ABSTRACT
The directors of news media often insist that they are committed to objectivity in their news pages or newscasts and that they limit subjective viewpoints to their editorial and opinion pages or broadcast commentaries. Scholars of the media, however, have pointed out dozens of subjective variables that color selection and presentation of the news in both print and broadcast media. The right-wing media maintained a ferocious attack on Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, whose work was vastly more relevant to substantive issues than Kenneth Starr's inquiries into Whitewater. Although the mass media tend to exclude intellectuals on both the right and the far left, leftists argue that the positions of the intellectual right do not differ as much from mainstream conservatism as those of the intellectual far left do from mainstream liberalism. As a result, the far left is the one position on the American political spectrum with least access to mass media.
