Media Bias ? Where ?

MSNBC reports that the media gives overwhelmingly to Democrats: about 5-1 in the donkey's favor, according to the MSNBC sample. And honest, the big media's not at all biased.

And there's even more. Our friends on the Left want to see that we keep listening only to the proper and no doubt very politically correct party line. Check out what Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) says that our probable next President and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) want to do to talk radio. They've got a study now, you see, and the study called the Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio says that there's a terrible problem with talk radio -- it's dominated by conservatives:

Our conclusion is that the gap between conservative and progressive talk radio is the result of multiple structural problems in the US regulatory system particularly the complete breakdown of the public trustee concept of broadcast, the elimination of clear public interest requirements for broadcasting, and the relaxation of ownership rules.

One big problem is a lack of "ownership diversity" and too many "group owners." Yeah, you know what that means, and this is big trouble, because as the study observes:

. . .stations owned by women, minorities or local owners are statistically less likely to air conservative hosts or shows.

No public trustee concept in place ! Tsk, tsk, they're broadcasting without the presence and sanction of public-spirited People's Commissars. And no diversity ! But fear not, cause the "Center for American Progress and Free Press" has the solution: regulation to, inter alia, put "local and national" caps on how many radio licenses can be owned by media entities,"ensure greater local accountability" and "require commerical owners who fail to abide by enforceable public interest obligations to pay a fee to support public broadcasting."

Yahoo ! More bucks for NPR and PBS ! That'll drown out those nasty right wingers and bore everybody to death !

More seriously, Neal Boortz is right when he says that if they "get control in Washington" that it will be the "end of talk radio as we know it today."

Meanwhile, how bout some bias of a different kind ? The UK Daily Telegraph reports that the BBC, apparently Wednesday night, posted the following request on its website:

Are you in Iraq? Have you seen any troop movements? If you have any information
you would like to share with the BBC, you can do so using the form below.

(Hat tip: Belmont Club). This request was, the Telegraph writes in "a story on a major operation by US and Iraqi troops against al-Qa'eda somewhere north of Baghdad." This information, the BBC told the Telegraph, was on the BBC site from "late morning" until sometime in the afternoon, when the BBC removed it.The British Ministry of Defence, unaware of this matter, until told by the Telegraph, is investigating, and says it would take it "seriously."

Brit Hume, reporting on this same subject on Fox, says that this occured just one day after an independent report (sources unspecified) accused the BBC of having a "culture of bias." You don't say.

Now why oh why would the BBC, or somebody at the BBC, be soliciting information from people in Iraq on troop movements in current operations north of Baghdad ? Belmont Club, called its post on this subject "Left 50, Up 200." That sounds right on target to me.

Freedom of the press is indeed important. But will the institutional press and its friends suffer us to have any other freedom, other than the "freedom" of the press to not only report the news but make it; "freedom" as they define it: politically correct, not dominated by "right wing extremists ?" I hope civilization survives this kind of freedom.

UPDATE: (22 June) To be fair, it should be noted that Senators Clinton's and Boxer's officers have both denied today that the conversation Senator Inhofe reported took place. Meanwhile, Senator Trent Lott, possibly unhappy about conservative talk radio's opposition to the immigration bill, says we need to "deal with" talk radio.