Mainsteam Media Continues To Ignore Responsibilities, Damage America

I thought after the mainstream media had succeeded in electing its anointed candidate for president and after they had acted as an unofficial campaign manger for Sen. Barack Obama, that there might be some return to journalistic principles.

The conventional wisdom is that once in office, the mainstream media subjects the president to relentless criticism. So I thought there might be a slight letup in the biased, dishonest and fraudulent journalism flooding forth from the mainstream media to advance Sen. Obama and the Democratic Party.

But as I checked magazines and newspapers and listened to President-Elect Obama's first press conference, I realized we are now in the era of the American Pravda, where the mainstream media is going to continue to spoon-feed the American people with only pro-Obama news. And they either ignore altogether or downplay any news that might call his programs or presidency into question. See my many columns on the bias of the mainstream media such as "Handling The Enemies of a Free Society" (Nov. 5).

This media bias is even more dangerous as it is aggravated by a president-elect who doesn't want to hear criticism, avoids challenges to his position, and freely used intimidation, harassment and other improper tactics to silence critics and avoid criticism. Consider what went down at the press conference.

First, there wasn't a single tough question asked. The reporters served up nothing but soft balls, perhaps best exemplified by the question about what kind of a dog the Obama's will buy for the White House. We're supposed to be in the midst of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, and that's the best the mainstream media can do. Now the softball questions are as damaging as they were during the campaign.

That's because tough questions would force Sen. Obama to clarify his thinking, correct any errors and help confirm the wisdom or folly of his choices. It is often said those around the president don't like to challenge him or criticize his views and usually won't. So when the mainstream media abdicate its responsibility to challenge, question and criticize the president, we are all the losers. It is often said you learn more from your enemies than from your friends, and it should also be said that you learn more from answering tough questions than you do from repeating talking points to softball questions.

Secondly, this should not surprise you, President-Elect Obama called on the reporters he wanted to hear from and apparently wanted questions from the known lackeys, lapdogs and bootlickers of the mainstream media. He called on the reporters from ABC, CBS CNN, and NBC. Guess what one major network was not given a chance to ask a question: FOX News, the one television station that doesn't treat the anointed one as a Messiah. Needless to say, he called on perhaps the most dishonest of the mainstream media, The New York Times. He called on the AP, which was in the forefront of the elect-Obama campaign. He did not call on the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Times, two of the few outlets represented not in the tank for Sen. Obama.

So if this is an example of what to expect, we have a press corps, made up largely of the mainstream media, who won't ask tough questions and still operate as Obama bootlickers, lapdogs and lackeys. We also have a president who won't call on any reporter who just might ask a tough question. So you might say the White House press corps and the president-elect are perfect together - perfect at keeping the real story and the truth from the American people.

Third, when he got a straightforward, easily answered question on whether he was going to seek a tax increase for upper-income Americans, he avoided an answer. He could have simply told the truth, and said, "Yes." After all, he said that a million times during the campaign.

But he knew if he answered the question, he might call into mind the extensive criticism directed at him for raising taxes in an economic downturn, and especially for raising taxes on small business and investors (capital gains tax increase) and thus threatening job creation and all economic activity and prosperity.

So this new kind of politician took one of the last refuges of the old kind of politician. He just came up with his memorized talking point on the tax cuts for the middle class and avoided answering the question. Here is his answer:

"My tax plan represented a net tax cut. It provided for substantial middle class tax cuts, 95 percent of working Americans would receive them. It also provided for cuts in capital gains for small business, additional tax credits, all of it is designed for job growth. My priority is going to be how do we grow the economy, how do we create more jobs. I think that the plan that we've put forward is the right one, but obviously over the next several weeks and months we're going to be continuing to take a look at the data and see what's taking place in the economy as a whole. But understand the goal of my plan is to provide tax relief to families that are struggling but also to boost the capacity of the economy to grow from the bottom up. All right."

No, not all right. The reporter should have said, "With all due respect, Mr. President-elect, you haven't answered the question, which is 'Are you going through with your tax increases.' " What good is a question if it doesn't get an answer?

Right after that less-than-artful but total evasion, he ended the press conference. Perhaps even that question, which was not a total softball, was too much for the anointed one.

Fourth, the mainstream media is not only biased and not only asks trivial questions, but sometimes just asks outright stupid questions. For example, one question was, "Who will fill your Senate seat?" That's stupid, as a reporter should know the answer to that question and not ask it. The answer is that it is the governor's appointment and the governor's call. What kind of answer would you expect to that kind of question? Exactly the one offered up.

Fifth, this first press conference on this proclaimed most momentous crisis, was too short, consisting of only about eight questions. What's more, there were no follow-up questions even though at times they were obviously called for. Even questions that might have challenged President-elect Obama and called forth some of his thinking, were sterilized into soft balls. For example, one reporter asked whether the Obamas were going to send their kids to a public or private school. This could have been phrased to draw out Obama, by asking, "You now send your two children to private schools in Chicago. Will they also attend private schools here in Washington? And what do you say to critics, who have pointed out you send your children to private schools, as you can afford it, but you don't want to give that same option to parents who can't afford it, by creating a voucher program, in effect, a school choice program?"

Finally, Sen. Obama stuck to his usual glittering generalities without providing the specifics that observers should have expected at this point. We've heard enough of his oratory and now its time for specifics. In addition, he failed to address three problems, which have suddenly loomed large - the possible approaching bankruptcy of GM and the severe problems of the auto industry; the recent plunge of the stock market; and Russia's placement of missiles threatening Poland and our allies in Eastern Europe. He mentioned the problem in the auto industry in passing, but said nothing else that wasn't obvious.

The press conference again confirmed we are now in the era of Pravda-style journalism in the U.S., the mainstream media continue to deify, canonize and glorify the anointed one. Take a cover story in Time magazine (Nov. 17, the commemorative edition) by Nancy Gibbs. Here's how it starts, "Some princes are born in palaces, some are born in mangers. But a few are born in the imagination out of scraps of history and hope."

Time magazine is just one of the Obama campaign managers among many in the mainstream media. In fact, Time ran a cover story in October 2006 four months before Sen. Obama even declared he was running, titled "Why Barack Obama Could Be the Next President."

One reason that I'm sure Time forgot, was that the dishonest, fraudulent and biased mainstream media would push his candidacy as if he were the Messiah and would demonize his opponents both in the primary and general election as if they were pariahs.

On Sean Hannity's radio show on Nov. 7, he had a caller who thinks Sen. Obama is the Messiah. I expect kooks like that to be calling talk shows, but I didn't expect that kind of psychosis to be found at the highest levels of America's mainstream media. You have to remember the kind of irrational puffery found in Time had to be generated by a few reporters, but also had to be approved by an army of editors, in a highly edited magazine like Time. What hath the media wrought?

Media bias is not new, but it has never been so blatant, outrageous, dangerous and so destructive as it was in 2008. One encouraging note is that the public seemed to know that the media was supporting Sen. Obama. A study out of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, found that 70 percent of the public thought in mid-October of 2008 that most journalists wanted Sen. Obama to win. Only 9 percent dissented from that proposition.

And that's not just public perception. Another study proves the public was right. A study from the Project for Excellence in Journalism found only 14 percent of the stories about Sen. John McCain were positive while 57 percent were negative. In contrast, 36 percent of the stories about Sen. Obama were positive, while only 35 percent were negative.

At least one major paper, the Washington Post, one of the icons of the mainstream media, admitted its pro-Obama bias, "An Obama Tilt in Campaign Coverage" (Nov. 9). That's a small bit of good news. But the bad news is that the Post buried the story on page B6 instead of running it on the front page where their pro-Obama bootlicking often took place. And the Post didn't bother to figure out its bias until after the election, when it was too late to stop the damage and flow of biased, dishonest and fraudulent journalism that helped determine ("fix") the outcome of the election.

The public figured out the bias of the media. But I'm afraid they didn't take the next step and find out all the news the mainstream media was censoring out and holding from the public. Had the public got the full story, I'd bet the ranch they would have rejected Sen. Obama early and often. Because of the consequences of a biased media, Rep. Lamar Smith (D-Texas) believes the mainstream media is more of a threat to American democracy than the terrorists. I join in that view.

It's bad enough the mainstream media, as at this press conference, sticks to softball questions. What's worse, they are not content to be mere bootlickers, lackeys and lapdogs of Sen. Obama, but become his attack dogs for any of his critics or political opponents. For example, the mainstream media attacked "Joe the Plumber" for merely asking a question, showing the extent the mainstream media will go to carry out Sen. Obama's dirty work. Or recall how they investigated Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's children and husband, devoting more investigative work to them in a few weeks than they did to Sen. Obama in two years. Or look what they did to Gov. Palin herself. Rush Limbaugh has pointed out the mainstream media (what he calls the drive-by media) even made fun of her for having a Down's syndrome child. You can't get much lower than that.

And the mainstream media goes the limit to protect Vice-President Elect Joe Biden. When talking about the current financial crisis, he told us in 1929, President Roosevelt went on television to explain the Great Depression. Of course, Roosevelt wasn't president until 1933 and television wasn't even on the scene in 1929. He told us the main economic problem facing America was "a three-letter word: j-o-b-s." If Gov. Palin's statements had ever reached such unprecedented heights of stupidity, it would have been front page news every day of the campaign. That's not to mention Sen. Obama's gaffes, which were even more shocking: Iran is a tiny country and not a real threat to us. And there were more just as outlandish.

We've elected a president, but he is still unvetted and uninvestigated. Even now, after the mainstream media has rammed Sen. Obama down the electoral throat of the American people and the election is over, they still haven't done anything to check him out.

And from all available evidence, it looks like we can look forward to four years with the mainstream media extending a free pass to Sen. Obama and failing to subject his pronouncements, plans and programs to challenges and criticism. There seems to be no limit to the journalistic malfeasance of the mainstream media, nor is there any limit the damage they have done and will continue to do to America and its democratic institutions.

In tomorrow's column I'll have more on this, with special attention to two of the leading propagandists and promoters for Sen. Obama - the Philadelphia Inquirer and "60 Minutes," which now can be said to represent the worst in journalism.

Herb Denenberg is a former Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissioner, and professor at the Wharton School. He is a longtime Philadelphia journalist and consumer advocate. He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of the Sciences. His column appears daily in The Bulletin. You can reach him at advocate@ thebulletin.us.

“The First Amendment does not assign responsibilities to journalism - indeed, journalism as we know it scarcely existed in the founding era because newspaper printers had nothing like the AP as a source of news to which the general public was not privy.”

Thanks for linking me to the article as always appreciated.

I now regard journalism on the same level as the comics and sports scores - it’s all a laugh and play (or tears and loss). Nothing seems real but rather agenda driven.

'Media bias is not new, but it has never been so blatant, outrageous, dangerous and so destructive as it was in 2008. One encouraging note is that the public seemed to know that the media was supporting Sen. Obama. A study out of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, found that 70 percent of the public thought in mid-October of 2008 that most journalists wanted Sen. Obama to win. Only 9 percent dissented from that proposition.
And that's not just public perception. Another study proves the public was right. A study from the Project for Excellence in Journalism found only 14 percent of the stories about Sen. John McCain were positive while 57 percent were negative. In contrast, 36 percent of the stories about Sen. Obama were positive, while only 35 percent were negative.

Talk about being a day late and a dollar short! This truly takes the cake.

'The public figured out the bias of the media. But I'm afraid they didn't take the next step and find out all the news the mainstream media was censoring out and holding from the public. Had the public got the full story, I'd bet the ranch they would have rejected Sen. Obama early and often. Because of the consequences of a biased media, Rep. Lamar Smith (D-Texas) believes the mainstream media is more of a threat to American democracy than the terrorists. I join in that view.'

Such a hard and painful truth, and the consequences America will suffer over the next four years and beyond, if Obama is given the chance to implement even a third of his proposals...and even when a fellow Democrat recognizes the Mainstream Media's disingenuous folly, you know things are bad.

This is yet another reason I refuse to bankroll and subsidize these people in any way: No cable, no newspapers, no glossy 'News' magazines which are nothing more than adult comic books with pictures.

...One can do far better by reading the Onion or MAD.

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