If you listened to Stephanie Miller Thursday you couldn’t help but hear the message over and over and over: Democrats need media.

After an election that saw the Republican candidate receive billions of dollars worth of free and very friendly media it should be wildly apparent that the media landscape in this country is horribly skewed to one side.

In the national landscape I can name only one national media outlet that is consistently liberal. That is Free Speech TV.

Many look to NPR as a liberal outlet. In my opinion that is a ship that sailed long ago. NPR seems to be more than anything trying to avoid stepping on any toes and making anyone angry. In pursuit of that, they give their megaphone with its patina of trustworthiness to the likes of Tucker Carlson and Jonah Goldberg this last cycle to spread their lies.

For some, the liberal oasis nationally is MSNBC. Currently that is true only for three hours in the evening. Beyond that any fairness to the left is hard to find.

The major problem with MSNBC is that they are owned by a right wing corporation – Comcast – which has shown recently that they have no allegiance to helping spread any lefty message. Ask Ed Schultz or Al Sharpton. Do you think Hayes, Maddow or O’Donnell will be immune to a corporate policy change?

Many of us have felt as though the internet was our refuge. The new president has almost no moral or political guidelines and usually doesn’t care to get into details. So expect him to pass policies such as controlling the internet off to someone else, most likely congress. Republican in congress have made their desire to hand the internet over to corporate control very plain and open. So in a couple of years we will probably be looking at a very different internet configuration in the US. You can bet it will not favor liberals or progressives.

As far as I know in Iowa NPR is far to the left of everything else which tells you a lot about the media in Iowa. A progressive in Iowa as with many throughout the country probably has to do what I do on a daily basis – go to the internet and search for radio from Minneapolis (KTNF) or Chicago (WCPT) or progressive podcasts.

Most people don’t want to do that. Most people come home from a day of work tired and hungry and most likely frustrated. They come to a home where their spouse most likely works also. Their lot in life is often not what they expected. When it comes to fulfilling his civic duty he or she doesn’t want to have to search to find what is going on. They are more than happy to turn on the TV and let the TV download their (the network’s) version of the news to themselves as a news consumer.

In that somewhat passive move the chances of a consumer getting any fair representation of what happened is nearly zero. The chances of getting a back story of how stories evolved are even less.

Democrats need media. I hope someone in Democratic leadership is listening. With a media that favors one side, no matter how onerous their message or their candidates are, that party will have the upper hand.

Unfortunately media costs a ton of money, but right now it appears to be the price of admission for today’s political game.

For folks in Iowa City, there is an actual group of progressives working to get a foot in the door. Radio station KICI is getting close to going live. This is one place where your dollars can be really make a difference! Here is their gofundme page. Make a difference now and help out.