Yes, Dan, There Is An Elite Media Voice

DAN Quayle is on the warpath again, denouncing a "media elite" that has nothing but "scorn" for people who uphold "basic moral values." From newsrooms and sitcom studios, says Quayle, this elite looks down on "average Americans."

Dan Quayle attacking the "media elite" is like Arnold Schwarzenegger decrying the evils of body-building.

Quayle is much closer to the media elite than he lets on. His family owns a chain of newspapers, including the most powerful papers in Indiana and Arizona. He personally owns $400,000 worth of stock in Central Newspapers, Inc.

The vice president would have you believe that the media elite is biased against conservative politicians like him. But this claim doesn't square with the fact that of the daily newspapers making presidential endorsements in 1988, 70 percent backed the Bush-Quayle ticket. Indeed, every four years, the Republican ticket wins a landslide victory among newspaper publishers.

Far from being the liberal chorus that Quayle describes, the media's loudest political voices are conservative - some so far right they think Quayle is too liberal.

On radio, for example, no one has more opinion-shaping power than extreme conservative Rush Limbaugh. On national TV, only two political pundits - both conservative - have become ubiquitous enough to appear every day of the week: John McLaughlin and Patrick Buchanan. Among the most widely published political columnists, four of the top seven write from the right: George Will, James Kilpatrick, William Safire and William F. Buckley Jr.

There is a media elite in this country. But that elite is corporate establishment. After a decade of mergers, takeovers and newspaper closings, media power has concentrated into fewer - and more conservative - hands.

According to Ben Bagdikian, author of "The Media Monopoly," a mere 23 corporations now control most of the country's media product and revenue. Look at the managers of these companies - such as Time-Warner, General Electric, Dow Jones, Cap Cities/ABC - and you'll have a good idea who is in the media elite.

Also, take a look at the media's biggest advertisers - General Motors, Philip Morris, Procter & Gamble, DuPont, etc. - companies that have the power to muzzle viewpoints that offend them.

Imagine, for example, that Rush Limbaugh had a change of heart one day about how to use his pulpit of 480 radio stations. Imagine that instead of scapegoating "environmental extremists," gays and "femi-Nazis" as the forces ruining our country, he began attacking by name the "greedy corporations" that "pollute the earth, rip off the consumers and export good American jobs to slave laborers in the Third World." How many weeks would it take before his sponsors pulled the plug?

When Dan Quayle castigates the media elite, he certainly does not mean the media owners or sponsors (most of whom are Republicans) or the political pundits (most of whom are fairly conservative).

Like the "media criticism" of Vice President Spiro Agnew more than two decades ago, Quayle has political goals in mind: intimidating media professionals into softer coverage of the White House, and corralling the votes of social and religious conservatives who are offended by the media.

Quayle's speeches are intended to echo Agnew's. In 1969, Agnew denounced "liberal" media snobs whose views "do not represent the views of America." This month, Vice President Quayle denounced the media in these words: "It sometimes seems we have two cultures - the cultural elite, and the rest of us . . . They're embarrassed about the views of the average American - because moral values are what the American people care most about."

There is a serious critique to be made of the media elite and its moral values. This elite values one thing above all else - maximizing profit. Worship of the "bottom line" seems to take precedence over family, community and country.

That's why the TV industry insists on bombarding our kids with ads for candy and sugar-coated cereal every Saturday morning; why certain magazines advertise cigarettes while avoiding tough coverage of the tobacco industry; why TV ratings periods are endless parades of sexual titillation; and why TV stations serve up such edifying programs as "Studs," "Geraldo" and "Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling."

Dan Quayle can't seriously address the elite's moral bankruptcy because he is ideologically committed to the one value these media corporations revere: profiteering. Of course Quayle - and the media managers - have a prettier-sounding name for it. They call it "free enterprise."

(Copyright, 1992, Creators Syndicate, Inc.)