Saint Reagan, Ollie North and the "liberal media"

Via Atrios, I see this excerpt from Eric Alterman's forthcoming book, dealing with the way a Reagan administration PR effort and the irresponsibility of major parts of what many conservatives still manage to fantasize was and is "liberal media" convinced many in Congress that the Iran-Contra criminal Ollie North was some kind of popular hero.  When most regular Americans thought otherwise:

The irony of this situation is that the reported reaction of the country to North’s testimony was actually at odds with most Americans' profound disapproval of both his methods and his aims.  The committee’s unwillingness to prosecute North proved less a reaction to the genuine beliefs of the American people than to a phony 'Potemkin' pretense of a public reaction created by administration supporters and other conservative movement figures.  Most of the media fell for it as well.  Time, for instance, reported that "The Boy Scout and patriot had the nation rooting for him," while Newsweek subtitled its cover story "The 'Fall Guy' Becomes a Folk Hero."  Its attendant coverage argued that North "somehow embodied Jimmy Stewart, Gary Cooper and John Wayne in one bemedaled uniform."  The coverage in both newsweeklies was directly contradicted by published polls at the time, including their own.  Time’s own poll showed that 61 percent believed that the term "national hero" did not describe North.  According to Newsweek’s polls, 45 percent of respondents believed North was a patriot and a hero, while 48 percent did not.  On July 9, 1987 "The CBS Evening News with Dan Rather" reported, without evidence, that "ninety-six percent of you back North up, saying you approve of his actions."  The broadcast went on to compare North to Rambo and Dirty Harry.  Overall, in four separate polls taken in June and July of 1987, between 68 and 81 percent of Americans questioned disagreed with the appellation "hero" when applied to Oliver North.  The labels "villain," "victim," "dangerous,"  "fanatic," and "can be bought" proved considerably more popular.

This wasn't primarily the result of some ideological bent on the part of the reporters and media barons, though that may well have played a role.  It had more to do with the fecklessness of the mainstream media.