When did the term "elite media" creep into our national rhetoric?

[Doosh]

Was this just recently or has it been going on for years and I just hadn't noticed?

seems like for the last few months the usual cast of conservative blowhards have repeated this phrase as naseum to the point where it's like "compassionate conservative" was, much like they've made "liberal" a dirty word where Dems are running away from it.

Seems like there strategy is to isolate and divide. The northeast is elite media, centrist media sources like CBS, CNN, and the NYT are "elite". Anything that's not some country bumpkin heartland lock step repug media outlet seems to be branded elite, and thus irrelevant? that's not right! look at the steps they've taken to destroy the credibility of the New York Times.

And HOW DARE Fox News have the gaul to criticize another media source and call them biased??? What about this whole glass house thing? We need people out there pounding Fox News daily the same way they do it to anybody who slightly tilts to the left or are purely centrist. Not enough people are challenging there credibility.

[FDRrocks]

1. I think it's been a while...

I believe the first time I heard it used, although in a different context, was when I read Manufacturing Consent by Herman/Chomsky. I haven't read it in a while but I'm pretty sure its used in there.

As to the current use, I would wager sometime in the 1980's, when the right wing in this country started going insane.

I love when Rush Limbaugh uses the term. I saw something on one of the 3 24/7 Faux Channels about poor Rush being attacked by what he called "the media elite." <---- This coming from the self proclaimed crown prince of "excellence in broadcasting."

"Coming straight to you from the EIB headquarters, with all of my integrity tied behind my back, so I have a chance."

[salinen]

2. You remind me of

Rip Van Winkle.

[Eric J in MN]

3. I don't know about that particular phrase, but Nixon's vp Spiro Agnew

The concept is from a Spiro Agnew speech in 1969:

"We would never trust such powers, I've described, over public opinion in the hands of an elected government. It is time we questioned it in the hands of a small and unelected elite. The great networks have dominated America's airwaves for decades. The people are entitled to a full accounting of their stewardship."

[Kanary]

9. You beat me to it....... miss that ole' Spiro....

NOT

He used quite a phrase that became imprinted on our lexicon for several years, and for the life of me, I can't remember it now.

He was a dumb reich-winger, but he could at least use words.

Kanary

[bobbieinok]

10. 'nattering nabobs of negativism'????

[Kat45]

11. "nattering nabobs of negativity"

if I remember correctly.

[Kanary]

12. Thanks to both of you, there are now bits of strawberry pieces

on my screen. :)

I had forgotten that one...... that's great. \

Ah, the memories......

POWER TO THE PEOPLE, RIGHT ON!

oops, forgot which century I'm in there for a minit. :)

There was a phrase, though, using the word elite, wasn't there?

ah, Spiro, we knew ya when...... :)

Kanary

[Eric J in MN]

15. "an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as"

"an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals"

[Kanary]

17. Ah, yes..... effete corps....

How could I have forgotten that.

Thanks for posting that..... what a bunch of memories! :)

Kanary

[pacifictiger]

4. for the last 10 years or so

the conservatives have been funding think tanks to come up with media phrasology to benefit them and trash their opponents. It has been a concerted 'psychops' operation that most people are unaware of.

[FDRrocks]

8. And apparently all that they could come up with

is that some reporters are registered Democrats. Hardly ever mention the people who control the content.

I would love to say that these 'think tanks' really suck at thier job, if thats all they could come up with... too bad it worked. Guess it was the shotgun method, quantity before quality.

[pacifictiger]

14. its where they got all their catch phrases that

mean the opposite of what they're trying to say - clean air act, no child left behind, etc, etc, etc.

[Ready4Change]

5. When the term "the myth of the liberal media" gained traction.

[tcfrogs]

6. It's been a Rush-ism for years

[checks-n-balances]

7. "Seems like there strategy is to isolate and divide. " - BINGO!

That is the truth! To isolate, divide, confuse, distort, you name it. The way they have set people against one another is beyond damaging. People like Phyllis Schlafly have been honing their special talent for distortion & division for years and are real experts.

[vajraroshana]

13. Oh that term drives me crazy

How the hell do these fuckwits sleep at night when they practically own the media, yet they have the temerity to talk about "media elites"? And where did they go to college, huh? Where do they want to send their kids to college, huh?

Aaargghh!

When it first started appearing in our local paper's editorial section, in columnists like Cal Thomas', I was like wtf? Here's someone (actually there's more than one right winger that appears in our paper now they've canned Molly Ivins from our paper) who makes it every week (sometimes twice a week) into our paper and they're bitching about "media elites"?!

Really though, this is just one of the latest in a string of euphemisms for "liberal".

Oh, but they've had a ball with the different terms over the years. The big bad boogeyman for years used to be "secular humanists". They got a lot of yardage out of that one. Then they switched to "moral relativists". They still use that one from time to time, but it falls on mostly deaf ears, because their target is too dim to understand it. And it's too freaking stupid for most of them to even stand it: the Bible is morally "absolute", yet it tells you to not kill in certain instances, but requires you to kill in others -- therefore the Bible advocates "relative" morality; relative to the situation. Aaarghh!!

Try not to let it drive you crazy like has me!!

[Alerter_]

16. for Republicans, "Liberal Media" means "Jewish Media"

or at least it did until the neo-cons and PNAC took over the Republican party and set up Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld. The Republicans and Rove are masters of "code words" to disguise the racism they are appealing to.

The drug dealers and mafiosos of Russia, Likud and right-wing "Mayberry Machiavellis" like the Bushes - and the Saudis and Bin Ladens who own 20% of CITIGROUP and our largest financial and energy corporations - have now seriously damaged the national security and Army and National Guard of the United States.

Americans are being killed daily and ABC/CBS/NBC/FOX/CNN are being intimidated from reporting the facts.