for say on Fox, and in certain conservative publications, aren't they for the most part, and of course the media is, are not monolithic-"
Brock: "Sure, right."
Couric: "-but pro-choice, you know, against prayer in school, probably favor affirmative action? I mean don't you think that's, that's fairly typical? And if so is it, why isn't it fair to say that liberals, sort of, are controlling the mainstream media?"
(Thanks, again, to the Media Research Center for transcribing the back-and-forth.)
Two things: First, Brock attributed this wide-wide-widespread idea to the aforementioned "Republican Noise Machine" which supposedly invented and marketed the idea of liberal bias. This is so silly it's best just to move on.
The second is more interesting. In its analysis of the Couric/Brock exchange, the Media Research Center observed, a lot of journalists, who see no bias in any mainstream media outlet, are magically able to see bias on the Fox News Channel. Couric may be the first to recognize bias beyond FNC."
It is unimaginable in the absence of talk radio, which is very open to the pro-life perspective, and Fox News, by far the dominant cable news channel, that Couric would have even broached the idea that most people feel the media is tilted to the Left. Competitive pressures and an insistence that the "mainstream media" is wildly out of touch with mainstream America IS having an effect.
To a lesser degree and for different reasons, NRLC is also affecting the media. In the process, the Movement has been the beneficiary of a fairer, more accurate picture of the abortion controversy. To take one example, brick by brick, NRLC singlehandedly dismantled the fortress of pro-abortion myths about partial-birth abortion, a citadel of disinformation created by the Abortion Establishment and fecklessly defended by the Establishment Press.
That doesn't mean that the litany of distortions, omissions, and gross misrepresentations are extirpated, that they won't ever again rear their ugly heads. It DOES mean, however, that it'll be far more difficult to get away the usual passel of lies and misrepresentations. When the cycle of repeats itself, pro-lifers can quickly go to www.nrlc.org and combat the lies by downloading the truth.
So, thank you Laura Ingraham. And, two cheers (I never thought I'd ever say that!) for Katie Couric.
Radio talk show host and author Laura Ingraham is one of the most pleasant additions to the roster of unabashed pro-life advocates in many a year. Like author Ann Coulter and columnist Michelle Malkin, Ingraham is an unspoken pro-lifer who combines real insight with laugh-out-loud humor. It makes for great radio and is enormously helpful to the cause of unborn babies.