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Where the media leads, we don't follow
NY Post ^ | January 15, 2011 | Jonah Goldberg

Posted on 01/16/2011 2:48:26 AM PST by Scanian

Well, that was a week we could have all done without.

As President Obama declared in his legitimately moving speech to what seemed to be the homecoming rally of the Arizona Wildcats, now is a time to re-embrace civility.

To that end, now might be a good time to examine the media’s role in this mess. There’s no disputing — nor any surprise — that left-wing activists didn’t need to wait for accurate reporting to jump to conclusions about the “real” culprits in the Tucson massacre. For instance, within minutes of the news hitting the wires, commentator Markos Moulitsas wrote on Twitter, “Mission accomplished, Sarah Palin.” David Brock, the head of a left-wing activist outfit called Media Matters for America, wrote a laughably self-important “open letter” gloating how he had “warned” Fox News about its dangerous rhetoric. Sounding a bit like Dwight Schrute on NBC’s “The Office” penning an urgent letter to the head of the FBI, Brock wrote: “My previous warnings were laughed off and ignored. For the country’s sake, I hope you take them more seriously now.”

Of course, activists and pundits play a different role than allegedly straight reporters. And yet, the “mainstream media” seemed to be suffering from the same groupthink. Even as evidence mounted that Jared Lee Loughner was no Tea Partier, was not a Sarah Palin disciple, and didn’t even listen to talk radio or watch cable news, media outlets seemed to tighten their grip on the story they wanted rather than the story they had. At the end of the week MSNBC was still using a graphic for its news coverage showing Loughner’s deranged mug shot along with the text “The Power of Words.”

Confirmation bias is a problem for all people and institutions of all ideological stripes, but in this instance...

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: giffords; journalists; leftists; media; nationaldebates
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To: Scanian

Evidence mounted that Jared Lee Loughner was no Tea Partier, was not a Sarah Palin disciple, and didn’t even listen to talk radio.
Media shoots self in foot again and again..........


21 posted on 01/16/2011 7:46:26 AM PST by Vaduz
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To: Scanian

What the left thinks about the Tucson shootings and culpability is that ALL!!! conservatives are nasty, dangerous gun nuts who are a few exhortations away from going berserk and indulging in mass slaughter. The content of the letters to the editors by self-identified libs confirms the feeling I have that many libs think just like their politcal allies in the media. They actually believe Tea Partiers are all gun nuts looking to shoot someone. Libs have been touting this screwball view since Goldwater.


22 posted on 01/16/2011 8:22:02 AM PST by driftless2 (For long-term happiness, learn how to play the accordion.)
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To: Scanian

Confirmation bias in the media is its tendency to favor information that confirms its preconceptions or hypotheses, regardless of whether the information is true. Confirmation bias has contributed to the media’s overconfidence in its own leftist beliefs in the face of contrary evidence which leads to some disastrous editorial decisions.

- JP


23 posted on 01/16/2011 9:08:44 AM PST by Josh Painter ("May we always be happy, and may our enemies know it." - Sarah Palin)
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To: Thom Pain
Wouldn't they then be Republicans?

Funny you should ask that. There were a bunch of state legislature party switches right after Nov. 2. For about a month, there was a daily mention of one or more Democrats at the local or state level who were switching to Republican.

They might be Republicans, but the verdict is still out on whether they are conservatives.

24 posted on 01/16/2011 9:13:46 AM PST by randita
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