Posted on 10/24/2008 2:26:54 PM PDT by coffee260
The traditional media is playing a very, very dangerous game. With its readers, with the Constitution, and with its own fate.
The sheer bias in the print and television coverage of this election campaign is not just bewildering, but appalling. And over the last few months I’ve found myself slowly moving from shaking my head at the obvious one-sided reporting, to actually shouting at the screen of my television and my laptop computer.
But worst of all, for the last couple weeks, I’ve begun — for the first time in my adult life — to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living. A few days ago, when asked by a new acquaintance what I did for a living, I replied that I was “a writer”, because I couldn’t bring myself to admit to a stranger that I’m a journalist.
You need to understand how painful this is for me. I am one of those people who truly bleeds ink when I’m cut. I am a fourth generation newspaperman. As family history tells it, my great-grandfather was a newspaper editor in Abilene, Kansas during the last of the cowboy days, then moved to Oregon to help start the Oregon Journal (now the Oregonian). My hard-living - and when I knew her, scary - grandmother was one of the first women reporters for the Los Angeles Times. And my father, though profoundly dyslexic, followed a long career in intelligence to finish his life (thanks to word processors and spellcheckers) as a very successful freelance writer. I’ve spent thirty years in every part of journalism, from beat reporter to magazine editor. And my oldest son, following in the family business, so to speak, earned his first national by-line before he earned his drivers license.
So, when I say I’m deeply ashamed right now to be called a “journalist”, you can imagine just how deep that cuts into my soul.
Now, of course, there’s always been bias in the media. Human beings are biased, so the work they do, including reporting, is inevitably colored. Hell, I can show you ten different ways to color variations of the word “said” - muttered, shouted, announced, reluctantly replied, responded, etc. - to influence the way a reader will apprehend exactly the same quote. We all learn that in Reporting 101, or at least in the first few weeks working in a newsroom. But what we are also supposed to learn during that same apprenticeship is to recognize the dangerous power of that technique, and many others, and develop built-in alarms against their unconscious.
But even more important, we are also supposed to be taught that even though there is no such thing as pure, Platonic objectivity in reporting, we are to spend our careers struggling to approach that ideal as closely as possible. That means constantly challenging our own prejudices, systematically presenting opposing views, and never, ever burying stories that contradict our own world views or challenge people or institutions we admire. If we can’t achieve Olympian detachment, than at least we can recognize human frailty - especially in ourselves.
For many years, spotting bias in reporting was a little parlor game of mine, watching TV news or reading a newspaper article and spotting how the reporter had inserted, often unconsciously, his or her own preconceptions. But I always wrote it off as bad judgment, and lack of professionalism, rather than bad faith and conscious advocacy. Sure, being a child of the ‘60s I saw a lot of subjective “New” Journalism, and did a fair amount of it myself, but that kind of writing, like columns and editorials, was supposed to be segregated from ‘real’ reporting, and at least in mainstream media, usually was. The same was true for the emerging blogosphere, which by its very nature was opinionated and biased.
But my complacent faith in my peers first began to be shaken when some of the most admired journalists in the country were exposed as plagiarists, or worse, accused of making up stories from whole cloth. I’d spent my entire professional career scrupulously pounding out endless dreary footnotes and double-checking sources to make sure that I never got accused of lying or stealing someone else’s work - not out any native honesty, but out of fear: I’d always been told to fake or steal a story was a firing offense . . .indeed, it meant being blackballed out of the profession.
And yet, few of those worthies ever seemed to get fired for their crimes - and if they did they were soon rehired into an even more prestigious jobs. It seemed as if there were two sets of rules: one for us workaday journalists toiling out in the sticks, and another for folks who’d managed, through talent or deceit, to make it to the national level.
Meanwhile, I watched with disbelief as the nation’s leading newspapers, many of whom I’d written for in the past, slowly let opinion pieces creep into the news section, and from there onto the front page. Personal opinions and comments that, had they appeared in my stories in 1979, would have gotten my butt kicked by the nearest copy editor, were now standard operating procedure at the New York Times, the Washington Post, and soon after in almost every small town paper in the U.S.
But what really shattered my faith - and I know the day and place where it happened - was the War in Lebanon three summers ago. The hotel I was staying at in Windhoek, Namibia only carried CNN, a network I’d already learned to approach with skepticism. But this was CNN International, which is even worse. I sat there, first with my jaw hanging down, then actually shouting at the TV, as one field reporter after another reported the carnage of the Israeli attacks on Beirut, with almost no corresponding coverage of the Hezbollah missiles raining down on northern Israel. The reporting was so utterly and shamelessly biased that I sat there for hours watching, assuming that eventually CNNi would get around to telling the rest of the story . . .but it never happened.
But nothing, nothing I’ve seen has matched the media bias on display in the current Presidential campaign. Republicans are justifiably foaming at the mouth over the sheer one-sidedness of the press coverage of the two candidates and their running mates. But in the last few days, even Democrats, who have been gloating over the pass - no, make that shameless support - they’ve gotten from the press, are starting to get uncomfortable as they realize that no one wins in the long run when we don’t have a free and fair press. I was one of the first people in the traditional media to call for the firing of Dan Rather - not because of his phony story, but because he refused to admit his mistake - but, bless him, even Gunga Dan thinks the media is one-sided in this election.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those people who think the media has been too hard on, say, Gov. Palin, by rushing reportorial SWAT teams to Alaska to rifle through her garbage. This is the Big Leagues, and if she wants to suit up and take the field, then Gov. Palin better be ready to play. The few instances where I think the press has gone too far - such as the Times reporter talking to Cindy McCain’s daughter’s MySpace friends - can easily be solved with a few newsroom smackdowns and temporary repostings to the Omaha Bureau.
No, what I object to (and I think most other Americans do as well) is the lack of equivalent hardball coverage of the other side - or worse, actively serving as attack dogs for Senators Obama and Biden. If the current polls are correct, we are about to elect as President of the United States a man who is essentially a cipher, who has left almost no paper trail, seems to have few friends (that at least will talk) and has entire years missing out of his biography. That isn’t Sen. Obama’s fault: his job is to put his best face forward. No, it is the traditional media’s fault, for it alone (unlike the alternative media) has had the resources to cover this story properly, and has systematically refused to do so.
Why, for example to quote McCain’s lawyer, haven’t we seen an interview with Sen. Obama’s grad school drug dealer - when we know all about Mrs. McCain’s addiction? Are Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko that hard to interview? All those phony voter registrations that hard to scrutinize? And why are Senator Biden’s endless gaffes almost always covered up, or rationalized, by the traditional media?
The absolute nadir (though I hate to commit to that, as we still have two weeks before the election) came with Joe the Plumber. Middle America, even when they didn’t agree with Joe, looked on in horror as the press took apart the private life of an average person who had the temerity to ask a tough question of a Presidential candidate. So much for the Standing Up for the Little Man, so much for Speaking Truth to Power, so much for Comforting the Afflicting and Afflicting the Comfortable, and all of those other catchphrases we journalists used to believe we lived by.
I learned a long time ago that when people or institutions begin to behave in a matter that seems to be entirely against their own interests, it’s because we don’t understand what their motives really are. It would seem that by so exposing their biases and betting everything on one candidate over another, the traditional media is trying to commit suicide - especially when, given our currently volatile world and economy, the chances of a successful Obama presidency, indeed any presidency, is probably less than 50:50.
Furthermore, I also happen to believe that most reporters, whatever their political bias, are human torpedoes . . .and, had they been unleashed, would have raced in and roughed up the Obama campaign as much as they did McCain’s. That’s what reporters do, I was proud to have been one, and I’m still drawn to a good story, any good story, like a shark to blood in the water.
So why weren’t those legions of hungry reporters set loose on the Obama campaign? Who are the real villains in this story of mainstream media betrayal?
The editors. The men and women you don’t see; the people who not only decide what goes in the paper, but what doesn’t; the managers who give the reporters their assignments and lay-out the editorial pages. They are the real culprits.
Why? I think I know, because had my life taken a different path, I could have been one: Picture yourself in your 50s in a job where you’ve spent 30 years working your way to the top, to the cockpit of power . . . only to discover that you’re presiding over a dying industry. The Internet and alternative media are stealing your readers, your advertisers and your top young talent. Many of your peers shrewdly took golden parachutes and disappeared. Your job doesn’t have anywhere near the power and influence it did when your started your climb. The Newspaper Guild is too weak to protect you any more, and there is a very good chance you’ll lose your job before you cross that finish line, ten years hence, of retirement and a pension.
In other words, you are facing career catastrophe -and desperate times call for desperate measures. Even if you have to risk everything on a single Hail Mary play. Even if you have to compromise the principles that got you here. After all, newspapers and network news are doomed anyway - all that counts is keeping them on life support until you can retire.
And then the opportunity presents itself: an attractive young candidate whose politics likely matches yours, but more important, he offers the prospect of a transformed Washington with the power to fix everything that has gone wrong in your career. With luck, this monolithic, single-party government will crush the alternative media via a revived Fairness Doctrine, re-invigorate unions by getting rid of secret votes, and just maybe, be beholden to people like you in the traditional media for getting it there.
And besides, you tell yourself, it’s all for the good of the country . . .
This guy gets it. The NY Times debt, I think, got downgraded today. The paper is dying as are others. The NY Times cannot die fast enough to save millions of trees. The Washington Post will survive and the WSJ might though they have gotten so lib lately.
The MSM network news is getting hurt more. Rating are down big recently because the public is sick of propaganda.
Foolishly, Murdoch (Fox & WSJ) are moving towards the left in fear Obama might win.
Pretty good but I laughed when I read the following sentence.
“But in the last few days, even Democrats, who have been gloating over the pass - no, make that shameless support - they’ve gotten from the press, are starting to get uncomfortable as they realize that no one wins in the long run when we don’t have a free and fair press”.
OUTSTANDING article by Michael S. Malone. Thanks for posting.
Deep in the back of my mind, I see an ‘All the President’s Men’ on 0bama. But I fear the timing will be after the election.
I've heard and read that Obama is visiting his gravely ill grandmother countless times in the past couple of days. Journalists can't communicate without bias anymore, regardless of what they are taught.
I agree with this arguement 100%. The MSM is buying time. Obama might just do it for them. Smarten up America.
We need to go back to a Conservative media vs. Leftist Media (I refuse to call them "liberals" because of their close-mindedness).
Too late....the MSM/DNC/Hollywood/Academia machine have already dumbed down America.
Our fellow Americans will not save us, nor will our Representatives in Washington.
We are basically underground now....act accordingly...hide your wealth....plan an insurgency...we are on our own.
THE TALKING HEAD IS A THIEF.
Bump
What the author forgets or does no know is liberal play book. Obama knows that if the media has the power to get him into office, they have the power to get him out of office.
The media needs to remember that they are the "useful idiots" who will be disposed of if "the one" gains the power of the Presidency.
Excellent analysis that I find rather compelling although I disagree with a few of Malone's conclusions, such as the one that lays all the blame for media bias at the feet of editors, which I think it a presumption that ignores other factors, such as the long-time tendency of journalists to 'lean left' and, more importantly, the steadily-building leftist anger at losing two consecutive presidential elections to George W. Bush, a man they view as a moron, considering that, in my experience, liberals prize their assumed intellectual superiority over 'the rest of us' (clinging to our guns and religion).
Since 2001, the attacks on President Bush from the leftist media have grown increasing strident with only a slight public backlash. Let's face it, we all knew this would be a vicious presidential campaign, and it has been. The left-wing's attacks on Alaska Governor and GOP Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin would have been unheard of and unacceptable just a decade ago. Now, they are routine. Yes, the 'dinosaur media' is clearly losing readers and viewers but to see all this as a last gasp of media editors is just a bit too pat.
I see rank desperation from the left. They foisted Bill Clinton on the American voter and got away with it. I suspect the leftist elites assumed that America would put up with anything if their guy was charming enough. Enter, Barack Obama. In the leftmedia, to oppose Obama is 'racist'. To savage Sarah Palin is 'just hardball politics'. This passes for conventional media wisdom. I believe (possibly naively) that the majority of Americans are sick of leftist tactics, don't trust Obama, like Sarah Palin and can accept McCain. The result: Obama loses on November 4th, despite the huge media effort to elect him. Oh, the left will riot in the streets and express their anger and contempt at the American voter by screaming 'racism' and 'voter fraud'. Of course, the Democrats only yell 'fraud' when they lose, making that charge less than convincing, especially in the wake of the ACORN scandal.
In any case, Sarah Palin will probably drag McCain over the finish line, first. Not a real victory for conservatives, unless we act on it, basically ignore McCain (as he'll ignore our concerns) and rapidly promote Sarah Palin as the head of the party, displacing the neo-cons who stand in the way of victory and a sensible government.
If the MSM thinks it will be all sunshine and roses if 0bama gets elected, they are in for a rude awakening. Just let them try and write a negative story on his highness and watch the brownshirted ‘truth squad’ pay them a visit.
He is right about the bias and who is ultimately behind the paper media’s lies. However, he is wrong about the motives of the editors,they are not doing it because they see their jobs dying, they started this left wing bias 60 or more years ago when paper news was still strong.They are doing it because they are Marxists and have spent their life working up to this point in time where they are betting everything on this last roll of the dice in hopes of placing a communist into the WH. That is the real reason for the bias. Even though he gets the bias he is far to kind to his fellow journalist that have jumped the shark and landed on the side of traitors and dictators.
> FANTASTIC!!!
I would use another descriptive here; it IS, however, extraordinarily well written.
Excellent post. I no longer permit these MSM cretin to enter my house, either in print or electronically.
OMG - This is the most insightful article I’ve read about the MSM since Okrent left the New York Times. Stunning and chilling. Thanks for sharing.
Can someone send this to Hannity and Rush? And Krauthammer.
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