South Park Conservatives: The Revolt Against Liberal Media Bias [Hardcover]

Brian C. Anderson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2005

For the better part of 30 years, liberal bias has dominated mainstream media. But author and political journalist Brian Anderson reveals in his new book that the era of liberal dominance is going the way of the dodo bird.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Brian Anderson tells the communications saga of the last twenty years with verve, intelligence, and flair." -- Michael Novak, winner of the Templeton Prize 1994

From the Inside Flap

That’s what Brian C. Anderson shows in South Park Conservatives: The Revolt against Liberal Media Bias. It’s a behind-the-scenes look at how conservatives—and even iconoclasts who don’t consider themselves conservative—are overthrowing the liberal media and political correctness. From the bloggers who demolished Dan Rather, to the Swift Boat veterans who sank John Kerry, to the gleeful anti–political correctness of such comedic send-ups as South Park and Team America, the American media landscape has suffered an earthquake. Conservatives who have fretted about liberal media bias and losing the culture war should take heart, because a new generation of "South Park Conservatives" is changing everything. In South Park Conservatives, you’ll learn:

> How media bias in the 2004 Kerry/Bush race was so overwhelming as to make a mockery of "journalistic ethics"

> How liberal Hollywood has tried—and failed—to read conservatives out of the industry

> How right-of-center students are turning the tables on their left-wing profs at campuses across the nation

> How the liberal monopoly has been broken beyond all repair by Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, FOX News, and the blogosphere

> How hysterical liberal accusations of conservative "bigotry" and "hate" have boomeranged against the Left

> How media and academic liberals—seeing their monopoly on information and communication disappearing—have embraced extremism and conspiracy-mongering As Brian C. Anderson demonstrates, the New York Times, the big networks, and the rest of the elite liberal media can no longer set the terms of the nation’s political and cultural debate. The liberal media’s monolithic power has cracked and broken—and freedom and conservative ideas are breaking out all over. So sit back, pour yourself a drink, and savor South Park Conservatives. The liberal media has never looked so likely to head for the ash heap of history as now. South Park Conservatives: The Revolt against Liberal Media Bias is an inside peek at how conservatives and the politically incorrect "anti-liberals" are starting to win the culture war—and are having fun doing it.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 191 pages
• Publisher: Regnery Publishing (March 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0895260190
• ISBN-13: 978-0895260192
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #761,453 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I'm the senior editor of City Journal, a political and cultural quarterly published by the Manhattan Institute: www.city-journal.org. In addition to my recent book South Park Conservatives, I've written for the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Dallas News, the New York Post, National Review, Commentary, First Things, the Claremont Review of Books, and, of course, City Journal.

I'm interested in media, new and old, Catholicism, political philosophy, science fiction, basketball, all sorts of different kinds of music, and lots more. And I love my wife and kids...

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

76 of 89 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars hilarious-one of the funniest things I've read in ages!!, April 4, 2005

By 

Paula Ann Buckley (NYC, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: South Park Conservatives: The Revolt Against Liberal Media Bias (Hardcover)

First, let me say that the chapter on anti-liberal political humor in South Park Conservatives is hilarious-one of the funniest things I've read in age! With rich examples, Anderson shows the subversive genius of South Park's creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and gives the reader an excellent sense of what comedians like Nick Di Paolo and Colin Quinn, and talk show host Dennis Miller, are up to in their humor. The chapter is worth the price of the book.

But there is lots more of interest in South Park Conservatives, which provides a clear-eyed view, expressed in reader-friendly, punchy prose, of the remarkable shifts in media and culture that are undermining liberal control of the institutions of information and argument. Want to know why liberals aren't good at talk radio? Read the chapter on the rise of conservative talk radio and find out. Anderson's take on how the blogosphere is transforming politics-drawing on extensive interviews with everyone from Andrew Sullivan to Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit)-is a model of lucid analysis (plus, it's pretty funny too, except maybe to CBS News and Dan Rather). The chapter on Fox News, also based on behind-the-scenes interviews, in this case with Fox people like Sean Hannity and Dick Morris, offers lessons both liberals and conservatives can learn from. The final chapter, on the rising conservatism-or at least anti-liberalism-of college kids, is fascinating, in part because so the reader encounters so many interesting student voices.

One last thing about this book should be noted: it's a real triumph of reporting. So few books, by conservatives or liberals, feature any reporting these days. One of the pleasures of South Park Conservatives is the thickness of detail-everything from Neilson ratings to off-the-cuff remarks by comedian Colin Quinn about PC critics. You come away from the book knowing a lot more.

30 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Did they even read it...?, December 15, 2005

By 

Michael J Edelman (Huntington Woods, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: South Park Conservatives: The Revolt Against Liberal Media Bias (Hardcover)

Now this is not a great book, but it's a pretty interesting book. It's about, in large part, a demographic that Anderson calls "South Park Conservatives" because they're philisophically conservative- or at least more conservative than big-L liberal- but they reject much of the social conservatism that has characterized old-school Conservatism or modern day religious conservatism.

Personally, I find "South Park"'s vulgarity usually exceeds my taste boundries, but I've seen it enough to understand the demographic Anderson is talking about- my under-40 co-workers.

That having been said, it's a pretty funny book. Anderson tells a good story- even if I may differ with him on a number of points- and does so in a way that's pretty darn funny. But a number of the reviewers don't seem to have gotten far enough to have figured that out. For them, let me explain:

1. It's not a book about South Park

2. It's not arguing the thesis that South Park is a conservative show.

3. You should really turn off the TV once in a while.

45 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Informative and Important!, March 28, 2005

By 

Nicole Egloff (Irvington, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: South Park Conservatives: The Revolt Against Liberal Media Bias (Hardcover)

Brian Anderson has, in honest and fair detail, provided me with hope that my children (and my husband and I) will experience a far healthier media environment than that to which I was exposed growing up. South Park Conservatives is factual and capably written. It is good to know, as Anderson reports from the "inside", that a new, less Left-dominated, era is dawning on our editorial pages, on the airwaves, on campus, and through the Internet.

I found the book to be illuminating and a quick read. As a person whose interests customarily lie beyond politics, I am happy that I found a book on the topic that was so compelling and eminently readable. Hats off to Mr. Anderson!