Letters

From the April 2004 issue

Domination Fantasies

It has been a long time since I last saw a TV program on the subject of American imperialism on the "huge variety of news, information, opinion, culture, and entertainment, whether from 10, 50, or 3,000 sources" to which Ben Compaine refers ("Domination Fantasies," January). Some of Bill Moyers' programs come to mind. Nowhere else, especially not on Fox or the Pentagon News Network (a.k.a. CNN). 

Thank God I have such a huge variety of choices. It's like being in a country with 500 different flavors of coffee, except there is no milk, orange juice, or beer. Only coffee.

Please disagree and prove me wrong. I will gladly stand corrected and start watching whatever television network or channel you claim is broadcasting such information.

Bill Fairchild
Douglas, MA

Unlike some of the media critics Ben Compaine discusses, I do not see concentrated ownership of media outlets as the issue so much as the alignment of their propaganda. We all have a certain tunnel vision in our views: For the well-read, it is easy to assume that everyone has the time, interest, access, and understanding to counterbalance the bias of any one news source. The reality is that some will eagerly solicit the uninformed to support their agenda via the one-note, often sensationalized message of the media. The ordinary person is not given a balanced view, and to assume that the struggling masses will look for it in alternative venues is naive.

Larry Barlow
Chester, VA

Ben Compaine replies: Bill Fairchild and Larry Barlow are addressing much the same core issue: Both are concerned that the mass audience is not exposed to a wider range of perspectives. Fair-child would like his particular perspective to get broader coverage; Barlow assumes that the great unwashed are too dumb, busy, or lazy to be proactive enough to be well-informed citizens on a wide range of issues.

Fairchild needs to think beyond network television news shows. They are mainstream by definition. None is the video equivalent of The Nation or The Weekly Standard. If they became like those publications, viewership would drop to about the same level as the circulations of those magazines.

Moreover, although mainstream networks may not do an hour on American imperialism, they certainly have covered that perspective through guests on Meet the Press-type shows, in sound bites as part of other coverage, even in covering recent presidential debates. So, while the 7-Eleven may have only coffee, there are many specialty stores in town offering other beverages.

Barlow is right that most of us don't have the time to review the many sides of the major issues of the day. Most people are busy raising families, keeping up with their professions, and paying their bills. In their down time, they want relaxation, not research.

But the answer is not to require every media entity to provide every view on every issue in every program. Even the now-defunct Fairness Doctrine did not require that. Nevertheless, over the decades I have noted that on major fault line issues -- incursions into Iraq, gun control, abortion -- Americans are about evenly split. Somehow people manage to get the information they need from a variety of sources to form diverse opinions.

One footnote reinforces my point about access: In the month after the January issue of reason became available, I heard relatively little about my article. The first morning that it was available at the reason online site, I was flooded with e-mails from friends, colleagues, and strangers. E-mail lists following the media scooped it up, distributed the URL to subscribers, and provided it on their Web sites. My viewpoint had not been covered on CNN, Fox, or ABC, but you folks sure found it. More cream for your coffee?

Just Say No Again

Although Renee Moilanen's article on the "new" anti-drug education ("Just Say No Again," January) was interesting and enlightening, and I'm no fan of the war on drugs, I'm not convinced by her negative appraisal of the Life Skills Training program.