TELEVISION : Here’s the Right Fix for Liberal Media Bias

Speaking of plaintive wails, to say nothing of howls . . . .

Emboldened by their swelled numbers in Congress, those Baskerville hounds (otherwise known as knee-jerk conservatives) are resonating louder than ever while continuing to bay in unison about the The Liberal Media.

That’s us.

Let’s examine some of the record. The nonpartisan Center for Media and Public Affairs in Washington reports that network news coverage of House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), the conservative Republican wing’s leading voice, did, indeed, grow more critical shortly after the GOP’s sweeping election victory last November. The center says President Clinton’s coverage got more flattering.

But from the President’s perspective, even his coverage was a bummer.

In its survey of 1994 TV coverage, the center found, for example, that Gingrich’s was more favorable than President Clinton’s (45% to 34%) in November, but that December brought a flip-flop, with the President surpassing the speaker in positive coverage, 42% to 33%.

In other words, 67% of Gingrich stories were negative in December, a figure that nearly matched Clinton’s negative percentage in the previous month. Note, also, that in both months, despite their reversed positions, each man received considerably more unfavorable coverage than favorable.

According to the center, the President fared best on ABC (45% positive) and worst on NBC (29% positive), while Gingrich did best on NBC (39% positive) and poorest on CBS (33%). From these figures, it’s obvious that more of The Liberal Media hang out at ABC and CBS than at NBC.

The center found that in all newscasts, Gingrich took his biggest beating in stories (85% negative) about his statements on welfare reform and also that 69% of sources panned his proposal to restore voluntary prayer to public schools. Overall, his ethics were panned by 79% of news sources, while his policy positions and general ideology were slammed by 74%.

Not that news sources were the only ones doing the criticizing. As quoted by the center, here is a voice-over excerpt from a story that “The CBS Evening News” ran in December.

“Gingrich says his new orphanages would be voluntary for unwanted children. But with plans for widespread welfare cuts, poor parents may be left little choice . . . . Welfare mothers like these in New York are angry. . . . Is a 56-year-old movie image (“Boys Town”) a blueprint for America’s future?”

That was not a news source speaking. It was a reporter, CBS correspondent Anthony Mason, blurring the line between analysis and commentary. If his words weren’t exactly critical, his tone appeared to be skeptical.

What all this means, however, is difficult to sort out. When it comes to reporters tainting a story with their own words, for example, viewers are as likely to receive anti-Clinton vibes from stories as anti-Gingrich, reflecting a dangerous trend in TV news to give the messenger increasing latitude in imparting personal opinion, however subtle and regardless of the subject.

Moreover, positive-negative ratios are not especially meaningful out of context. One reason that Gingrich’s negative press increased after November (despite the nation’s resounding endorsement of his party) is that his overall coverage dramatically soared because of his new stature, exposing him to greater scrutiny. Despite Gingrich’s new power, perhaps he’s not in the mainstream. And even if he is, some of his own ideological comrades continue to recoil at his salivating bulldoggishness.

But, whatever the case, let’s assume for the sake of argument that conservative critics have it exactly right, that this hideous, rampaging Godzilla known as The Liberal Media is, indeed, a reality, that the vast majority of journalists are as liberal as yours truly.

It’s true that liberals themselves often accuse the media of being too right wing, and that could be a small thorn in the logic of conservative critics. But no excuses. Time to confess. Yes, the media are a monolith of bleeding hearts whose left-of-center views somehow elude the eyes of their own conservative corporate lords and hemorrhage into their hard-news reporting, even when they think they are being objective. Yes, big on government. Big on spending. Big on bigness. Guilty as charged.

What next?

The enemy, this blight on democracy, is defined, so what happens now? How would the conservatives redress this disgusting media malfeasance that they have identified? Mass executions? Get serious. Mass firings? No, that would be un-American. Mass brainwashing or reprogramming? No, that would be impractical. Institute quotas?

Institute quo . . . . Hmmmm. Quotas . . . quotas, of course. Suddenly, it’s so clear! Like an epiphany, it hits you. It was right there all the time, so obvious, so predictable. What the conservatives want for America--their plan for staffing the media with their own kind--is horrid almost beyond words, something that they themselves have labeled insidious. M’God, what they want is . . .

Affirmative action.

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BRAVO, INDEED. Arguably the best miniseries ever--perhaps even the best dramatic television of any kind--will be rerun on cable’s Bravo network starting Wednesday. It’s “The Jewel in the Crown,” Granada Television’s 14-part gem whose fictional characters witness the erosion of the British Empire.

Set in British-occupied India during the 1940s, this striking, irresistible, exquisitely executed, remarkably sustained production is drawn from “The Raj Quartet,” four novels by Paul Scott, and has a grand cast that includes Charles Dance and the late, great Dame Peggy Ashcroft. Her performance here beats the one in “A Passage to India” that earned her an Oscar.

Another gift to PBS from the Brits, “The Jewel in the Crown” first aired in the United States on “Masterpiece Theatre” in 1984, when the “masterpiece” in that title was really applied.

Bravo will air each episode at 5 p.m. and 11 p.m. Wednesdays, with repeats at 9:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. Sundays. And look, Ma, not one word about O.J. Simpson.

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AND FINALLY. How deeply has the O.J. Simpson trial penetrated the nation’s psyche? A cartoon in this week’s edition of the New Yorker magazine is on the right track.

It shows a balding, middle-aged man shopping for a suit with his wife. Standing in front of a mirror while trying out a double-breasted job with pointy lapels, he asks her: “You don’t think it’s too Johnnie Cochran?”