[Al Franken, Air America:] Broadcasting from an underground bunker 3,500 feet below Dick Cheney's bunker.
[Jonathan Mann, Cnn Host:] Gasping for air. Many Americans believe that liberals run the U.S. media, so why does the left have so much trouble when it sets out to broadcast its views?
[Rush Limbaugh, Radio:] Rush Limbaugh, half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair, ladies and gentlemen.
[Maggie Lake, Cnn Correspondent:] They're opinionated, boisterous and unapologetically right wing. Conservative talk radio hosts dominate the airwaves across America. By some estimates, conservative talk outnumbers liberal offerings 60 to 1. Air America was supposed to change that. The left-leaning station, fronted by comic and Bush critic Al Franken, launched in March with great fanfare and even greater expectations.
[Unidentified Male:] There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of conservative talk on the radio dial, and very, very little liberal or left-leaning talk, and that therefore makes a big opportunity, to serve an audience with entertaining, robust, provocative conversation good talk radio but not with a conservative bent, with a different bent.
[Lake:] But that has proved to be a difficult task. Cohen and three other top executives have already resigned amid financial turmoil and terrible reviews.
[Unidentified Male:] It's talk with no purpose, is what I've been told. I don't know. I never listen to it.
[Unidentified Female:] Oh, really? It airs in New York? No, I never heard of it.
[Unidentified Male:] It would have to be more intelligent than that
[Lake:] Some attribute Air America's problems to growing pains. But it's not the only liberal programming to struggle. TV veteran and liberal voice Phil Donahue had a show on MSNBC but it was cancelled after just six months. Marketing experts say it doesn't matter who hosts the show or what party they support; in the end, it all comes down to numbers.
[Unidentified Male:] Either the eyeballs or the number of viewers are there, or the eyeballs or the number of viewers aren't there. It's less about the personalities involved in the particular media outlet than it is whose watching.
[Lake:] Which makes the failure of liberal media in the United States even more perplexing. Recent polls show America is bitterly divided. Half the country disapproves of George W. Bush's performance and want him out of office. That kind of Bush opposition should give liberals a receptive audience, but Jack Myers, a media critic and trend watcher, says liberal outlets like Air America have done a poor job packaging their message. JACK MYERS,
[Media Critic:] The liberal press focuses on their message, the intellectualism of their message first, and seems to think that that is powerful enough to draw audiences. People want to still be entertained. They want to be communicated to and with. They don't just want to be pontificated to and preached to.
[Lake:] Liberals had a flurry of hope when former Vice President Al Gore announced he and a group of investors purchased a TV channel from Vivendi. During their two terms in the White House, the Clinton-Gore administration reinvigorated the Democratic Party and succeeded in building a support base among conservatives as well as liberals. But Gore insists he has no intention of using his station as a podium.
[Al Gore, Fmr. U.s. Vice President:] That we're starting a Democratic network or we're starting a liberal network. We're not. We've never said we were and that is not our business plan, it's not our intention. It will not be a description of the network that we are going to launch.
[Lake:] But some critics say Al Gore isn't taking up the liberal cause because he can't afford to. Unlike Europe, television and radio in the United States relies completely on commercial funding, not government money. And activists say advertisers goals are at odds with liberal aims.
[Unidentified Male:] The entire U.S. system is biased towards advertising, towards fulfilling the needs of Madison Avenue. Liberal voices that criticize pollution, you know, automobile consumption and the dangers of fast food on children's waistlines aren't likely to get the kind of add support that's necessary in this kind of system.
[Lake:] Media watchdogs, like Chester, worry the U.S. system is stacked against liberals and other voices critical of the status quo. They say a lack of diversity on American airwaves stifles public debate and gives conservatives an open mic in an election year where a few thousand votes could make the difference. Maggie Lake, CNN, New York.
[Mann:] We take a break now. When we come back, the right hook: what's behind the success of conservative talk and why the left can't seem to imitate it. Stay with us. Conservative talk radio has become a huge empire in the United States. If there was an emperor, it would be Rush Limbaugh, who has a weekly draw of some 20 million listeners. Limbaugh is known for his candid and sometimes crass commentary about all things liberal, and for the devotion of his fans. He even held on to his listeners while embroiled in a personal drug scandal. Limbaugh allegedly bought hundreds of pain killers illegally. He acknowledged his addiction on air after going through a rehab program, but his legal case is still pending. Welcome back. So there are two questions at this point. What is behind the success of conservative talk in the United States and why do left-leaning commentators struggle to stay on air. Joining us now to talk about that is Dante Chinni of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, an independent think tank for journalists to consider and study their craft. Thanks so much for being with us. Let me ask you first of all, did Air America seem like a good idea to you at the outset?
[Dante Chinni, Project For Excellence In Journalism:] I'd have to say no, and for a lot of the reasons the piece you just showed before kind of laid out. There really has not been in the United States a way that seems to make this work, having a kind of liberal version of Rush Limbaugh.
[Mann:] Why not?
[Chinni:] It's an excellent question. There are a lot of theories about it. I mean, obviously, the theory from the right is that the media is already biased in America, it's already all left wing, so they don't need a left-wing version of the media. I don't think that's true. I think what happens is I think what's happened or what happened to conservative media in America over the last 10, 15, maybe 20 years is there was the right wing in the country felt as though they weren't being covered properly by the media, and I think that while the media isn't very isn't liberal in the same way Rush Limbaugh is conservative, it does I mean, there is a slight slant to the media, I'd say, of maybe center of left. And that puts these people they said that they needed something else, and this conservative media alternative kind of popped up and it just took off. And now it's just kind of grown of its own accord.
[Mann:] Now I'm going to leave your remarks about the center of left character of the American media to another day, because that's a whole other debate. But let me ask you this: if indeed all of this was borne out of a feeling among people in the center right and the right, that they were somehow an oppressed minority, there was for a time Bill Clinton in the White House, but now there's George Bush. He's a Republican. The Republicans control both Houses of Congress. The Republicans have the most prominent personalities talking about politics on the air and in the bookstore. That should have taken a lot of the anger that fueled that movement away and talk shows are built on anger on the radio and yet it just keeps going.
[Chinni:] What's happened is, while Clinton I mean, first of all, the conservative media in this country, if you talk about something like Limbaugh or FOX NEWS, which I think leans pretty far right, what you have, really, is not so much attacking I mean, when Clinton was in office, they attacked Clinton. But now that Clinton isn't in office, they view their position as kind of defending the realm. They've gone from being the rabble, for lack of a better term, to the ones in the castle, in the throne room, and now they have to defend the realm. And now if you watch if you listen to Rush Limbaugh, if you watch FOX, what you see a lot of is attacking the media. It's the right wing saying that all the other media is biased and you can't trust them, and they spend a lot of their time kind of attacking news reports. They'll attack I mean, now they're going to attack John Kerry because he's running for president as a Democrat, the Democratic nominee or soon will be. But a lot of the time is spent attacking the media.
[Mann:] But, again, they are the media now. They are the media.
[Chinni:] They are. I know. It's getting some of it is getting kind of it gets, when you watch and you listen to it, some of it is like borderline preposterous. I mean, it's just, you know, poor George Bush and how he's struggling. You're right. He controls both Houses of Congress and, you know, they have the executive branch, they have both parts of the legislative branch and, you know, they may have the Supreme Court. It's pretty close. But they control, I think you'd say that it leans right. I mean, it's 5-4 when you count the votes of O'Connor and Kennedy.
[Mann:] Let me jump in though and ask you a question, because we heard one commentator say this and people who are listening to us talk and heard him will describe him as some kind of nave leftist, but he said basically that advertising dominates broadcasting because broadcasting is an industry that depends on advertisers, and so any broadcasting that somehow strays from the interests of companies and advertisers is bound to fail. Do you think there's anything to that? Is there a little bit of help for people on the right who are for business and a little bit of a handicap for people like Al Franken, on the left, who are suspicious of business?
[Chinni:] It's an interesting point, to be honest. I'm not sure how much is there, because in the end people want to make money and if they felt that there was enough of a listener base there, like, General Motors would advertise on Franken's show, I mean, despite making Hummers, if they felt that they could get the ears they wanted. I mean, they obviously wouldn't advertise Hummers on Franken's show. They'd advertise something else.
[Mann:] Is Franken just too boring? Is that the bottom line? Is it that Rush Limbaugh is just good at radio? Al Franken's never done radio and jumped in with both feet as a self-proclaimed amateur at the head of a network that was entirely brand new as well run by other amateurs. Is the bottom line that the right has learned how to do this and the left is just starting?
[Chinni:] Remember, they did have 15 years to kind of build this thing up and get it to where it is. And it is true that Franken and company just did start. And Rush Limbaugh is very good at radio and Al Franken isn't. The other thing I might suggest is, and this is the other theory that kind of floats out there, is the liberals in this country listen, if they listen to radio, listen to NPR, National Public Radio. National Public Radio has seen a big jump in listenership over the past 10 or 15 years and it's a different kind of programming. It's programming that's all about issues and having experts on from both sides, debating things, and they would argue that this is really what the liberal media audience wants.
[Mann:] In fact, that's right, Dante Chinni, of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. Thanks so much for this.
[Chinni:] Thank you.
[Mann:] We have to take a break. When we come back, a look at the success of one liberal filmmaker who is actually having trouble with his latest film. Stay with us. Skeptic, satirist, subversive. Michael Moore is an outsider whose found a niche inside mainstream American cinema. The Oscar-winning filmmaker is know for his ambush interviews and attacks on corporate America. His film career began with the movie "Roger and Me," where he virtually stalked the then-chairman of General Motors for a film about factory closings. He followed with "Bowling for Columbine" and the American fascination with guns. Moore has also done network television and written best-selling books, but now he's gone after U.S. President Bush in his latest offering, "Fahrenheit 911." Welcome back. Moore's new film was celebrated at the internationally renown Cannes Film Festival, a place where documentaries tend to be overlooked. In fact, he received the festivals most prestigious prize. Chris Burns reports.
[Quentin Tarantino, Filmmaker:] The Jury is proud to award the Palme d'Or this year of the Cannes Film Festival to "Fahrenheit 911."
[Chris Burns, Cnn Correspondent:] Michael Moore's film takes the top honor at Cannes from a nine-member jury that included four Americans. Director Quentin Tarantino presiding.
[Michael Moore, Filmmaker:] Many people want the truth to be put away, to be put in the closet, and you've taken it out of the closet by this act.
[Burns:] "Fahrenheit 911" questions President Bush's election victory, contends that the Bush administration failed to connect the dots before September 11 and says the Bush family had close business ties with the Saudis, including the bin Laden family, before the attacks.
[Narrator:] In his first eight months in office before September 11, George W. Bush was on vacation, according to the "Washington Post," 42 percent of the time.
[Burns:] While that's the entire media clip released here at Cannes, Moore's film laces already existing news footage in Iraq and elsewhere with original film, including an emotional interview with a mother whose son died in Iraq and some ambush journalism of Moore asking congressmen why their sons aren't serving there. Moore, who won at Cannes two years ago with his anti-gun film "Bowling for Columbine," joked about Miramax's parent company, Disney, refusing to distribute his new film in the United States. Disney has recently agreed to sell the distribution rights back to Miramax.
[Moore:] We have a distributor now in Albania, we just were told. So now every country in the world can see this film, except one.
[Burns:] With the Golden Palm, Moore says he's confident a U.S. distributor will be quickly found for "Fahrenheit 911," whose title was inspired by Ray Bradbury's book on censorship.
[Moore:] You will ensure that the American people will see this movie.
[Burns:] Moore says he aims to screen "Fahrenheit" state side before the presidential election, hopeful that, quote, "things are going to change." Chris Burns, CNN, at the Cannes Film Festival.
[Mann:] Is this year's Palme d'Or film just too hot for Hollywood? Joining us now to talk about Moore and the movie is "New York Post" film critic Lou Lumenick. Thanks so much for being with us. You saw the movie. Would you have picked it for the Palme d'Or?
[Lou Lumenick, "new York Post":] I personally would not have, Jonathan, but I was not exactly surprised. A film is a very political thing in France and the Cannes Film Festival.
[Mann:] So you think clearly they were just voting against George Bush by voting for the film.
[Lumenick:] I would say so.
[Mann:] That having been said, is that why Disney wasn't going to distribute it? Were they voting for George Bush by voting against the film? Can you explain to people outside the industry what actually happened in all of that?
[Lumenick:] It's not a vote for George Bush. It's a large, multinational corporation with a family image trying to stay out of partisan politics. This is a film that basically plays like a 2-hour campaign commercial, and Disney, which I think is their right, decided they did not want to be involved in distributing this film.
[Mann:] Did they make it hard for others to distribute the film? Because it's not just what Disney did.
[Lumenick:] Well, it depends on whose story you believe. If you believe Disney's story, they say they told Miramax a year ago that they didn't want to distribute it and gave them a year to find another distributor. If you believe Miramax's story, they led them Disney led them on to believe that they might be able to change their mind up until the last minute, until two weeks ago, when they finally started seriously looking for another distributor.
[Mann:] So what's going to happen to the film now in the United States?
[Lumenick:] I think it's going to find a distributor. I think it probably actually will make it out in July and then it will be on DVD in October, is the plan. The big question, I think, in the media, is whether it will actually have the effect that Michael Moore thinks that it will have, which is to, you know, influence the election. I personally don't think so.
[Mann:] The timing of it, though, certainly would seem to work to its advantage, if that was the intention.
[Lumenick:] It would if it were a better or different film. My feeling is, and I am basically someone who gave "Bowling for Columbine" 4 stars and have been a big fan of Michael Moore's in the past, and my politics, although I work for a conservative newspaper, "The New York Post," are very similar to Michael Moore. I just don't think he makes a convincing case against George Bush that's going to sway many people. He basically rehashes a bunch of old arguments, a bunch of old stories, that might seem like revelations to people in Europe who haven't been reading American newspapers and seeing American television, but will come across as pretty old news to Americans.
[Mann:] One of the other differences, I suppose, between people inside and outside the United States is that to many people, he's going to look like the victim of a large corporation that won't support his art because of his politics. When you look at his track record, has that been the case? Have there been efforts to silence him or censor him or keep his work from reaching a wide audience?
[Lumenick:] Not really. I mean, Warner Brothers, which is part of CNN's parent company, distributed "Roger and Me." MGM distributed "Bowling for Columbine." He's worked for the FOX NETWORK with a series. I mean, he's found a lot of support among multinational corporations in the past. I mean, in this case, is he being censored? I don't think he's being censored. He's just not getting the exact distribution he wants from the company he wants to get the distribution from. Is that censorship? I don't think so.
[Mann:] Is there a lesson in any of this for people like Al Franken, who are also trying to turn their politics into mass entertainment?
[Lumenick:] I think it's very difficult to turn politics into mass entertainment. I mean, Michael Moore managed to do that with "Bowling for Columbine" because it was the kind of subject that lent itself much more readily than 911, you know11" there are numerous scenes that are very forced. And when he goes out and feigns that he's shocked that the military tries to recruit people from minority neighborhoods and that congressmen's children aren't signing up for the military, I mean, it just comes off as, you know, nave.
[Mann:] Nave, and let me ask you if it comes across as true. I have not seen "Fahrenheit 911," but every time one of his works is reviewed, people point out a lot of inaccuracies in what he reports as fact. Is he still doing that today?
[Lumenick:] I didn't notice any worrying inaccuracies. I mean, I think if I fault him for anything, it's that he covers so much material and so many different angles to the Bush story that the treatment is superficial. He has to overly simplify issues.
[Mann:] Is there anyone, to you mind, on the right who is comparable to Michael Moore? I'm always stunned because he seems to get a very easy time in the media and I keep wondering if there was someone on the right who is publishing books, who is doing movies, that were as partisan, as polemical and as right wing as he seems to be liberal, that the media and a great many Americans would be uncomfortable with it.
[Lumenick:] Offhand, I can't even think of a right wing documentary. I mean, they just don't exist. Virtually every documentary I've ever seen has had a leftist bent to it. Conservative people just don't seem to be drawn to that particular form of moviemaking.
[Mann:] In fact, a lot of Americans aren't drawn to going to documentaries and Michael Moore is the rare exception. I'm just curious, how many people do you think are going to end up seeing "Fahrenheit 911"?
[Lumenick:] Actually, documentary audiences have grown in leaps and bounds in the last few years, particularly due to "Bowling for Columbine," which is by far the most successful documentary ever released. 150 million worldwide gross. And a lot of other pictures, like "Capturing the Freedmans," it's a small but growing market segment.
[Mann:] And this film?
[Lumenick:] This film? I think the film has generated so much publicity that when I came home from France, I mean, people were asking me about it nonstop and everybody tells me that they're dying to see it. I think he's succeeded in turning it into something of another "Passion of the Christ."
[Mann:] Well, we'll talk about that another day. Lou Lumenick, of "The New York Post," thanks so much for this.
[Lumenick:] My pleasure, Jonathan.
[Mann:] That's INSIGHT for this day. I'm Jonathan Mann. The news continues. END TO ORDER VIDEOTAPES AND TRANSCRIPTS OF CNN INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMMING, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE THE SECURE ONLINE ORDER FROM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com