Posted on 04/26/2005 7:09:36 AM PDT by conservativecorner
Reacting to Bush White House counselor Karl Rove's contention that the Washington press corps is "less liberal than it is oppositional," Wall Street Journal political editor John Harwood, on Inside Washington over the weekend, conceded that ideology is what really drives how journalists see politicians: "I believe it is true that a significant chunk of the press believes that Democrats are incompetent but good-hearted, and Republicans are very efficient but evil."
Inside Washington, the successor to the old Agronsky & Company, is a weekend public affairs show which used to be carried by many PBS stations but is now just aired in Washington, DC at 11:30am Sunday mornings on the ABC affiliate, WJLA-TV, and the night before, at 7pm, on NewsChannel 8, an all-news cable channel owned by the same company as WJLA-TV, Albritton Communications.
On the same program last July, when it was produced at Washington's CBS affiliate and still carried by a few PBS stations, Newsweek Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas acknowledged how "the media want Kerry to win" and predicted the media would be worth 15 points to Kerry: "There's one other base here: the media. Let's talk a little media bias here. The media, I think, wants Kerry to win. And I think they're going to portray Kerry and Edwards -- I'm talking about the establishment media, not Fox, but -- they're going to portray Kerry and Edwards as being young and dynamic and optimistic and all, there's going to be this glow about them that some, is going to be worth, collectively, the two of them, that's going to be worth maybe 15 points."
For more about that appearance, see the July 12 CyberAlert: www.mediaresearch.org Thomas dialed back his prediction several months later. The October 19 CyberAlert recounted his comments on the October 17 Reliable Sources on CNN: Newsweek's Evan Thomas, who in July acknowledged that the media "want Kerry to win" and "that's going to be worth maybe 15 points" for the Kerry-Edwards ticket, on Sunday reaffirmed his belief that most reporters "absolutely" want Kerry to win, but on CNN's Reliable Sources he argued that his 15 point estimation was a "stupid thing to say." When host Howard Kurtz wondered if it is worth five points, Thomas acceded, "maybe." See: www.mediaresearch.org
Back to John Hardwood on this past weekend's Inside Washington: At the very end of the show, host Gordon Peterson asked Harwood to comment on Rove's remarks, delivered on Monday, April 18, at Washington College in Westchester, Maryland, as part of the Richard Harwood Lecture Series named after John Harwood's father who had been a long-time Washington Post reporter and editor who also served as the paper's ombudsman. John Harwood moderates the lectures.
John Harwood explained: "He gave a speech in the name of my father, Richard Harwood, who was the greatest media critic of his age. And he made the point that the press is oppositional in nature to a degree that is debilitating not just for Republican Presidents but Democratic Presidents. As for myself, I think that's a valid point. I would think the ideological point, which he downplayed in the speech, may be the more important one judging from the way the audience reactions are so segmented according to which media outlet they're looking at."
After comments from other panelists pleased with how Rove let them off the hook on bias, Harwood countered: "We can't lose sight of the ideological issue. I believe it is true that a significant chunk of the press believes that Democrats are incompetent but good-hearted, and Republicans are very efficient but evil."
For a picture and bio of John Harwood, who pens the weekly Capital Journal column for the Wall Street Journal, in addition to reporting for the paper and appearing regularly on MSNBC and PBS's Washington Week, go to: www.pbs.org
Or: www.wjla.com
Home page for Inside Washington: www.wjla.com
Home page for Washington College: www.washcoll.edu
The Washington Post's Dana Milbank jumped on Rove's downplaying of liberal bias. An excerpt from news story, "Rove's Reading: Not So Liberal as Leery," published on April 20:
....What lured Bush's most trusted adviser to this locale was an irresistible invitation: a chance to play media critic. For more than an hour, he lectured about everything that is wrong with journalism, and his conclusion may surprise conservatives such as Tom DeLay, who has been complaining in recent days about a "liberal media" smear campaign.
"I'm not sure I've talked about the liberal media," Rove said when a student inquired -- a decision he said he made "consciously." The press is generally liberal, he argued, but "I think it's less liberal than it is oppositional."
The argument -- similar to the one that former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer made in his recent book -- is nuanced, nonpartisan and, to the ears of many journalists, right on target. "Reporters now see their role less as discovering facts and fair-mindedly reporting the truth and more as being put on the earth to afflict the comfortable, to be a constant thorn of those in power, whether they are Republican or Democrat," Rove said.
His indictment of the media -- delivered as part of Washington College's Harwood Lecture Series, named for the late Washington Post editor and writer Richard Harwood -- had four parts: that there's been an explosion in the number of media outlets; that these outlets have an insatiable demand for content; that these changes create enormous competitive pressure; and that journalists have increasingly adopted an antagonistic attitude toward public officials. Beyond that, Rove argued that the press pays too much attention to polls and "horse-race" politics, and covers governing as if it were a campaign....
END of Excerpt
For Milbank's piece in full, which is quite snarky: www.washingtonpost.com
So what's new about this?
Well, that tells me something about journalist. When did fighting for God, country, babies, families and moral traditions become evil, and wanting to do away with all those things become "good hearted"?
Stop the planet, I wanna get off.
He's got it wrong. It's the other way around.
Woe to ye that call good 'evil' and evil 'good'.
Several years ago a lawyer friend commented that Jerry Brown's judicial appointments (california) "couldn't read, write, or think...but had their hearts in the right place". Later he amended the second part.
I am evil. He's right.
Only in journalistic warped minds, does this thinking occur.
Big Media is also under the delusion that most Americans are left of center but that many would-be Dem voters were scared into casting their votes for Bush. The truth is that most Republican-hating Democrat males I know are more conservative on social issues than I am. A lot of them are single-issue voters often times union membership being the single issue. If Big Media was just slightly fair in reporting the news, Bush would have gotten at least 55% of the vote...maybe 60%.
Geez, when I first read this, I thought it was a satire on Rush's comments on McNabb.
Well dah! The ratmedia is the democratic party so why would they say anything bad about themselves?
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