When the Media Venture Into Kingmaking

The Chicago Tribune ^ | February 23, 2004 | Dennis Byrne

[quidnunc]

Probably the most astute remark of this political season came from Gwen Ifill, senior correspondent for PBS' "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." Commenting on Howard Dean's fall from front-runner to also-ran in the Democratic presidential primaries, Ifill said: "He was going great guns right until the voters got involved."

True, true. But why was he going great guns before a single vote was taken? How did he get anointed? If not the voters, who made him the front-runner in the first place?

You know the answer — "the media." "The Note," an irreverent online ramble by the ABC News political unit, may have best explained why. In a Feb. 10 posting, it said the Washington and political press corps operate with a heavy load of biases, including "a near-universal shared sense that liberal political positions on social issues like gun control, homosexuality, abortion, and religion are the default, while more conservative positions are 'conservative positions.'

"They include a belief that government is a mechanism to solve the nation's problems; that more taxes on corporations and the wealthy are good ways to cut the deficit and raise money for social spending and don't have a negative effect on economic growth; and that emotional examples of suffering (provided by unions or consumer groups) are good ways to illustrate economic statistic stories.

-snip-

In their efforts to nail Bush for anything, many in the media are missing a historic story. In his new book, "Surprise, Security and the American Experience," Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis said only three Americans have created a grand strategy that has had a lasting and historic impact. He says they are presidents John Quincy Adams, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and George W. Bush.

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[atomicpossum]

Is this the ABC?

Is the Universe still together?

Could this be the sign of a paradigm shift in the Cosmic Nexus?