Leftist media missed a turn to the right

THE media is making news again. On Monday, Newsweek admitted its report that copies of the Koran were desecrated by US officials at Guantanamo Bay was wrong. The admission came after the story provoked death and destruction across the Muslim world. It is a salutary lesson on the deadly consequences of a media too eager to report on US sins.

A week earlier came another confession. A brave media outlet admitted it had a credibility problem. I would like to report that this happened in Australia, perhaps over at Chateau Fairfax. But it didn't. Still, it is big news when the establishment left's New York Times finally 'fesses up to a fact that most of us already know. Parts of the so-called mainstream media are not so mainstream any more.

Last week an internal panel set up at the NYT to "improve our journalism" reported that, among other things, the NYT needed to lift its game on reporting religion in America. It found, as just one example, that its coverage of gay marriage "approaches cheerleading". In fact, the panel even admitted that the NYT needed to "cover the country in a fuller way". Translation: let's try to be more mainstream.

It's a big admission. And better late than never. After all, as the NYT acknowledged, the Pew Research Centre recently found that 45 per cent of Americans believed little or nothing of what they read in their daily newspapers, with the NYT rating around average with only one in five readers believing all or most of what they read in their NYT. A staggering 14 per cent believed almost nothing they read when they picked up the NYT.

Surprising? Not really. Cast your mind back to the presidential election last year when the NYT put on its cheerleading gear for John Kerry. So much so that when George W. Bush was re-elected, some media pundits were left bewildered. Such as CBS MarketWatch commentator Jon Friedman who admitted: "To be honest, I still don't quite understand how certified media junkies like me could have been so wrong. I read The New York Times and The New Yorker religiously. I watch CNN and the network's evening news programs as well as the gabfests on Sunday mornings, too. Go figure."

So let's figure. Friedman was only watching old media -- the so-called mainstream media. And he discovered the hard way how un-mainstream they are. If Friedman wants figures, he will find them in Brian C. Anderson's new book, South Park Conservatives -- The Revolt Against Liberal Media Bias.

In 2003 the Pew Research Centre found 51 per cent of Americans believed the press had a left-wing bias; 26 per cent thought it swung right. A Gallup poll revealed only 44 per cent of Americans were confident the media was capable of reporting news fairly and accurately.

The so-called mainstream media is so unplugged from its mainstream readership it has spurred a backlash. Tired of the left-wing media bias, particularly after September 11, 2001, bloggers mounted a serious challenge. As US blogger Matt Welch told Anderson, his blogging was a "direct response to reading five days' worth of outrageous bullshit in the media from people like Noam Chomsky".

And the blogging backlash is hurting old media. When CBS star anchorman Dan Rather claimed he had new evidence that Bush had neglected his National Guard obligations, bloggers proved the documents were forgeries, and Rather was forced to resign.

If you don't know what a blogger is, don't feel bad. Even in the media many haven't caught up. While the quality of blogging varies wildly, the best bloggers, such as Australia's Tim Blair (timblair.net), are checking facts, reporting news, breaking stories and giving alternative commentary to that found in large sections of the old media.

With much of the blogo-sphere tilting right, and looking - dare one say it - decidedly mainstream, parts of the old media are bunkering down. They have become the new reactionaries, sticking to what Anderson calls their illiberal liberalism. Old media derides the blogger as "a guy sitting in his living room in his pyjamas writing what he thinks". Old media detests the Fox phenomenon and those dastardly "shock jocks" -- you know, those radio broadcasters who often attract more listeners than newspapers have readers.

But their sniping cannot hide the fact that the mainstream media is no longer the gatekeeper of information. The gates are open and even a guy in pyjamas can do a better job than old media.

It is no longer possible to ignore the tell-tale signs of the disconnection between those who report the news and those who read it.

Instead of thumbing endlessly through their well-loved copies of The Little Red Schoolbook and other counter-culture classics, old media in Australia could do with a shot of NYT self-correction. Discover the blogo-sphere. Listen to popular radio. Just get out in the world and cover the country in a "fuller way".

That way they might stop missing the big social trends - another tell-tale sign of a media disconnected from its readership. They might notice the rise of evangelical religion, or the swing back to family values, even at the expense of feminist dogma.

At the last election, Family First was a case of Family Who? The media had no idea, and when they did catch up, the reporting was done with just enough disdain to offend your mainstream reader.

Of course, the biggest test for the mainstream media comes around each election. Like last October. While most of the media was conducting a love affair with Mark Latham, mainstream Australia spurned him, re-elected John Howard, and handed the Government a Senate majority. Go figure.