philosophical society.com

Self-Described Conservatives
In The Media

NOTES:

1. The list below can be multiplied ten times if the de facto definition of "conservative" is the one that prevails.

2. The list excludes senators and members of Congress.

3. The list is uneven (some below are regular television or radio personalities; others appear only in print; still others are "specialists" in certain fields, such as cultural commentary or military strategy or finance).

4. Only well-known, self-described "conservatives" are included; there are surely legions of lesser-known partisans in the country.

5. A simple enumeration of names doesn't take into account the intensity and rigidity of points of view or the frequency with which the pundit appears in the major dailies or on the tube.

6. While fairly long, the list should not divert the mind too much from more important facets of electronic and print media (e.g., ownership and advertising, the cumulative effect of the audiovisual medium on sensory perception and habits of thought, &c.).


Elliot Abrams
Kenneth Adelman
Gary Aldrich
Fred Barnes
Michael Barone
Robert Bartley
Gary Bauer
Tom Bethell
Tony Blankley
Linda Bowles
L. Brent Bozell
Richard Brookhiser
David Brooks
Tony Brown
Bay Buchanan
Pat Buchanan
William Bennett
Linda Bowles
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Tucker Carlson
Mona Charen
Steve Chapman
Linda Chavez
Lynn Cheney
Ward Connerly
Ann Coulter
Blanquita Cullum
Dinesh D'Souza
Midge Decter
Joe DiGenova
James Dobson
Lawrence Eagleburger
Larry Elder
Jerry Falwell
Andrew Ferguson
Suzanne Fields
Kelly Ann Fitzpatrick
Malcolm "Steve" Forbes, Jr.
David Frum
John Fund
Frank Gaffney
Maggie Gallagher
Rich Galen
David Gergen
Paul Gigot
George Gilder
James Glassman
Bernard Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Bob Grant
Ken Hamblin
Sean Hannity
David Horowitz
Britt Hume
Laura Ingraham
Reed Irvine
Terry Jeffries
Don Imus
Jack Kelly
Michael Kelly
Jack Kemp
Alan Keyes
James Kilpatrick
Jeanne Kirkpatrick
Henry Kissinger
Morton Kondracke
Charles Krauthammer
Bill Kristol
Lawrence Kudlow
Donald Lambo
Michael Ledeen
Ernest Lefever
Mark Levin
Rush Limbaugh
Gordon Liddy
Glenn Loury
Rich Lowry
Frank Luntz
Michelle Malkin
Mary Matalin
John McLaughlin
Michael Medved
Susan Molinari
Peggy Noonan
Oliver North
Robert Novak
Kate O'Beirne
Bill O'Reilly
Norman Ornstein
P.J. O'Rourke
Kathleen Parker
Richard Pearle
Howard Phillips
James Pinkerton
Daniel Pipes
John Podhoretz
Norman Podhoretz
Richard Poe
Dennis Prager
Wes Pruden
Ronald Radosh
Michael Reagan
Ralph Reed
Pat Robertson
Abe Rosenthal
William Rukeyser
William Safire
Robert Samuelson
Debra Saunders
Phyllis Schlafly
Laura Schlessinger
Brent Scowcroft
Alan Simpson
Tony Snow
Joseph Sobran
Thomas Sowell
John Stossel
Andrew Sullivan
Cal Thomas
R. Emmett Tyrell
Ben Wattenberg
Caspar Weinberger
George Will
Armstrong Williams
Walter Williams

Criticism:

In "Liberal Media? No Such Thing" (December 19, 2003), author Richard Poe writes the following:

The notion that U.S. mass media lean left is a myth, says cyber-philosopher Tim Ruggiero of PhilosophicalSociety.com. Ruggiero writes: 'Of all the fatuities that are circulated regularly about the major media, the one about `liberal bias' is clearly the most tenacious, and perhaps the least extinguishable. One hears it over and over, year in and year out, from talking-head pundits no less than from anxious citizens. Whole research institutes exist to expose and root out the malignancy...'"

Mr. Ruggiero seeks to disprove the existence of the 'liberal media' by, among other things, pointing out what he calls, 'the obvious fact that the nation's airwaves and op-ed pages are full of self-described 'conservatives'...Now here's where it gets funny. Follow Mr. Ruggiero's link to 'Self-Described Conservatives In Media,' and you will find a list of 125 people, of whom Ruggiero says, 'Only well-known, self-described conservatives are included [in the list]; there are surely legions of lesser-known partisans in the country.'

To be sure, some names on Mr. Ruggiero's list are prominent, among them Pat Buchanan, William F. Buckley, Jr., Pat Robertson, P.J. O'Rourke, Oliver North and so on. But others are quite obscure -- mine, for instance.

Yes, Mr. Ruggiero honors me with inclusion in his rogue's gallery of 'well-known' media conservatives -- people whose very existence disproves the 'myth' of leftwing media bias. How ironic. With the exception of one appearance on PBS to discuss my book Black Spark, White Fire with Tony Brown -- I cannot recall any instance when I was interviewed on any of the top broadcast television networks. I appear only occasionally on talk radio. And, with rare exceptions, my articles are published only on the Internet.

Shall I assume that a desperate Mr. Ruggiero resorted to scraping the bottom of the barrel in order to amass enough names of 'well-known' media conservatives to prove his point? Or have I slowly and stealthily -- and without even realizing it -- actually risen to a degree of prominence that justifies placing my name in the company of Pat Buchanan, William F. Buckley, Jr. and others of like stature?

I fear it is the former.

A Reply:

I had seen several of Mr. Poe's columns at FrontPageMagazine.com prior to compiling the list. He's not as well known, of course, as commentators such as Buchanan, Buckley et al., and I applaud his humility in pointing this out. No great effort was needed, however, to amass the more than 100 names above: anyone paying attention to radio, television, and print media on any given week can surely tally up as many names. Mr. Poe might have thus given me the benefit of the doubt and not assumed insidious intent.

He says nothing at all about the thesis of my article. I'd encourage readers to re-examine it, explore the links in the article, and then decide whether I've missed the mark.

-- Tim Ruggiero