 November 24, 2004 - I’m in a rut. As a new writer (well I’m old, but new as a Rant columnist) I’ve hit the wall. Can’t seem to shake the topic of….liberal media bias. To my credit, I’m not the Lone Ranger in this regard. Virtually every political writer has been pounding the keys on this subject, almost non-stop during and since the 2004 campaign. And why not….even liberals, the honest ones at least, will surrender in agreement that the major TV networks shamelessly supported Senator Kerry throughout his presidential run, and their news was utterly and egregiously biased in that cause. Equally guilty too were those paramount publications that my hometown newspaper, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, philosophically and politically aligns itself with. That would be: The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. Their collective biased agenda, both TV and press, is so obvious and obstinate that the ‘M’ word (monopoly) has begun to increasingly creep into the writings of many who are as repulsed as I am with the current state of our journalistic conglomerate. But, despite my total disgust with the biased media, I had decided to move to another topic. That is, until today when I heard John Kerry discuss the reasons for his failure to win the presidency. I didn’t mind his excuse regarding his party’s failure to get out the vote, even though his people got him more votes than any other candidate, save President Bush, in the history of our nation. How’s that for gratitude? But rather, it was his comments regarding how FOX Cable News, Sinclair Broadcasting, and talk radio had done him in. This excuse was so pitifully lame that it deserves response and yet, more pounding on the keys by yours truly. The problem in Kerry’s statement is that he received an overwhelming advantage of favorable press and air coverage by the media throughout his campaign. That is, the media that avails itself to most Americans…..ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN. Hence, the verification that mainstream TV news is becoming a monopoly. FOX Cable News, whose slogan is ‘Fair and Balanced,’ reaches much fewer Americans, yet does, in fact, provide much less biased coverage than the aforementioned TV networks. FOX, unlike the other TV networks, attempts to sort out fact from fiction and stresses informing rather than reforming.  The Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc., was criticized by Kerry because they released a program entitled “Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal,” narrated by 17 American prisoners of war in North Vietnam who claimed that John Kerry’s 1971 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had both increased their suffering and prolonged their internment. While there is no proof that Kerry’s 1971 Congressional testimony did, in fact, cause more torture and lengthened POW internment, there was no doubt that the testimony of these true American heroes gravely wounded the man who reported for duty at the Democratic National Convention impersonating himself as a Vietnam war hero. I saw ‘Stolen Honor,‘ albeit at 12:30 AM, one of the limited showings in the Atlanta Metro area, and the comments directed at Kerry were damning, particularly coming from this band of 17 brothers, brothers who had a helluva lot more than 120 days of honorable duty under their belt. Talk radio lives and dies by numbers. The success of conservative talk radio is a reflection of the market. There are alternatives to conservative radio….just push a button or twist of the dial. Interestingly, liberal talk radio has been tried repeatedly, only to fail. Its failure always equates to audience numbers and profits, but I prefer to believe that that liberal media fails because it is not attuned to America’s main street moral values. The majority of Americans reject homosexual marriage, denounce secularism, and abortion as a means of birth control. They believe in the right to bear arms and they believe in fighting and winning the global war against terrorism. They despise the condescending reference to being labeled evangelical morons and want to continue referring to God in pledges and wherever and whenever they please. The success of conservative radio broadcasts a dismal story for liberals. Throughout Senator Kerry‘s presidential run there were numerous opportunities for repudiating his performance as a heroic sailor. Most of that information could be delved from the book, “Unfit For Command.” Or, from many of Senator Kerry’s Swift Boat contemporaries. Thousands of veterans sought affiliation to the cause of Vietnam Veterans for Truth and they likewise had a story to tell about this man who had once called them all war criminals. Yet, there was never any attempt to discredit this man who threw away his medals in protest, then somehow later recovered them to be displayed in his Senate office. There never was mention of the book that John Kerry authored, “The New Soldier,” the antithesis of the kind of military leader that John Kerry would have you believe he represented. Nothing was ever heard of his leadership role in the anti-war organization, Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Nor was anything said about John Kerry’s photograph being displayed in North Vietnam’s War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City where he is recognized as THEIR war hero. Nor did the mainstream media let us know that Senator John Kerry still refuses to sign a Standard Form 180 which would open his military records for public review. And John Kerry thinks FOX, Sinclair, and talk radio did him in? Really! What do you suppose the margin of the Republican victory would have been if John Kerry had been asked to stand up to the scrutiny of a non-partisan mainstream TV media and the elite press? Certainly, way beyond three points. Unfortunately, the current de factor perspective of the mainstream media has become, in effect, propaganda, the unfair and unbalanced kind. News has gone from information to reformation. You can’t blame all the Kerry voters for voting for the wrong man. Without the full story, coupled with biased reporting, decision making becomes fuzzy, even for the Hollywood intelligentsia. You know what….I’m not in a rut. If anybody is in a rut…it’s the mainstream news media. They are the ones responsible for polarizing our country and if they want to gain the some semblance of credibility they think they deserve, then they better find a way to climb out of the rut they’ve dug for themselves. |
