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DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY? The Ebbtide strongly encourages our readers to speak out on the stories we publish. Let us know what you like. What you don't like. Do you have an opinion? Send your comments or essays to webbtide@yahoo.com. Be sure to include your name and phone number even if you wish to be published in anonymity. All contributions are subject to editorial review by the staff of The Ebbtide. Letters to the editor CONCEPT OF LIBERAL MEDIA LAUGHABLE Chris Todd Have Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh managed to hoodwink you into thinking there is a liberal bias to the media? Did the media give Clinton a complete miss regarding his trysts with little girls? Have they murdered Bush on his economic measures and his strange "war" with Iraq? Not hardly. Liberals? What a joke. There's no liberal media, just commodity. The "media" is bought and sold, with the result that it is only bloodthirsty, and it will eat your children as fast as anyone else's. The media has dwindled in recent years into a mish-mash resembling very closely the staged shouting matches of professional wrestling. "Hardball," "The O'Riley Factor," "Crossfire," "The Capitol Gang," "The McLaughlin Report" and so forth are simply a venue for talking heads to dominate as much time on the telly as possible by interrupting and outshouting each other. There's no news analysis, no reporting, not even any editorializing: just shouting and sporadic accusations of liberalism, whatever they mean by that. And WWE has considerably more integrity--they ADMIT that they are sports entertainment. When will the commodity of the media admit they are only news entertainment? Anybody can be one of these news-entertainment pundits; there isn't the slightest credential required. Recently on "The McLaughlin Report," one of his pundits did not know who the senior senator from Massachusetts is or what nation borders ours to the south. Any sixth grader could tell you that. Shouldn't a pundit, particularly a "liberal" one, at least know where Mexico is? The last, true liberal in the media was a famous conservative. He was a careful, intelligent, thoughtful man who valued dialog, debate and precise language. If you went on his broadcast, you'd better have done your homework because he'd sure done his. His guests were highly intelligent and were given every opportunity to convey their perspective. William F. Buckley and his show "Firing Line" represented the kind of liberalism that no-thought, knee-jerk conservatives truly fear. What a sad day for liberty when the high standards of "Firing Line" departed the airwaves. Buckley wasn't for sale. In a liberal media there would be dialog, advocacy, debate, criticism, analysis and incitement. When was the last time you heard anything of the sort from one of these talking, or more often shouting, heads? What "media" person is against a war with Iraq? When was the last time you heard one of these pundits actually criticize Bush? Coulter and Limbaugh are transparent enough that it is clear they are entertainers, Limbaugh even admits it. Wouldn't it be useful if the rest in this brave new world of news nonsense had similar integrity? The media we have now is intellectual Styrofoam, the bloodthirsty third-rate commodity a nation gets when special interests simply buy and sell it. Liberal media? I wish. © 2003 Shoreline Community College™