Posted on 10/23/2014 4:51:06 AM PDT by LeoMcNeil
According to the Media Research Center, on the big three network evening news shows there have only been 25 stories on the midterm elections. The time period in question is from September 1st to October 20th. If you watch ABC News, you might not even know there is a midterm election coming up. They haven’t run a single story on the midterms. Compare this to 2006 when, during the same period, the big three networks ran 159 stories. Those who claim there isn’t a left-wing media bias will have a hard time explaining why the networks ran so many stories on the 2006 midterms during what was certainly going to be a down year for Republicans but so few stories in 2014 in what appears to be a down year for Democrats.
In 2006 the media was gleeful at the prospect of the Democrats taking over Congress. Today the big three networks can barely be bothered to run stories on the midterms. It’s understandable why liberals might not be very excited about the upcoming elections. Even the New York Times acknowledges the Democrats are panicking. Perhaps the manner in which the tv networks are panicking is to simply ignore the fact that Democrats are poised to lose the Senate. For a group of people who claim to be unbiased, their bias is showing in how they report stories like midterm elections. They spent a considerable amount of time when Republicans appeared to be losing, gleefully reporting polls favorable to Democrats in close races. There’s none of that this time around, in fact at ABC there’s nothing at all.
In 2006 if a Republican candidate for Senate refused to acknowledge he voted for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004 it would have been huge news plastered all over the networks. We have had at least two Democrat candidates for Senate this year who refused to acknowledge voting for Obama. The networks are silent, apparently it isn’t news when Democrats try to dance around voting for Obama. Of course over at ABC the midterms aren’t news at all this year, much less Democrats panicking or fleeing Obama. If there’s one common theme in battleground states, it’s Democrats abandoning Obama. They criticize Obamacare, they’re critical of Obama’s energy policy and they needle him over the economy. When Republicans abandon a Republican President, like they did in 2006 it’s news. When Democrats do the same thing, it goes unreported.
Left-wing media bias is hardly new. The media is isolated from the rest of the country, stuck in liberal Manhattan and the Beltway. No doubt folks in the Big three newsrooms aren’t much interested in the midterm election. When your side appears to be losing, it’s not uncommon to lose interest. The problem is that these journalists are completely disconnected from the rest of the country. While the public may be generally sick of elections, the midterms are tilting towards Republicans for a reason. There’s a news story there, just like there was in 2006 when the Republicans were losing. Not reporting in these midterms in a substantially similar manner is clear evidence of bias. There is bias to be seen not just in the actual reporting of news stories but in the choosing of which stories make it to air.
Should Republican fortunes begin to sink in the next 12 days, the media will likely jump all over the story. At this point it would take a significant event to derail what appears to be a Republican victory. An October surprise isn’t out of the question, though it’s hard to imagine how such a thing could derail an entire party. It’s one thing to pull an October surprise on a single candidate, it’s another thing to do it against an entire party. At this point Republicans hold leads in almost all of the battleground races. According to Real Clear Politics, the Republicans will pick up 8 seats in the Senate if the polls are correct. No wonder liberals don’t want to talk about the midterms.
Thank goodness for the "New MediaTM"
If the “news” media ever started reporting in a comprehensive, unbiased way ... Well, that in itself would be news. I doubt I’ll see it in my lifetime, they seem too entrenched.
In other news, the sun rose this morning.
Ratings at the big three networks continue to slump. You would think at some point they would recognize that their bias turns people off. The problem, I suspect, is that they don’t recognize that they’re biased.
Fairness Doctrine.
Republicans need to come up with one and force the President to veto it. If the Republicans were smart,they would take the rats bill, mark it up, deem it and send it Obama. Heck, knowing him he would probably pencil whip it.
Does a fish know that it’s wet? The bias is so pervasive and has existed for so long that I don’t believe the MSM will ever be able to recognize or acknowledge it.
We had the Fairness Doctrine from the 40’s until the mid 80’s. The mainstream press on tv and radio had a liberal bias. There was no conservative Walter Cronkite. In fact, talk radio as we know it today didn’t exist until the Fairness Doctrine was eliminated.
Liberal Democrats like Obama would gladly sign a Fairness Doctrine bill. It’s only liberals who are clamoring for one. They know that ultimately it will be only conservative viewpoints that are shutout.
No doubt. What I am saying is to reverse it where libs have to have conservatives on their programs, all commentary must be labeled based on political position, television commentary must be labeled, etc.
I would make sure that all media, based on political affiliation is 50/50 and no member of the media can have spouse/family in the political realm.
You would make sure of that, HOW, exactly?
The liberals would violate any law, laugh at you, and toss the finger at you.
Then they would double-down and make conservatives obey the law they just got done laughing at.
N S.
Could that be the reason that liberal, lo-info voters are not even aware that there is an election coming up? Certainly these nincompoops would never even think of turning on Fox News.
My guess is the left doesn’t want to invest in a losing proposition, hence no free stuff, parties, community organizin to get the LIVers out.
The money is better spent on bribes for fraud.
How do you do that without a coercive government controlling the press? How is the government going to determine whether a journalist is a conservative or a liberal? Also, how will they decide what exactly is a conservative and what is a liberal? You could end up with a situation where radical leftists like the National Socialist German Workers Party that is called “conservative” only because it’s to the right of Communism. Next thing you know, all journalists are radical leftists with 50% not as radical as the others.
You have a good point. But I must add, that part of the FD that came from libs is that they get to have equal pairing with conservatives. I just want to use that against libs.
The libs have the majority of shows and newspapers. Conservative channels already have libs on. I would like to see it the other way. MSNBC needs to have a show hosted by, oh, let’s say Ann Coulter for giggles.
It never works in our favor because conservatives are less likely to run to the government to demand equal time. In fact, for us to do so would violate our small government principles and open us up to charges of hypocrisy.
Ann Coulter hosting a show on MSNBC would be a hoot but only if we got to see the off camera reactions of Rachel Maddow, Al Sharpton and the rest of the gang.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.