The media, while they won't admit it, are not in the news business; they're in entertainment. We tried to create the most entertaining, visually attractive scenes ... so that the networks would have to use it.
The media doesn't create narratives, really. They're not that powerful. What they do is they tap into narratives that are already bubbling amongst their viewership or readership.
The press doesn't just cover presidential campaigns, they influence them by making arbitrary decisions about who is 'top tier' and merits coverage.
Is the New York Times a Liberal Newspaper? Of course it is.
I think most people aren't really privy to how stories are developed and what stories are - make it to the front page or to the mainstream media, whether it's in print or in broadcast. And I think they'd be shocked and disappointed to see some of the bias that exists in some of the stories that don't get told - or the manner in which they are told.
I don't think that I would always be asked about my feelings about liberal bias in the media if there wasn't any liberal bias in the media. If it was a moot question, then we wouldn't always have the discussion.
The biases the media has are much bigger than conservative or liberal. They're about getting ratings, about making money, about doing stories that are easy to cover.
The fact is, the media never gets off the interstate unless there's a major explosion.
The front pages of The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times are very important in shaping what other people think. They're like writing a memo to the White House.
I think that, in my humble opinion, that the world is divided, and the media has a very good, a very predictable habit of emphasizing whatever will keep people clicking.
Which suggests something about media and war: it's not just that events happen and the media documents and presents them. There is a third element: what the public is ready to accept, what the public wants to know.
The Washington media crowd, including conservative media, preaches to the choir of news junkies.
For whatever reason, the mainstream media, for the most part, affixes itself to progressive or liberal propaganda.
I know real people, whose names I could tell you, people I know who have said 'I've stopped buying the New York Times.' Why? Because their editorial position has filtered, has leached into the news pages.
Now, you watch cable news, and you know what everybody's going to say before they open their mouth.
