David Talbot Quotes

In terms of mainstream media it's very difficult to break through if you're on the left.

I'm a political analyst. I'm a political wonk. I read everything I can get my hands on as a contributor to the 'Weekly Standard.' Of course I read that. I read the 'National Review' on the right. I read 'Mother Jones' on the left. If I want a good laugh, I'll watch MSNBC or read 'The Nation.'

There are so many political talk shows out there that are doing such a good job that it would be foolish of me to try to get in the ring with them.

MSNBC will never be as liberal as Fox is conservative.

If the media isn't slanted toward the Left, why is everyone so worried about my affiliation with Glenn Beck but not with Alec Baldwin?

I wonder about guys like Sean Hannity, Keith Olbermann and Mark Levin. They're on such a mission. I mean, I love Hannity and Levin to death, but on the radio they're insane. How can you keep that up?

I don't think I'm an angry person. I think I'm a person who's angry. I'm angry at the Bush administration; I'm angry at the right wing media. And by that I don't mean the media is right wing. I mean, there is a part of the media that's not the mainstream media. That's Fox, that is 'The Wall Street Journal' editorial page.

'Political junkies' and liberals will watch MSNBC, and angry, old right-wingers will watch Fox.

Many newspapers have become players as well as spectators in the political debate.

Progressives want a different sort of media than what the Right wants.

Liberals watch MSNBC; conservatives watch Fox. They don't want to hear ten seconds of a liberal on Fox, and they don't want to hear ten seconds of a conservative on MSNBC.

Liberal talk on the radio doesn't perform well because it is not a sequestered to a niche - it's everywhere in the media universe. Conservative talk radio, on the other hand, performs well because the radio is the only place, besides Fox News, that people can go for right-sphere opinions.

The questions I get invariably focus on Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, and Sean Hannity. It's no secret Hannity is conservative, and O'Reilly certainly is not a liberal. Beck goes well beyond conservatism to some very strange places.

The Washington media crowd, including conservative media, preaches to the choir of news junkies.

I really am convinced that what is happening in media today is the result of the birth of conservative media and its rapid growth and ascension. It has destroyed the left's monopoly in media. When they had the monopoly, they could pretend that they were not what they are and get away with it. They could pretend to be objective. You know, the power of a monopoly is not just determining what stories you are going to cover, but what you don't cover is just as powerful.

Steve Bannon has quoted as lamenting the fact that he predicts a "Fox News" that will be more centrist in the future. He came after our boss Rupert Murdoch in some unflattering terms.

Republicans now have their own network in Fox, so guys who don't like to answer questions, like Trent Lott, have a place to go to hit softballs.

Depending on what state you live in, you may only have right-wing talk radio and FOX or CBN with MSNBC three hundred channels down the dial.

Maybe it's true that people with less extreme views who are also interested in public affairs have been driven out by a marketplace that doesn't offer them anything of the tone they want to listen to.

News represents another form of advertising, not liberal propaganda.

There are a lot of folks at Fox News who bring a certain level of sophistication to their understanding of politics.

I have not watched Glenn Beck. I don't watch him.

The reason that conservative talk radio works is because there is an audience for it.

I get my information from the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Fox News.

The idea behind Mediaite was always to focus on the punditry, focus on the personalities behind the political media.