Posted on 10/30/2008 6:16:27 PM PDT by chet_in_ny
Regardless of who wins the presidential election, one outcome of the 2008 campaign is decided: This year, major media outlets by and large dropped the pretense of objectivity and fairness to support the Democratic presidential candidate.
Historically, the major media organizations claimed some form of objectivity or at least balance. Not anymore. (On the other side, Fox News, despite its marketing slogan, is just as bad, although more upfront about its bias.)
In some ways, it’s the nature of the beast. Taxing, spending and redistribution are falsely interpreted as charity: giving comfort and aid to people who have the least. Many journalists choose their career to bring to light the problems of the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
The anecdotal evidence of bold, overt and unapologetic bias seems endless. That’s why a Pew Research Center poll released last week showed that by a whopping 70 percent margin, Americans say “most journalists want to see Obama, not John Mc-Cain, win on Nov. 4.”
Let’s let one example suffice: The Media Research Center reported Oct. 2 that ABC’s “Good Morning America” skipped reporting the results of its own poll, which showed a tight race between Sens. Obama and McCain in Florida and Ohio. Instead, it reported a Quinnipiac poll that showed far more favorable results for Sen. Obama.
The mainstream media have rightly given scant attention to silly GOP-driven scandals, like the one that portrays Sen. Obama as the bosom buddy of some loser who tried to terrorize his own country when Sen. Obama was 8 years old. The connection has been amply reported, and it is pretty thin.
Yet mainstream journalists burned substantial print space and air time alerting us that donors spent $150,000 to outfit Sarah Palin for the campaign. Given the candidate’s self-crafted image of hockey mom, that’s a legitimate story, but the coverage was extreme.
This development is not all bad, however. At least most Americans see it and can have a more honest relationship with the national media of all stripes.
Outside of the sciences, objectivity died a long time ago, the victim of deconstructionism, ‘critical [fill in the blank] studies’, and post-modernism.
It’s just that now the corpse is starting to stink so that the general public can smell it.
If Obama wins, he already has his propaganda machine in place: NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN. Marxist government with a marketing news media already established. Sheeple, beware.
The good news is that enough Americans are not complete rubes and the more slanted the MSM becomes, the less relevante they will be.
Americans are currently in the process of defunding the MSM through massive decreases in circulation and viewership of MSM products.
The MSM may be acting as boldly as they are now because they believe this is their last chance to have enough clout to have an impact. This could be the equivalent of a bubble about to burst ... or more like a dead cat bounce.
Right. Objective reporting would report that it’s not the fact that Obama was 8. The interesting thing is that you have a friend that is an American terrorist.
I don’t have any friends that are terrorists, or cop killers, or PLO connections, pastors that say God Damm America, and so on.
Isn’t there anyone out there in news land that has a conscience? or common sense?
ping
About as thin as that family chowing down shown in Obama's "Larouche moment."
Yet when you add Ayers to Pfleger to Rezko to the Israel hating Palestinian to Rev Wright, you begin to see a pattern of associations with a lot of people who literally hate the United States.
You're being to generous to the sciences. Case in point is anthropogenic global warming and a whole host of other more minor junk science nonsense. Science lost much of its objectivity when it became dependent on government grants.
The outcomes of far to many "scientific" studies are motivated purely by politics.
Associations with such individuals would cause me to lose my security clearance. I can't even be in the same room with such people, whether I knew them personally or not.
You may underestimate their ambitions. Aggressive government regulation can keep the MSM alive, and eliminate its competitors.
In a year or two it may not. May get your a promotion.
A long time ago in a career far away I wrote stories for the mainstream media. It’s the awful truth. Everything that you hear about the leftwing bias of the print media is true, except the details are even worse than you can imagine. Eventually, I quit. Like I said, this was a while ago, when Newt and Bill were fighting over school lunch money.
However, let me speak up for lack of objectivity. Lack of objectivity is the human norm. Nobody comes to the table without some kind of prevailing bias. The hope is that your bias and prejudice is based on sound judgment and moral virtue, but nobody leaves without having an opinion.
I used to publish a little history column at the bottom of my editorial when I ran this weekly paper in the People’s Republic of Oregon. In the year 1900, there were three papers in this little town of 3,000 - a Republican paper, a Democrat paper, and a Populist paper. All three were wildly popular. All three were spectacularly biased in their presentation of the news. I’m sure that reading these tiny town rags were the chief source of entertainment for the week.
Ninety years later I’m reading this stuff and thinking about the “objectivity” I’m supposed to be seeing in print, but seeing nowhere, and hearing nowhere among the journalists I worked with. Around this time I discovered Rush, the classic nonobjective voice. Entertaining, pointed, and biased - and honest and open about those biases. When I listen to Rush, I know what I’m getting and where it comes from. Ditto Hannity, Savage, O’Reilly, Ingram, and all the other talkers. They wear their biases right on their sleeves. That way, when I hear their presentation, I can understand why they’re saying what they’re saying and choosing the stories that they’re choosing to comment on.
Liberal and leftist media don’t do that. Obama is clearly a Marxist, yet goes to great lengths to hide it. The New York Times has been a leftist rag for as long as I remember, yet they claim a status of sitting above as all, the gatekeeper of knowledge for the masses. If the Times would just come out and say, “Yes, we’re leftists, and we support the Democrat party,” a lot of people would breathe a sigh of relief.
People aren’t interested in objectivity. They’re interested in honesty. That honesty starts with a clear understanding of the reporter’s motives and beliefs. In the old days, a community newspaper would defend its little town, support local businesses, and be a bulldog for local causes - again, not objective, but you knew where they stood. In the modern media, advocates travel from town to town, advocating for liberal causes, but hiding beneath a cloak of objective reporting. That kind of dishonesty shines like a light in the darkness. No wonder circulation numbers continue their decline, while talk radio and Internet readership soar.
People know that everyone has a viewpoint. All media should simply state theirs and then tell their side of the story. People will read it and make up their minds. It’s just hard to do when some parts of the media hide their intentions behind noble-sounding lies.
David Broder is the archetype whereof you speak. I think he must have smoked a pipe at one time -- it would seem to fit with his gig, which is much the same as you describe for the (old) New York Times, pre-Pinch.
During an election-night soiree, I guess it was 2004, Broder was participating in a TV roundtable -- I think it was ABC. Suddenly someone mentioned the name of Alan Keyes, and Broder's mask slipped. His lips twisted in a sneer, and a snarl escaped before he buttoned up again and resumed his professorial shtick. I had to laugh. At least someone had found his hot button.
Good story- we won’t hold your past associations against you ;)
“Regardless of who wins the presidential election, one outcome of the 2008 campaign is decided: This year, major media outlets by and large dropped the pretense of objectivity and fairness to support the Democratic presidential candidate.”
As this article demonstrates.
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