Dick Morris: Bias-mongers on rocks as viewers taste straight news

The Hill ^ | August 13, 2003 | Dick Morris

[Timesink]

	Dick Morris
	The Political Life

Bias-mongers on rocks as viewers taste straight news

I am sure we were all surprised to learn in the Aug. 11 issue of The New York Times that people are " burned out on serious news." How else could the bastion of establishment journalism account for the falloff in network news viewership and, unnoted in the article, the newspaper's own decreasing circulation?

Yet the evidence is all there. People don't care anymore. That must be why The Times' circulation has fallen 5 percent and 1.1 million fewer households are watching network television news compared to last year at this time!

Jim Murphy, executive producer of the "CBS Evening News with Dan Rather," attempting to spin why his show has lost 600,000 viewers, notes patronizingly that we poor dears have been through " two years of very heavy-duty, stressful news, from Sept. 11 through the war with Iraq." In his opinion the loss of one-tenth of his show's audience is part of "a little bit of a break-taking going on across the spectrum."

Shaking their heads in sympathy, cable news networks CNN (down 22 percent) and MSNBC (down 25 percent) bemoan the lack of compelling news to cover. Jack Wakshlag, head of research for the Turner Broadcasting System, which manages CNN for AOL Time Warner, said that the falloff was because none of this year's news had sufficiently " broad appeal" or " emotional tug."

Nonsense.

Don't these folks realize that it is their coverage, their bias, and their slanted news that is leading viewers to turn them off! Fox News, during the same period that caused such clucking by the establishment, had no difficulty adding 200,000 viewers during the news period and many more during prime time.

The Iraq War marked the beginning of the end of network news coverage. Viewers saw the juxtaposition of the embedded correspondents reporting the war as it was actually unfolding and the jaundiced, biased, negative coverage of these same events in the network newsrooms.

While U.S. and British troops advanced without serious opposition and with a minimum of casualties, the media worried loudly about disaster scenarios that never came to pass. The Turks weren't letting our troops through. There would be no two front war! Our supply lines were over-extended! Guerrilla attacks would leave our troops without food or ammo! Saddam would blow up the oil wells and trigger an eco-disaster from which it would take decades to recover! We were being sucked into house-by-house, street-by-street fighting in the capital! We didn't have enough troops! And, when the war was won, the networks and the newspapers fixated on the priceless artifacts that had been looted from the Baghdad Museum!

None of it happened. Now with the embedded correspondents withdrawn, these same networks and news sources tell us we face a quagmire in which we will lose dozens of soldiers each month for years and assure us that President Bush lied when he said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. When the weapons are found and the killing slows or stops, the networks will have moved on to other stories.

The reason people aren't watching network news and are canceling their subscriptions to establishment press organs is that they are fed up with the manipulation and deliberate juggling of the news they see and read each day. An increasingly educated electorate can spot bias with greater acumen and astuteness than ever before.

Nor is the bias just tilting toward the left. The failure of news organs to cover the concerns of the left wing of the Democratic Party has triggered a disenchantment among those voters every bit as deep as on the right. The ability of leftists like Bill Maher and Michael Moore to attract an audience attests to the alienation of the left from the establishment.

Americans are refusing to be spoon fed anyone's idea of the news. They no longer care to dine on the meal served by Rather or Peter Jennings (Tom Brokaw seems to fare better) or by CNN or MSNBC. They want to make their own choices in the marketplace. The Internet lets them do just that and they are voting with their remote controls to turn off the party line they get on the networks.

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Dick Morris is the author of Off With Their Heads: Traitors, Crooks, and Obstructionists in American Politics, Media, and Business.

[Cobra64]

In the name of all that is holy, buy a thesaurus and choose a different word than "whacking" when dealing with the Sinkmeister.

LOL. Sorry 'bout that. Ya got a good point.

[nutmeg]

FoxFan ping!

Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my FoxFan list. *Warning: This can be a high-volume ping list at times.

[MizSterious]

"I also credit FreeRepublic and the internet with the downfall of mainstream media."

Bingo! Once you start paying attention to what's posted here on FR, you come to the solid realization that none of the news media even approaches telling the whole story. I do include Fox in this--while they are better than the others, they sometimes suffer from the same malady as the others.

Fox needs to watch its step, lest they, too, fall into the trap CNN and the regular networks are trying to escape. If they think their viewers will remain loyal even if liberal bias is allowed to take over, they'd better think again. People are discovering the internet, and television news could become the dinosaur of our age.

*Thought I'd ping Jim Robinson, for well-deserved kudos.

[BlessedByLiberty]

As long as FOX does not join up with the pack mentality so freely demonstrated by the mainstream-weakkneed cable cartel they will do well.

However, the minute they stray from their fair and balanced standard - what at one time we called "objective" journalism - they will also slide into the untrustworthy refuse bin where we find CNN, NY TImes, SF Chronicle may be found.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

WALTER CRONKITE ... who publically called for all our Southern States to secede from our Union, in violation of our U.S. Constitution. Damn! Is Walter that old? I knew he was old but ... Did he ever interview Lincoln, Grant, Lee, et al.?

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[ALOHA RONNIE]

Year 2000 = London World Conferance

Anti-U.S. Internationalist, Friend of HILLARY ..WALTER CRONKITE.. calls for our 11 Southern States to secede from our Union, in violation of our U.S. Constitution

Year 2000 = New York Press Conferance

Anti-U.S. Internationalist, Senator Elect HILLARY calls for the ELIMINATION of our Electoral College, promising to make it her 1st Bill she will introduce when she gets to the U.S. Senate.

The Enemy is now Within...
and always has been.

[GOPJ]

BINGO:

The reason people aren't watching network news and are canceling their subscriptions to establishment press organs is that they are fed up with the manipulation and deliberate juggling of the news they see and read each day. An increasingly educated electorate can spot bias with greater acumen and astuteness than ever before.

[ladyinred]

LOL! It is like the unemployment rate is down because people gave up and quit looking for jobs!!!!

[ggekko]

"I've worked in two network news divisions..."

Since you have worked in the belly of the beast perhaps you could connfirm another perception I have developed about East Coast media people from having lived in Manhattan for 10 years.

Once at a cocktail party I had the misfortune to talk to several people who worked at CBS news about the subject of nuclear power. Their technical ignorance on the topic was breathtaking. This level of ignorance seems to extend to the field of economics as well as technology.

Did these people go into journalism because they can't add?

[woofie]

Dick Morris is right more often than not...he sure is here

[foreverfree]

bump

[Rockpile]

At ABC for low these many years Peter Jennings has been telling us all about big election news around the nation.

How often do you think he has voted in those elections?

[Timesink]

Please add me to the ping list. Thanks!

Which one? Media Schadenfreude or Media Shenanigans? Oh both? (They often overlap, but not always.)

[Jen]

Oh heck, why not both. Thanks!

[Timesink]

Oh heck, why not both. Thanks!

Done! Welcome!

[GOPJ]

bump

[ALOHA RONNIE]

...HILLARY Media Partner PETER JENNINGS just became an American Citizen after all these years...

...so's he'd have "Greater" credibility with American Voters during HILLARY's run for the Presidency in 2004.

...TOM BROKAW won't be retiring until after the 2004 Election for the very same reason.

...DAN RATHER is still friends with Friend of HILLARY ..Communist Teorrorist FIDEL CASTRO.

...WALTER CRONKITE, Friend of Communsit Terrorist HO CHI MINH during the Vietnam War, is now 2004 Presidential Candidate HILLARY's No. 1 Media Defensive Linebacker.

...HILLARY RODHAM, Friend of Communist Terrorist HO CHI MINH during the Vietnam War, has our Oval Office in her sights no matter WHO's in her way right now.

The Enemy is now Within...
and always has been...
only now it's our own Freedom...
that's at stake...
BIG TIME.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[lawgirl]

The Times' circulation has fallen 5 percent and 1.1 million fewer households are watching network television news compared to last year at this time!

This sounds like like a good start.