My take.... I like some on here, like Krugman, Huffington, and Friedman (was he on?) But...
The thing that troubles me about this list is the thing that always troubles me when discussions of intellectualism and liberal movers and shakers come up: where the Black people at? Do you realize that the only black person on this entire list is Oprah Winfrey? That's odd. Okay, I get she's one of the most known celebrities in the world, I get that she's openly spoken of her support for gay rights and other liberal issues. But has Winfrey really pushed and shaped what can be called a "liberal" agenda? I know a lot of women who've followed her for years, and many can hardly be called liberal. Sure, she was an early supporter of Obama, but come on! Forbes seems to be saying they chose her for her *potential* power to push liberal topics, but Winfrey has been famously hesitant to do so. Outside of her niche of discussing life issues--which can range from spirituality to diet, from intimacy problems with couples to the latest book she loves--I don't consider her a liberal power broker. Winfrey aside, where are the Cornel Wests and Tavis Smiley's, or Donna Brazile? Where are all those black political and social pundits all the network news shows finally deemed worthy to seek out during this recent election cycle? For that matter, where is Tom Joyner, who may be "Just a DJ" (his words), but who reaches millions of people daily with his TJMS show. Joyner, who was part of the special group allowed access to the Clintons, who's had several interviews with Obama, who raises millions for HBCUs and arguably did as much as any single person to get blacks to vote in November? If the recent focus on blacks in politics brought about by Obama's run for the White House proved nothing else, it's that there are a lot of black people out there who can be deemed to be just as "intellectual", just as brilliant in their analyses of not just black issues, but economics, sociology, war, nuclear power and energy, etc., as the whites who get all the press. I know because i watched and listened to a lot of them on everything from Jim Lehrer to MSNBC. Oh, I get it: they said "influential liberals". Well maybe these folk need to start listening to some other people so they can have influence too. Maybe who *you* deem influential and who i deem influential needs to be looked at more closely. I despise the term "elitist", such as how it was hurled at the Obamas, but lists like this do bring to my mind one definition of that term. It smacks of the in-crowd of who's hip and cool, who's on the blogs and TV programs, who gets the New York Times space for their writings. But it also smacks of a type of insularity, a narrow focus on people who may be intellectual giants, and maybe even be "down" in some ways, but can't possibly understand me and all my unique viewpoints as a *black* liberal. Seems to me that this is the crux of an issue we've long had in America: this divide between those deemed important and worthy, and what black people deem important and worthy. It reminds me of the divides between blacks and whites in the so-called Feminist Movement, the huge gap that's barely bridged in the Gay Rights push, in the way the Democratic party has often taken us out of the closet during election time, then said "okay, we got it now" when that's done. This list may be inaccurate. If so it needs to be corrected. Or it may be accurate. If so, it needs to be corrected, and the writers need to do some more active listening to and trumpeting of the other voices out there. I'd hate to think that, with the success of Obama, what will be seen in the final analysis is only some large "post-racial" movement that's still somehow led by whites, while blacks are minimized again to reliable followers and voters, but not among the intellectuals and thinkers who are helping shape this new world into which we're entering. ******************************************* http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/22/influential-media-obama-oped-cx_tv_ee_hra_0122l iberal.html The 25 Most Influential Liberals In The U.S. Media Edited by Tunku Varadarajan, Elisabeth Eaves and Hana R. Alberts, 01.22.09, 04:02 PM EST Listen for their voices during the Obama era. Barack Obama's inauguration was the formal point at which the reigning ideology in Washington changed from "conservative" to "liberal." We use those terms without apology, as they are used in American political discourse. Broadly, a "liberal' subscribes to some or all of the following: progressive income taxation; universal health care of some kind; opposition to the war in Iraq, and a certain queasiness about the war on terror; an instinctive preference for international diplomacy; the right to gay marriage; a woman's right to an abortion; environmentalism in some Kyoto Protocol-friendly form; and a rejection of the McCain-Palin ticket. In Depth: The 25 Most Influential Liberals In The U.S. Media In recognition of the role played by the media in our national debate, Forbes.com nominates, here, 25 of America's most consequential liberal journalists and media personalities. Our list includes newspaper editors and columnists, magazine writers, television anchors and commentators, as well as one TV personality more commonly regarded as an entertainer. It also includes--how could it not?--a number of bloggers, all of whom have made an emphatic mark on the modern American Conversation. The exercise is subjective, by definition, and Forbes Opinions editors canvassed the views of more than 100 academics, politicians and journalists. The list that follows is a distillation of that survey. Tunku Varadarajan, a professor at the Stern Business School at New York University and research fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, is opinions editor at Forbes, where he writes a weekly online column. Elisabeth Eaves is a deputy editor at Forbes, where she also writes a weekly online column. Hana R. Alberts is the Opinions reporter at Forbes.
