In the inimitable words of lizard head:
FGS
Posted on 11/17/2002 11:13:37 AM PST by Peacerose
11/11/2002
As a conservative voter, I was thrilled by the outcome of last week's elections. Living in the Pacific Time zone, it was incredible to watch the Republican onslaught roll westward. In the aftermath, political junkies have spent a lot of time examining the message voters sent to Washington.
As a media bias activist, I began to ponder if there was a message hidden within the vote for the mainstream media. It is well known that a majority of reporters and TV anchors are of the Democratic persuasion. The fact that they use their positions to push forward and, in effect, campaign for Democratic candidates and policies is the entire basis of complaints of liberal media bias. Surely the mainstream media could learn a thing or two from the voice of the people. Here, then, are some points I suggest media folk attend to:
We're getting smarter about media bias, and are not as easily manipulated. Media behavior during the 2000 election recount was so abominable that it turned normally quiet, untroublesome folk into activists. Since then, much has been published about the problem of media bias and we've been paying attention. We've become active in the discussion. We have learned to recognize the different forms of media bias and now we'd like to suggest that the media learn to recognize them too.
Clean up your act and start presenting all sides of an issue fairly. It really is okay to do that. People are smart enough to decide for themselves. (Oops! Do I sound like a populist?) Many on the left don't believe the right wing should be allowed to get their message out at all. Witness this decidedly elitist quote from New York Times columnist Paul Krugman:
"Talk radio and Fox News let the hard right get its message out to its supporters, while those who oppose the juggernaut stay home because they don't get the sense that the Democrats offer a real alternative." - Into the Wilderness, 11/08/2002
Let? LET??!! Hear this load and clear: If the mainstream media doesn't want to LET us know something, we have other ways of finding out and then spreading that knowledge around. The great unwashed are well able to change channels and now we are using computers with considerable skill. Your best, and really, your only choice is this: start presenting both (or all) sides of an issue equally - fair and square.
We appreciate honesty. We are sick of people who are tricky and treacherous. Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda are tricky and treacherous. We don't like them.
But even before we took much notice of terrorism, we had your dear President and Mrs. Clinton trying to get over on us: questioning the meaning of "is", pardons for votes, pardons for cash, carrying off furniture, making sure they got their "gifts" before Senate rules kicked in, ad nauseum. And there was Vice-president Gore and his ever-changing reality. For Al Gore, the truth was never something that could be pinned down. His quest to "find" votes during the 2000 Florida recount is another example of perceived trickiness.
Senators "Treacherous Tom" Daschle and "Tricky Ricky" Reid set a poisonous precedence when they flattered and bribed Judas Jeffords into turning "Independent", thus handing them control of the Senate. Do all Democrats follow the motto "Win at any cost"?
The last minute switcheroo of Senatorial candidates on the New Jersey ballot and the Minnesota memorial service turned romp 'em, stomp 'em political rally carried that same whiff of trickiness.
I'm convinced that the reason for President Bush's continuously high approval rating is that he tells the truth. He's not a con man. He's not a manipulator. We trust him. As Dennis Miller said on the Tonight Show:
"I think the thing I like most about him is that he's not Clinton." - 11/06/2002
For the mainstream media this renewed appreciation of honesty means that you have a long way to go to re-earn our trust. Our faith in what you tell us has been spiraling steadily downward for some time now. It is important to note that a half-truth is as good as a lie, so, once again, telling both sides of an issue is very important.
We want President Bush to lead and we want Congress to help him. President Bush asked voters for a Senate and House that would work with him. Most of us agreed that that was necessary. It is time for a new tone in Washington and Americans are not paying their legislators to sit up there at the nation's capitol and obstruct.
If the news media doesn't like that, too bad: You're not a branch of government. Of course, you are welcome to ignore all of this, but you do so at your own peril. Our patience has worn thin!
Read more here:
NY Times, Into the Wilderness, 11/08/2002
MRC CyberAlert, Dennis Miller: Bush "Makes Me Proud to be an American Again", 11/08/2002
Well, "60 Minutes" tonight is pimping Woodward's new book, in which Rove is alleged to mentally compare Pres. Bush's magnificent appearance to throw out the first pitch (a strike, by the way) to the Nazis.
But the media pimps for the Democrats will fail to disparage the President with this, also.
I first saw this happen in the spring with the "President's picture & How Awful That Was" trying to get traction, and failing, and the attempted morph to "What Did Bush Know?! And When Did He Know It?! failing the same way. As soon as those stories were propagated by a compliant and complict media, the radio show switchboards lit up with angry callers who has stories countering the spin... which had to come off the web; it was too fast to be in print. Communications technologies overcomes dissent-suppression and censorship every time!
In the inimitable words of lizard head:
FGS
But to make the issue clearer to any DNC/Green/Hollywood-big-nose-lurkers:
Thanls for the hard work and the good fight. And congratulations for holding yourself in check and not lambasting the SOBs with language that would make a sailor blush. I know you thought about it. I know they deserve it. Wise choice, though, not to say it that way.
Congressman Billybob
My favorite quote is from the Aurora Advertiser in New York. It wrote, "If ever a man debauched a nation, George Washington debauched the United States of America." The press whose freedom was guaranteed, was a rock 'em, sock 'em group of opinionated editors and reporters. None pretended to objectivity.
But the whole point of the First Amendment was not that any particular media outlet would carry and reveal "the truth." It was that all of them as a group would get the word out in their own way. Then, with all those ideas on the table in what Jefferson called "the free market of ideas," the people themselves would sort it out.
The key charge against the NY Times and the other elitists is they don't believe in democracy -- either in the voting booth or in the communications industry. They believe the people are fools who must be protected from themselves. We believe the lamestream media are fools, and we need to protect ourselves from them. Looking at the numbers on readership and viewership, we're winning and they're losing.
Congressman Billybob
Talk radio and Fox News let the hard right get its message out to its supporters...
That quote jumped out at me as well.
It reveals rather more than the writer intended...
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