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‘Cheering in the Pressbox’
The National Review ^ | June 29, 2010 | Jay Nordlinger

Posted on 06/30/2010 11:28:21 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

This afternoon, I wrote a long, rather huffy post on liberal media bias. It was prompted by 1) those reporters who were caught on tape trashing Sarah Palin, and 2) the David Weigel affair. I have deep-sixed the post, however — spiked it. I can huff about media bias again, as I have in the past. (And I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll — not budge the house an inch.)

Let me instead say this: I think many of my conservative colleagues are far too gingerly when it comes to liberal media bias. Far too timid, delicate, and forgiving. For a long time, complaining about media bias has been seen as uncouth. It’s something we all need to learn to live with, like death, taxes, and mosquitoes. Don’t be uncool by bitching about it, man.

I wish I could find an Abe Rosenthal column, written many years ago. It was about the reluctance of Jews to call anti-Semitism anti-Semitism, when anti-Semitism presented itself. They were eternally worried about “crying anti-Semitism” — so they stayed mute, when they should have been crying.

So unusual was this column, it was thrilling.

It’s hard to know just when to pull the trigger — entirely a matter of judgment. Some people are too quick on the anti-Semitism trigger (or the racism trigger), and some people are too slow. It takes real judgment — real knowing — to pull it at exactly the right moment.

Every now and then, the curtain is pulled back on the mainstream media — and we see how these guys talk and act when they’re at their most authentic. This is important. Liberal media bias is maybe something we all have to live with, but that doesn’t mean it’s something to ignore, be blasé about, or excuse.

I’m grateful to both Walter Cronkite and Barbara Walters for something: They admitted, yes, the media are liberal, and a good thing, too. It has to be that way, they said. For — and this is Walters talking — journalism involves the “human condition,” and liberals care about the human condition. Unlike conservatives, who of course couldn’t give a rat’s a** about the human condition.

Anyway . . . Conservatives should be frank and bold when it comes to the media, as to everything else. And if others say you’re tiresome or whiny or uncool . . . well, so be it. Did you sign up for conservatism to be cool?

One more thing, before I go: I have a friend who’s an old-school political reporter, practically a dinosaur. He stresses the principle, “No cheering in the pressbox” — a statement taken from sports journalism, obviously. No cheering in the pressbox? The guys I have in mind — mainstream-media reporters all — don’t so much cheer as turn cartwheels while blowing on vuvuzelas. And they are cartwheeling and blowing for the Democratic party.


TOPICS: Conspiracy; Government; Local News; Politics
KEYWORDS: daveweigel; democrats; jourbalism; journolist; mediabias; msm; palin; sarahpalin
Comments?
1 posted on 06/30/2010 11:28:24 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

“Comments?”

Every ideology has to run it’s inevitable course.


2 posted on 06/30/2010 11:35:08 AM PDT by PetroniusMaximus
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
About time someone took the "Me Too" choir of "Conservative" media pundits to the woodshed on this issue

. They are total cowards about taking on the Establishment Media and it's bigoted partisan reporting habits.

3 posted on 06/30/2010 11:36:04 AM PDT by MNJohnnie (The problem with Socialism is eventually you run our of other peoples money. Lady Thatcher)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Conservatives (and in particular RINOS) should never be ashamed of being the party of NO in these dire times when our Nation is being trashed and destroyed. Grow a pair and don't ever be afraid of standing tall - these are not times we need to be "reaching across the aisle" - to hell.
4 posted on 06/30/2010 11:37:12 AM PDT by Cheerio (Barry Hussein Soetoro-0bama=The Complete Destruction of American Capitalism)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The press in the US has never been neutral.

The idea of the press being impartial is a relatively new assertion, and it is quickly eroding for obvious reasons.

The press is terrribly biased. Always has been; always will be.

I used to be a reporter. I was a liberal then - a knee-jerk liberal. But that all ended when I grew up and had to meet a payroll. Hah!

You would be astonished how ignorant some members of the press are. My experience is this: The bigger, the more ignorant. Think Helen Thomas, for instance.

“Cheering from the press box”? It never stopped, and never will.


5 posted on 06/30/2010 11:58:39 AM PDT by RexBeach
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To: PetroniusMaximus

> Every ideology has to run it’s inevitable course.

Well, yes, except that Liberalism/Leftism/Progressivism/Marxism/Communism have run their bloody courses many times over, having failed miserably and barbarically, each and every time.

Yet, the pie-eyed kool-aid drinkers keep coming back for more.


6 posted on 06/30/2010 12:08:11 PM PDT by Westbrook (Having more children does not divide your love, it multiplies it.)
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To: RexBeach

I knew fellow students who went to J school, empty headed liberals all. Pot smokers and dabblers in acid and mushrooms. And it shows in what has become American Journalism, an embarrassing gush of Left Agenda Emotional Crap. 99% of stories written by the generation educated since 1968 is horrible, mushy, limp and weepy.

It’s a damn shame


7 posted on 06/30/2010 12:17:50 PM PDT by moodyskeptic (the counterculture votes R)
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To: Westbrook

“Well, yes, except that Liberalism/Leftism/Progressivism/Marxism/Communism have run their bloody courses many times over, having failed miserably and barbarically, each and every time.”

And what does that historical data indicate regarding American liberalism?

It indicates that they will crash the system.


8 posted on 06/30/2010 12:18:27 PM PDT by PetroniusMaximus
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To: RexBeach

You are correct.

However what is now is the liberal media wanting to silence their ideological competitors by legislative/legal maneuvers instead of at the cash register.


9 posted on 06/30/2010 12:35:47 PM PDT by Ouderkirk (Democrats...the party of Slavery, Segregation, Sodomy, and Sedition)
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To: PetroniusMaximus

> It indicates that they will crash the system.

Yup.

Unfortunately, when our system crashes, people will die.

Liberalism/Progressivism/Leftism/Marxism/Communism all love to point to “religion” as having killed millions, and indeed it has.

But the number of people killed in the name of Left-leaning ideologies relegates the numbers of those killed by “religion” to statistical noise.


10 posted on 06/30/2010 1:09:47 PM PDT by Westbrook (Having more children does not divide your love, it multiplies it.)
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