Bias schmias.

• Author: Noah, Timothy
• Position: WHAT LIBERAL MEDIA? The Truth About Bias and the News by Eric Alterman Basic Books

WHAT LIBERAL MEDIA? The Truth About Bias and the News by Eric Alterman Basic Books, $25.00

THE AUTHOR OF THE BOOK under review has stated in his MSNBC weblog that he dislikes me personally. Some might conclude that I should pass up this assignment, but the dislike is not mutual. I like Eric Alterman, read his weblog faithfully (and also his press columns in The Nation), and am only mildly troubled by the fact that he has hurled various insults at me in print. These things happen, especially when you write daily for the Internet.

I also like, though have a few disagreements with, Alterman's book. What Liberal Media? makes a smart and important point: The widespread assumption that the news media is captive to liberalism simply isn't true. Alter man makes his strongest case when discussing the "punditocracy," a term he coined in his 1992 book, Sound and Fury. The dominance of conservatives on TV shout-shows like "The McLaughlin Group" is undeniable. Alterman overstates it slightly by claiming that until MSNBC hired Phil Donahue, "not a single liberal [had] been recruited by a cable network to host a solo talk show" (In fact, during the 1990s CNN had "Both Sides With Jesse Jackson" and "Heads Up With Michael Kinsley") But Alterman's larger point is well taken: There is a bizarre dearth of liberals on TV news shows, and many of those who get pegged as liberals--Morton Kondracke comes to mind--are really moderate conservatives. In print, left-of-center commentators are more plentiful, but not nearly so thick on the ground as conservatives. Moreover, Alterman notes, nonideological pundits like David Broder often maintain an overt sympathy for the Washington establishment, which is itself somewhat conservative. About Clinton, Broder famously complained to The Washington Post's Sally Quinn, "He came in here, and he trashed the place, and it's not his place." The posture of mandarin disdain seemed to suggest Broder thought Washington was his place.

Washington think tanks, where "inside the Beltway" wisdom is often manufactured, have a liberal reputation that probably dates back to Richard Nixon's declaration that he wanted to firebomb the Brookings Institution. Brookings remains the most-cited think tank in Washington, but these days it's a stretch to call it "liberal." In reality, it's a bastion of centrist technocrats, many of whom are Republicans. (Indeed, as Alterman points out, until recently Brookings was run by Michael Arma-cost, a Republican...