Brian Anderson:
WHEN Dan Rather retired a year early as anchor of the CBS Evening News this March, his departure symbolized the onset of a new media era that is proving far friendlier to the ideas and arguments of the Right.Abortion in the 40th trimester? Maxine Waters, who once said she would not have to be speaking to an audience if her mother had an abortion, has to be wondering why her mom did not think of that.Gone are the days when the Big Three networks, plus The New York Times and The Washington Post, decided what was newsworthy, often with a liberal spin. In my new book "South Park Conservatives," I tell the story of this remarkable — and sudden — shift and try to understand its scope and implications.
Ten years back, 60 percent of adult Americans regularly watched one of the Big Three evening newscasts; now only a third do. And the typical Big Three viewer is 60; less than 10 percent of the viewership is between 18 and 34, the age group that advertisers covet — and the nation's future leaders.
The big liberal dailies have taken heavy hits of late, too, especially the Times. In 2004, Pew Research found that just 21 percent of those it surveyed felt the "paper of record" reliably conveys the truth, a figure below the rating given the Wall Street Journal, Fox News and others in the same poll.
One in five Americans now gets his or her news from talk radio; two in five, from cable TV. And 30 percent of Americans now get their news online, up dramatically from 15 percent in 2000.
What makes this shift so revolutionary is that none of these new media is a liberal preserve. Conservatives completely dominate the radio dial: Four of the top five talk-radio programs have conservative hosts; none of the top 28 feature liberals.
As for cable news, right-friendly Fox News is the colossus, beating all its competitors — CNN, CNN Headline News, MSNBC and CNBC, combined —in audience share. Many of the most influential Internet sites and blogs lean right, too. And the blogosphere is helping the Right indirectly, too: Left-wing blogs have empowered the Michael-Moore-wing of the Democratic Party — those folks who think The New York Times is a conservative paper — thus hurting the party's chances nationally, since the radical Left turns off a lot of centrist voters.
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But new media have allowed a new kind of cutting-edge humor to emerge, one whose primary target is the Left.
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"South Park" sometimes shows a socially conservative streak — one episode actually mocks pro-choice extremism, when Cartman's mother, Liane, decides to abort her son — then in the third grade.
She goes to the "Unplanned Parenthood" clinic. "I want to have an abortion," she tells the receptionist.
"If you don't feel fit to raise a child, then abortion probably is the answer," the receptionist tells her. "Do you know the actual time of conception?"
Liane: "About—eight years ago."
"I see," the receptionist says, "so the fetus is?"
Eight years old, Liane says, matter-of-factly.
"Ms. Cartman, uh eight years old is a little late to be considering abortion," says the receptionist.
Liane registers surprise, and the receptionist elaborates: "Yes — this is what we would refer to as the 'fortieth trimester.' "
"But I just don't think I'm a fit mother," Liane laments.
"Wuh? But we prefer to abort babies a little earlier on," the receptionist notes. "In fact, there's a law against abortions after the second trimester."
Later, Liane discovers, to her horror, that the word "abortion" means termination of life — and not the same thing as "adoption," as she had mistakenly thought — she abandons her plans.
"South Park" has satirized — with scathing genius — hate-crime laws and sexual-harassment policies, abortion and the divorce culture, and many other legacies of the Left, as well as meddling liberal elites. While it makes harsh fun of conservatives, too, I think its chief effect has been to help make liberalism uncool to many younger Americans, who make up the majority of the show's audience.
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