Gap between right, mainstream media (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)

The right-wing media’s single-minded focus on a handful of targets over the past months and its success in pushing those stories into the mainstream have underscored the sharp divide between traditional news organizations and the bloggers and talk show hosts aggressively pursuing an ideological agenda on-line and on TV and radio.

From birthers to tea parties to town halls and ACORN, the scandal-plaged anti-poverty group — not to mention President Obama’s speech last week to school children and the background of former White House aide Van Jones — issues initially dismissed or missed entirely by the national media have burst, if only fleetingly, onto the national agenda after relentless coverage on Fox News, talk radio and in the blogosphere. “If it wasn’t for Fox or talk radio, we’d be done as a republic,” Glenn Beck declared Tuesday morning on “Fox & Friends.” Beck, who’s aggressively pushed the Van Jones and ACORN stories, told the morning show hosts that he plans to devote his hour-long, top-rated 5 p.m. to show new undercover tapes of ACORN employees.

Last week, Big Government, a site run by conservative Andrew Breitbart, showed videos of undercover stings in three ACORN offices, where journalists posed as pimps and prostitutes, and were instructed by employees on how to skirt legal restriction on housing. The tapes got big play on The Drudge Report—where Breitbart has worked—and right-leaning news outlets and commentary shows. But only after the Senate voted to cut off federal funding to ACORN on Monday did the story get more attention in the mainstream media.

Jon Banner, executive producer of ABC’s “World News,” told POLITICO that he’s been discussing doing an ACORN piece with chief White House correspondent Jake Tapper over the past week, but the show hasn’t run one on the latest scandal. “World News,” he said, is expected to report on ACORN tonight.

“It’s a very different editorial process when you have 24 hours to fill as opposed to 22 minutes,” Banner said, explaining why ACORN hasn’t yet fit in the evening newscast. Lately, Banner noted that the program has been focused on covering Afghanistan, health care, the economy and the anniversary of 9/11.

While Banner admits that some stories get may lot more attention cable, blogs or talk radio, it doesn’t mean they’re suited for the “World New” audience. “There’s a tremendous amount of – for lack of a better word – ‘noise’ out there. We’re not in the business of noise.”

Indeed, “World News” has to distill the news of well, the world, in under a half hour, and can’t be expected to cover every budding controversy in the blogosphere. Nevertheless, Beck, and others, claimed that competing networks slowness is jumping on ACORN or Jones indicates some sort of bias.

During Beck’s show on Monday, he stood in front of a blackboard-like screen, citing statistics that he said demonstrated the mainstream media’s lackadaisical coverage of the ACORN and Van Jones stories.

“Reports on Van Jones, from appointment to resignation. Look at this: Fox had 51 reports on this guy. CNN was next, with nine. MSNBC, two. The New York Times, one. Washington Post, four. The ACORN corruption -- this is your money. Fox has had 133 reports on it. CNN, 90. MSNBC, 10 -- how’s that possible? Hey, ABC, how’s it working out for you, with two?” Beck’s onscreen tally credited CBS with two Jones stories, and ABC and NBC with one apiece.

The succession of such controversial stories has exposed blind spots in both the Obama administration and the press, with the president's aides at first trying to ignore critics they considered shrill or ignorant, and networks and newspapers finding themselves flat-footed when issues they had ignored caught fire online and on cable.

But news executives argue that they have limited staff and resource, and there is a lot more to cover on a daily basis than a handful of controversies stirred up primarily on the right.

“For Glenn Beck to devote 45 minutes of his show to ACORN and Van Jones says more about his news judgment than mine,” said Dean Baquet, Washington bureau chief of the New York Times.

“He’s not a newsman and that’s not a news show,” Baquet continued. “He’s not trying to cover the economy, two wars, health care, the aftermath from one administration to another, negotiations with Iran or North Korea.”

Baquet said he agreed with Times managing editor Jill Abramson, who responded to readers on NYTimes.com that the paper was “a beat behind” on the Jones story. The paper, he said, should have run a piece when Jones apologized for radical statements and an affiliation with a 9/11 “truther” group prior to his resignation.

Still, Baquet said he doesn’t think “not being all over the Van Jones story is a mortal sin.” And for critics claiming bias, Baquet pointed out that the paper aggressively covered allegations against Democrat Tom Daschle, someone who would have had far more power in the Obama administration.

While Baquet noted that The Times ran a story on ACORN today—following the Senate vote to cut off funding—critics like MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough contend that the paper would have not only have been covering the current scandal earlier, but would have played it up if it was a conservative organization.

On his radio show Tuesday, Scarborough debated the media’s coverage of ACORN and Van Jones with NBC chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd, who said he believed these stories can be a “crutch” for conservatives looking to highlight instances of media bias.

“If the Christian Coalition, in 1995, had a sting operation carried on against it by a liberal group, I guarantee you it would have been front page, New York Times, the next day, “ Scarborough said, “and people like me would have been called out, people saying, ‘how could you ever, ever justify supporting a group that would teach people how to violate the tax code and promote prostitution.’”

“There’s no ideological filter that goes on,” Isham said. “If it’s a good story, it’ s a good story.”

Isham said that CBS has been “batting around” an ACORN story, and expects it to soon be covered on the evening newscast. Although the sting videos quickly went viral, Isham said that “you have to be very careful” when it comes to such reporting, and “learn as much as you can about the circumstances” before putting them on the air.

“Clearly, Fox is going to be more aggressive on a story like that, initially, then other media organizations,” Isham said.

A Fox News spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment, but the network has been criticized in the past for running more favorable coverage of conservative protests than demonstrations against the Iraq war —from the April 15 tea parties to this past weekend’s rally in Washington—or stories that could be expected to be more detrimental to Democrats.

Karl Frisch, a senior fellow at Media Matters, a group founded to counter what it regards as the media’s bias toward conservatives, said that if anything, the mainstream media too often follows the lead of Fox. “Mainstream publications and networks take the Fox News bait of sensationalistic, delusional, partisan reporting far too often,” he said.

“To Fox News,” Frisch continued, “outlets that don’t share its single minded obsession with Obama conspiracy theories and one-sided reports designed to weaken progressives, have some sort of shadowy liberal media bias. Much like its self-serving cries of bias, it is a myth that Fox News has any interest in journalistic integrity or responsibility.”

While liberals may dismiss Fox, the network clearly dominates cable news -- often beating both MSNBC and CNN combined in prime-time. So even some stories they’re initially not getting much play on other networks, or in the major papers, Fox has the power to drive them into the debate.

The dearth -- and tardiness -- of coverage by the traditional media is explained in part by the fact that most reporters for establishment news organizations do not follow the conservative media. They tend to consider many of the more outlandish charges from the right to be plain loony -- which they often are. And ACORN has long been an obsession of the right, with some of past criticism taking on racial overtones. So reporters, being used to tuning out charges against ACORN, were slow to realize that this was a time when the group’s opponents had the goods.

The White House has vowed to be more nimble in the future, and is already working to be sure it does not lose control of future debates the way it did on health care this summer. It has become more aggressive about rebutting reports it considers to be false and misleading, both through administration resources and use of the Democratic National Committee.

With criticism raging about the president’s plans to give a back-to-school address to pupils, for example, the White House pointed out that the past four presidents had made similar remarks, and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs argued on Air Force One that the remarks were mainstream and non-political.

About the same time, the DNC came out with ads attacking former Vice President Dick Cheney’s support for harsh interrogation techniques, and accusing Republicans of supporting cuts to Medicare.

Administration advocates are looking ahead to the Senate debate over an energy and climate bill late this year or early next year, and are already making plans to be sure that news coverage is not hijacked by opponents, as was so much of August’s health-care debate.

"I was taught when I was a young reporter that it's news when we say it is. I think that's still true -- it's news when 'we' say it is. It's just who 'we' is has changed"

David Carr (b. 1956), US Journalist. CNN "Reliable Sources", Sunday, August 10, 2008.

Their words: “aggressively pursuing an ideological agenda on-line and on TV and radio.” Specifically “ideological agenda”

My words: “Principles. Values. Morals. Right. Wrong. Honor. Courage. Commitment.”

There’s a number of reasons we have an “agenda”

“I was taught when I was a young reporter that it's news when we say it is. I think that's still true — it's news when ‘we’ say it is. It's just who ‘we’ is has changed”

Priceless. :)

It's also not a small “we”. The internet has made it “we the people”.

Again.

It looks like the masses have found a way to counteract a “large impenetrable bureaucracy”. The intenet is the new equalizer.

Indeed, “World News” has to distill the news of well, the world, in under a half hour, and can’t be expected to cover every budding controversy in the blogosphere.

So is that why the Slimes didn't cover it either...in sympathy with the 30 minute window of the "World News"?

But news executives argue that they have limited staff and resource, and there is a lot more to cover on a daily basis than a handful of controversies stirred up primarily on the right.

But theres plenty of resources for running up stories on Sarah Palin, arent there? And this Kanye West nonsense, and Michelle Obama's arms, and their dog, and 50 reporters covering Zero's stay on Martha s Vineyard.

Its all about priorities.

ABC "World News" anchor Charles Gibson seemed caught off guard by the ACORN tapes on Tuesday when he told Chicago radio hosts Don Wade and Roma that he hadn't heard of them, in a clip flagged by prominent conservative blogger Michelle Malkin. Gibson added that "maybe this is just one you leave to the cables." If the Heritage Foundation was caught telling people how to cheat on their taxes, hide cash, and keep child sex slave uneducated - I suspect old "kiss dem butt" Charlie would have it on the "news".

Charlie's a one sided, biased, narrow minded useful idiot for the dem party...

So World News covers only "serious" issues, eh?

How many times did Gibson mention the words "MICHAEL JACKSON" over the course of the weeks the networks covered that vital, international story?

If the Heritage Foundation was caught telling people how to cheat on their taxes, hide cash, and keep child sex slave uneducated - I suspect old "kiss dem butt" Charlie would have it on the "news".

Charlie's a one sided, biased, narrow minded useful idiot for the dem party...

This is the CBS that did countless investigations on the Bush AWOL letter, right?

There is no “main stream media”. There is a leftist media and a center/right media. The leftist media is made up of all the usual suspects and denies any bias even though their partisanship is obvious. Their agenda determines what they cover and how they cover it. Objective reporting, if it is done at all, is done only by accident or when the story is considered to have no relevance to the political situation at the time.

The center-right media is confined pretty much to talk radio, FOX and the blogosphere. Because of recent electoral reverses the right is more motivated to dig than the left. Consequently all these stories that are emerging about Jones, ACORN, etc. The leftist media tries to bury these by ignoring or downplaying them but inevitably they leak out forcing them to attempt counter-attacks or to change the subject. The center-right media tends to be much more up front in its biases.

Protestations of “objectivity” on the part of most of these “journalists” are the height of hypocrisy. They fool no one and when they complain about being unfairly labled they only accentuate their hypocrisy and undermine what little positive reputation they still have.

Say, that reminds me, what's Dan Rather up to these days? ;)

ACORN, the scandal-plaged anti-poverty group

Um ... even though systematically supporting child molestation for profit helps ACORN to rake in cash for themselves, most sane people are shocked that ACORN is still called an "anti-poverty group" by the mainstream media. Pedophiles-For-Profit is not what most people think of when the media say "anti-poverty".

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.