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There is indeed a vast right-wing conspiracy out there, writes Trudy Lieberman in
Slanting the Story: "How the right wing has come to dominate public policy debates is one of the most significant political stories of the last two decades. The right-wing success stems largely from a variety of aggressive strategies used by well-financed think tanks and policy institutes to influence the media's coverage of political and economic issues." She has a point: conservative organizations that barely existed a generation ago now play a major role in shaping American political life, including the media's coverage of it. Her opinion of what this all means, however, is rather slanted itself: the result, she asserts, is "misleading and one-sided reporting that has given the electorate a distorted view of many important issues." Conservatives who can't find jobs in universities or have ever seen the surveys showing that the vast majority of reporters vote Democratic will laugh out loud when they read Lieberman's red-alert prose: "Conservative organizations are designing the agenda ... debate has become one-sided. The implications for the future of American democracy are profound." Lieberman does make several intriguing observations, such as how conservative groups have modeled themselves after the consumer and environmentalist movements of the 1960s and 1970s. They've "beaten Ralph Nader at his own game," she writes. She also offers a few interesting case studies on how conservative groups have fought, with some success, against the growth of government. Lieberman clearly wishes they had failed. She urges journalists to engage in more objective, balanced reporting, but she doesn't practice what she preaches: this book is a hit job. It will appeal to left-wing partisans, and few others.
--John J. Miller
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