Sorry, "conservative media" is not an oxymoron!

Repeated breathlessly and with little thought is the reminder that "liberals own the media," or that "conservatives have so little media representation." For many, this has become almost axiomatic. To take this lament seriously would be to acknowledge that conservatives are a marginalized group when it comes to representation in television, print and radio. The truth is quite different. No matter how many times the right decry the "liberal media," the fact remains that there are several sources of conservative information out there that are hardly underground.

To begin with, who can deny the power of that media colossus FOX News? Since 1996, FOX has given conservative Americans their much sought-after programming. Rupert Murdoch, the founder of FOX, is hardly a marginal figure in modern media. His reach now extends to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post and several other media. In addition to Murdoch's channel, several of the pundits from FOX have branched out into publishing and produce regular columns for on-line publications. These include Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, hardly people one would consider to be on the margins of the political debate.

Further additions to conservative media are the numerous publications that have a rightist slant. These include:
1. The American
2. The American Interest
3. American Outlook
4. The American Thinker
5. Chronicles: a Magazine of American Culture
6. The Claremont Review of Books
7. Commentary
8. The Dartmouth Review
9. First Things
10. Front Page
11. Harvard Salient
12. Human Events
13. Imprimis
14. Jewish World Review
15. The National Interest
16. The National Review
17. The New Atlantis
18. The New Criterion
19. Policy Review
20. The Princeton Tory
21. The Saturday Evening Post
22. Southern Partisan
23. The Weekly Standard
24. World

These publications, combined with the ubiquity of Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, David Horowitz, Charles Krauthammer, S.E. Cupp, Michael Savage and several others, hardly lend credibility to the claim that conservatives are marginalized.

Conservatives have every right to media that reflect their views, just as their opponents in the ideological divide have every right to their own media. It would be a sad state of affairs if such publications were forbidden; however, the myth that conservatives lack a media is indicative of a victim mentality, something conservatives so often accuse the left of possessing. The publications and spokesmen that are mentioned within this article are hardly difficult to access. What conservatives need to do is to recognize that while several news' sources do have a progressive bent, conservatives are hardly lacking for an alternative.