From: Gene McAloon 

On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 12:33:58 +0200, Phil Payne
 wrote:

>Personally I find the US media biased to the right.  More worrying than
>that bias, however, is the superficiality of media coverage that very often
>fails to explain the complete issue and even more often doesn't present any
>other point of view.  This is particularly marked in coverage of Palestine.

From a West European point of view, the US is a conservative country and
that is reflected in their perception of the US media. Generally speaking,
as recognized by most observers, both European and American, the US media
is conservative on most economic/business issues and relatively liberal on
most social issues. A small minority of the media resides on the far-right
and tends to be conservative on both business and social issues. There is
really nothing on the far-left to speak of, at least not of the mass
circulation kind.

The ranting of the far-right about an allegedly "liberal" US
media is, as always with the far-right, pure fantasy; an offshoot of their
extreme minority views in which everybody is aligned against them. Paranoia
accompanying a persecution complex is not the least of the apparent
characteristics of the far-right. It is what holds them together and
accounts for the tightly controlled, lock-step attitude and arguments.
Whatever the arguments of the moment being made by the Weekly Standard are
exactly the arguments being made by the far-right here and everywhere else.
Comparisons with the US Communist Party of the '50s and 60s in following
party lines are instructive in that regard.

Palestine as an issue doesn't' really excite much interest in the US
public. Israel stopped being popular around the time of the Lebanon
invasion, but unfortunately the general view of Arabs, Palestinian or
otherwise, is not favorable either and never has been. If nothing else,
there is always that Jewish temple down the street, but until very recently
no mosque. Hard to identify with something you know next to nothing about
and that seems so . .  alien.

But, as far as the media are concerned; well yes, we know something about
Jews and little about Arabs so if we are to take sides at all, naturally it
will be with the Jews. Besides, in today's political climate, to support
Palestinians is to support what Bush calls terrorists and that can get your
patriotism called into question.

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