Drezner to the right: stop whining about media bias

In my previous post, a devoted reader posted the following comment:

President Bush will be opposed by the eventual Democrat nominee (most probably Howard Dean)—and the hostile liberal media. The latter subconsciously see it as their duty to assist the Democrats. I am convinced that George W. Bush has an 80% chance of being reelected, but it would be 95% if the “mainstream” media weren’t out to destroy him.

Now, this is a frequent lament for those on my side of the aisle. And it will not be an easy one to give up when it ceases to be true. So I suspect that conservatives will encounter some trepidation reading the latest City Journal article from Brian Anderson, “We’re Not Losing the Culture Wars Anymore.” The first paragraph:

The Left’s near monopoly over the institutions of opinion and information—which long allowed liberal opinion makers to sweep aside ideas and beliefs they disagreed with, as if they were beneath argument—is skidding to a startlingly swift halt. The transformation has gone far beyond the rise of conservative talk radio, that, ever since Rush Limbaugh’s debut 15 years ago, has chipped away at the power of the New York Times, the networks, and the rest of the elite media to set the terms of the nation’s political and cultural debate. Almost overnight, three huge changes in communications have injected conservative ideas right into the heart of that debate. Though commentators have noted each of these changes separately, they haven’t sufficiently grasped how, taken together, they add up to a revolution: no longer can the Left keep conservative views out of the mainstream or dismiss them with bromide instead of argument. Everything has changed.

You should read the whole article, but to suym up: Anderson’s three seismic changes are:

For good measure, Anderson adds the following:

There’s another reason that conservative books are selling: the emergence of conservative talk radio, cable TV, and the Internet. This “right-wing media circuit,” as Publishers Weekly describes it, reaches millions of potential readers and thus makes the traditional gatekeepers of ideas—above all, the New York Times Book Review and the New York Review of Books, publications that rarely deign to review conservative titles—increasingly irrelevant in winning an audience for a book.

So does this mean that conservatives need to quit whining about media bias? Not exactly. Anderson’s closing:

Here’s what’s likely to happen in the years ahead. Think of the mainstream liberal media as one sphere and the conservative media as another. The liberal sphere, which less than a decade ago was still the media, is still much bigger than the non-liberal one. But the non-liberal sphere is expanding, encroaching into the liberal sphere, which is both shrinking and breaking up into much smaller sectarian spheres—one for blacks, one for Hispanics, one for feminists, and so on. It’s hard to imagine that this development won’t result in a broader national debate—and a more conservative America.

I’m too suspicious of a free lunch to be told that I can bitch about media bias even though things are improving in my favor. However, I’m sure we will find such cake-eating in our trusty comments section. UPDATE: For stories related to this topic, check out Jeff Jarvis’ post about Roger Ailes, and then Glenn Reynolds’ summary of a bloggercon panel. The key graf:

: The Democratic candidates are kicking the ass of the Republicans in terms of Presidential campaign blogging, and use of the Internet generally. Dean especially. The Dean people have figured out that you can get power on the Internet by giving up control. The Bush people — partly because they’re incumbents, partly by philosophy — are still very big on control. So, in varying degrees, are the other Democratic candidates, and I heard quite a few stories of Edwards turning away offers of help from the likes of Oliver Willis. Foolish.