Forbes.com published a list and photo essay of its "25 Most Influential Liberals in the U.S. Media."
Proving that one conservative publication's "liberal" is another person's or movement's mainstream, highly triangulated or war-cheerleading centrist, there are some strange entries. But first, the list:
- Paul Krugman
- Arianna Huffington
- Fred Hiatt
- Thomas Friedman
- Jon Stewart
- Oprah Winfrey
- Rachel Maddow
- Josh Marshall
- David Shipley
- Markos Moulitsas Zuniga
- Fareed Zakaria
- Chris Matthews
- Bill Moyers
- Christopher Hitchens
- Maureen Dowd
- Matt Yglesias
- Hendrick Hertzberg
- Glenn Greenwald
- Andrew Sullivan
- Gerald Seib
- Jim Fallows
- Ezra Klein
- Kevin Drum
- Kurt Andersen
- Michael Pollan
I think a key point of distinction is whether somebody is a liberal who happens to be in the media or somebody who is an actual, operational media liberal. Until this year, Oprah fastidiously kept out of national electoral politics. So, she was a liberal, but a liberal essentially on the sidelines. She's ranked too high, in my opinion. (My mom simply adores her and if Oprah actually had such a huge impact, then how come Mom voted for John McCain?) David Shipley, a former Bill Clinton White House speechwriter, is no doubt a liberal, but is bound to publish opinions on the New York Times Op-Ed page he edits from a range of perspectives.
And then there are those that, from the POV of Forbes, look liberal, but less so to me: Matthews, who has, however, grown on me during the past year by rising to the leftward shift under way at MSNBC; Sullivan, who has earned some recent redemption in his Bush critiques, but who has offended liberals way too often; and "Friedman unit" Friedman and Hitchens, whose Iraq war defenses and apologia simply disqualify them, IMHO.
I'm sure Salon's readers have a lot to say about who should be removed, added, moved up or moved down in the rankings. Fire away.
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