Media shape politics. Just ask the media.

How powerful are the media?

Notice that when the media talk about the opposition rather then themselves, they unintentionally reveal the control they believe they have over politics. Here’s Robert Marquand, writing about Rupert Murdoch’s (picture) empire in the Christian Science Monitor:

The New York Times was once described . . . as "the kingdom and the power." But . . . the title applies more to the global empire of Rupert Murdoch, whose massive media octopus of $60 billion in assets spans [continents]. . . Murdoch's US-based Fox News network is described in a 2010 News Corp. report as "unstoppable." Murdoch's clout is such that Tony Blair's first trip as British leader was to Australia for an audience with the mogul. If being feared is a requirement for British power, says Oxford writer Timothy Garton Ash, Murdoch has been more powerful than the previous three prime ministers.

But looking at the U.S., how can Murdoch’s ownership of the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, and FOX News compare to the combined influence of the rest of our print and broadcast outlets, almost uniformly liberal? The media don’t talk about that; about their crucial role in electing Barack Obama.

Now with the task shifting to retaining Obama in power, Princeton historian Julian Zelizer is willing to allude to the media’s ability to support the president, though only by comparing unfavorably the media’s current influence to the power media enjoyed before Ronald Reagan. Writing at CNN.com, Zelizer blames Obama's present-day troubles on a regulatory decision made late in Reagan's presidency:

the current structure of the media has emasculated the [president’s] bully pulpit. Regardless of how good a president is on the stump, it is almost impossible for him to command public attention, because there is no singular "media" to speak of. Instead, Americans receive their media through countless television stations and websites. . . .

With the end of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, the media were also able to shed the appearance of neutrality and objectivity. Every perspective did not have to receive equal time. On many television and radio stations, objective reporters have been replaced with openly partisan commentators. Any presidential message is quickly surrounded by polemical instant commentary that diminishes the power of what he says.

Making matters worse, on the Internet, presidents can't even fully control the time they have as they must compete with live blogs and video commentary as they try to share their message. Even within most households, the era of the single family television is gone. Now in many middle-class families everyone has their own media and is watching their own thing.

The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto, who highlighted Zelizer’s efforts to blame the Fairness Doctrine for Obama’s troubles, mentioned several other reasons for the monolithic media’s decline, including that the Doctrine applied only to broadcast TV and radio, that new media--cable, satellite, Internet--would have developed anyway, and that broadcast TV networks haven’t changed with the times.

Taranto doesn’t appreciate Zelizer’s “unattractively authoritarian attitude” in bemoaning rather than celebrating the 25-year proliferation of media outlets challenging the president. Zelizer longs for the ‘60s and ‘70s, the high point of media power when the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the three major TV networks could almost by themselves destroy two (Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon), maybe three (Gerald Ford), even four (Jimmy Carter) presidencies in a row.

Zelizer’s comments reveal how much he wants that awesome power fully available and employed to keep Obama in office. And I believe Zelizer speaks for an entire class, our ruling elite including the media.