{"id":6873,"date":"2009-02-01T14:46:38","date_gmt":"2009-02-01T22:46:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bradblog.com\/?p=6873"},"modified":"2009-02-02T01:08:48","modified_gmt":"2009-02-02T09:08:48","slug":"republican-lawmakers-still-dominate-cable-news-even-in-the-age-of-obama-democratic-majorities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=6873","title":{"rendered":"Republican Lawmakers Still Dominate Cable News, Even in the Age of Obama, Democratic Majorities&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The previous media excuse, during the last administration, for so many more Rs than Ds on television news, was that Republicans were in power of both the White House and Congress. Of course, now that Democrats control both, well, as <a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/2009\/01\/28\/cable-news-stimulus\/\">ThinkProgress detailed last week<\/a> the more things change&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/2009\/01\/28\/cable-news-stimulus\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/CableAppearances_RepublicanvDemocrats_0126-2809.gif\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"3\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\"><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"media\">As Media Matters has documented, during the Bush administration, the media consistently <a href=\"http:\/\/mediamatters.org\/sundayshowreport\/\">allowed conservatives to dominate their shows<\/a>, booking them as guests far more often than progressives. The rationale was that Republicans were &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/mediamatters.org\/items\/200703140002\">in power<\/a>.&#8221;\u009d<\/p>\n<p>It appears that old habits die hard. Even though President Obama and his team are in control of the executive branch and Democrats are in the majority in Congress, the cable networks are still turning more often to Republicans and allowing them to set the agenda on major issues, most recently on the debate over the economic recovery package.<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\nThe media have been <a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/2009\/01\/26\/report-cbo-tv\/\">aiding<\/a> their <a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/2009\/01\/27\/cnn-cbo-counterattack\/\">efforts<\/a>. In a <a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/cable-news-stimulus\/\">new analysis<\/a>, ThinkProgress has found that the five cable news networks &#8220;\u201d CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, Fox Business and CNBC &#8220;\u201d have hosted more Republican lawmakers to discuss the plan than Democrats by <a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/cable-news-stimulus\/\">a 2 to 1 ratio<\/a> this week:<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\nIn total, from 6 AM on Monday to 4 PM on Wednesday, the networks have hosted Republican lawmakers 51 times and Democratic lawmakers only 24 times.<\/div>\n<p>All of that said, and with so much more irrefutable, hard data-be-damned to go with it, I&#8217;ve found, when out and about in the world, the &#8220;Myth of the Liberal Media&#8221; remains, to this day, among the most enduring of all unshakable, faith-based religious tenets of the Hopelessly Wingnutted Dead-Enders.<\/p>\n<p><strong><i>UPDATE:<\/i><\/strong> In related news, <a href=\"http:\/\/mediamatters.org\/columns\/200901270006\">Eric Boehlert notices<\/a> how &#8220;Right on cue, the White House press awakens from its Bush slumber,&#8221; just in time for another Democrat in the Oval Office. Who could have predicted it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The previous media excuse, during the last administration, for so many more Rs than Ds on television news, was that Republicans were in power of both the White House and Congress. Of course, now that Democrats control both, well, as ThinkProgress detailed last week the more things change&#8230; As Media Matters has documented, during the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[405,46,188,300],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-6873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bush-legacy","category-mainstream-corporate-media","category-mainstream-media-failure","category-republicans","bb-type-bradblog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6873\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6873"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=6873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}