The paper you are holding in your hands is but one cog in the insidious machine that is the liberal media.

Bull.

“Liberal media” is a term Iscoffed at briefly in a column last semester, and perhaps it is an issue to which I should return.

The common misconception in today’s America is that the media is an unabashedly “liberal” institution bent on the wholesale destruction of “conservatives.”

I ask you simply to look across the media landscape, and make your own conclusions about where the media falls upon the political spectrum.

Let’s start with talk radio, which more than half the nation claims to listen to regularly.

We are all aware of Rush Limbaugh, who went from being an independent conservative to the lapdog of the GOP ever since George Bush invited him over for a sleep-over at the White House.

He carries 650 stations and has an estimated audience of 20 million people a week, and is undoubtedly the most prominent political commentator on American radio (or TV, for that matter).

In addition to Rush, talk radio can also boast of the presence of G. Gordon Liddy, Michael Reagan, James Dobson and Bob Grant, to name only a few. These men will never be mistaken for Trotsky’s bedfellows.

Television is an even more interesting arena. Pat Buchanan and P.J. O’Rourke are certainly prominent political commentators in TV, eclipsed in notoriety by only Rush himself.

And is Pat Robertson and his Christian Broadcasting Network anyone’s idea of leftist propaganda?

Even supposedly non-partisan televangelists are getting into the act. The Reverend Jerry Falwell set aside some time on the Old Time Gospel Hour to hawk The Clinton Chronicles, a video that accuses President Clinton of endorsing drug-smuggling operations and being a conspirator in murder.

How about the print media,those muckrakin’, bleeding heart liberal squishes armed with pens and reams of notepaper, chomping at the bit to throw another elephant on the barbie?

The Washington Times is funded by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who also funds the weekly Insight and the journal The World and I, all right-leaning publications.

The Washington Times is notorious for beating up on “liberals,” no matter how phoney the story, such as the 1988 report that alleged that Michael Dukakis consulted a psychiatrist before running for president. (I wouldn’t blame him for seeing a shrink after the election; you can’t get stomped like Prince Charles in a Dublin bar and not have emotional scars.)

Consider The Wall Street Journal. Editor Robert Bartley and the gang beat up on “liberals” so consistently that Vincent Foster mentioned the newspaper and its take on Whitewater as a cause for his depression.

Let’s look west to Hollywood, the modern-day American version of Sodom and Gommorah.

Bob Dole’s public admonishment of True Romance and his peddling of True Lies as family fare has entered the political consciousness of many.

While the criticism of True Romance was not entirely unexpected, labeling True Lies a family movie seemed to have come out of left field.

Dole wouldn’t have plugged True Lies because it stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, a staunch supporter of the Republican Party, now would he?

And again, famous stars like Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone and Charlton Heston aren’t exactly the reincarnation of Marx and Engels.

Republicans still felt so strongly about the pervasiveness of “liberalism” in media that they felt it necessary to create their own media outlets for the direct purpose of promulgating their political agenda.

Soon after being elected the House minority whip, Newt Gingrich helped create the 1991 Communications Plan. It’s objective? In the words of Newt’s collection of aides:

“Because we don’t control the news media, we must create our own propaganda machine for the widespread distribution of broadcast, print and computer communications to supply our activists and potential followers with ideas, information and rhetoric.”

This media agenda to some extent has become reality, as the Republican party’s production division, GOP-TV, produces the talk show Rising Tide, hosted by party chair Haley Barbour. It reaches a potential audience of 55 million viewers.

Paul Weyrich is the founder of National Empowerment Television, who for $140,000 a year can provide access to organizations like the National Rifle Association and Gingrich’s Progress and Freedom Foundation so they can produce their own television shows.

Incidentally, a recent fund-raising dinner for NET was attended by John Malone, the founder of Tele-Communications Inc., America’s biggest cable distributor and one of the partners of Ted Turner and Time Warner(how’s that for a media conglomerate?).

Coincidentally, Gingrich, whose lecture series Renewing American Civilization has been run by NET, has sponsored deregulation bills that certainly would ease the financial burden on Malone and Gingrich’s book publisher, Rupert Murdoch.

I remember reading a piece of Congressional legislation that actually offered a substantial government subsidy to Murdoch specifically.

I bring all of these scenarios up not to deride the “conservative” elements of media, but simply to illustrate that the media is not as “liberal”as Gingrich and his allies would have you believe.

It’s a fear tactic employed by the GOP, and unfortunately, fear and paranoia are far too effective elements of political influence.

Next week: why the term “conservative”is no longer applicable to the Republican party.

Tim Davis is a senior in Theater Studies from Carlisle. He is the Opinion Page editor.