Posted on 09/22/2004 12:13:55 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
In wake of CBS episode, columnist braced for e-mail
Last week, a capable radio talk-show host had me on air to comment about CBS News anchor Dan Rather's credibility meltdown. I had noted that CBS and 60 Minutes had acted more like participants in the presidential campaign — and incompetent ones at that — than reporters of events. At the end of a brief interview, the host thanked me for being on top of this story.
Sorry, but all I did was write a column that piggybacked off the hard work of reporters at the Washington Post and the Dallas Morning News, and after watching Fox News and CNN dissect the story. While bloggers uncovered technical holes in the 60 Minutes story, the reason Rather fell so quickly was that mainstream media nailed this story.
With, now, CBS admitting it screwed up big time, watch conservatives use this sorry episode as an excuse to boycott mainstream media, and ignore news they don't like. As those on the far left do in their way, these partisans also will seize the exception and call it the rule.
So I am bracing myself for the next avalanche of e-mail from readers who pat themselves on the back because they don't subscribe to newspapers, and prefer to get their news from the Internet or talk radio or Fox News only. They stick with the little news shops that only sell what they want to hear in the firm belief that they should not be exposed to news they don't like.
I am awestruck. Do people actually think I am happy they are boycotting vetted news, which is the industry that pays my salary? Do they understand that bragging about not reading a newspaper is analogous to bragging that you only speak one language?
Let me stipulate: The news business attracts liberals. I work in a building where those of us who will vote for President Bush probably could fit in the paper's two elevators. New York Times writer John Tierney informally polled political journalists last month and found that journalists outside the Beltway preferred Sen. John Kerry to Bush 3 to 1, but 12 to 1 inside the Beltway. The informal poll was in keeping, Tierney wrote, with surveys that find "more than 80 percent of the Beltway press corps votes Democratic."
Every day this work force nonetheless goes out in the world, talks to sources, reads documents, attends meetings and talks to people going about their daily business just to get the whole story. They learn layers of a story, find facts that surprise them and then write about what they learn.
Sure, some reporters — a minority in my experience — put their agenda before their craft, just as some editors are oblivious to the bias that is the spine of many a political story. Still, most reporters work hard to play it down the middle.
CBS tarnished the name of those good newsies when it ran a story based on bogus documents. And Rather's denials and excuses made the profession look worse.
CBS apparently is about to investigate where it went wrong. No mystery there: There was no editor at 60 Minutes with the sense to understand that this obsession to get Bush for not serving every month the Democrats believe Bush should have served in the National Guard could only serve to confirm what conservatives know about left-leaning media bias. Not to mention that the scoop documents were too good to be true.
It doesn't help that top editors value diversity in hiring based on skin color or sexual identity, but are content to preside over a staff that is 80 percent-plus liberal, while the country is pretty much evenly divided. So it is no wonder that the ratings for Fox News soar. Fox provides relief from stories that are balanced in their presentation, but left-leaning in concept. Meanwhile, execs at Fox's ailing competitors scratch their heads as conservative viewers, after years of complaining, take their remotes and go elsewhere.
Lucky me. I get the e-mails from voters who don't read newspapers, but defiantly rely on Fox only or Web sites (which I use all the time, too, as a supplement to mainstream news) to tell them only things they want to hear. I hear the same chorus from lefties who proclaim that they find the truth on the Web sites that tell them only what they want to hear.
Folks in newspapers are doing it, too. Some columnists even refer readers to unvetted blogs as good places to learn "facts." Go to the Web sites and you, too, can learn about "Bush lies." With an exposé on journalists who won't tell you "Bush lies." One "Bush lies" site even touts a letter by David Brock (who called Anita Hill "a little bit nutty, a little bit slutty," then later said he lied about her) — so you know how that site is.
Left or right, readers of such Web sites actually are proud that they read this propaganda, secure in the knowledge that what they are reading must be true, because it includes no information that would make them question their deeply cherished prejudices. It's like being proud you enjoyed a bad 60 Minutes segment.
Saunders is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. Readers may e-mail her at dsaunders@sfchronicle.com.
"It doesn't help that top editors value diversity in hiring based on skin color or sexual identity, but are content to preside over a staff that is 80 percent-plus liberal, while the country is pretty much evenly divided. So it is no wonder that the ratings for Fox News soar."
She sure got that part right.
Sounds like she's a bit upset that the gravy train may be derailed.
Yes. She knows where the truth is and where it's slanted, but she also seems somewhat conflicted.
"Sorry, but all I did was write a column that piggybacked off the hard work of reporters at the Washington Post and the Dallas Morning News, and after watching Fox News and CNN dissect the story.
While bloggers uncovered technical holes in the 60 Minutes story, the reason Rather fell so quickly was that mainstream media nailed this story."
That is the problem. You mainstream media types don't bother to look for the truth anymore. Especially if it might hurt one of your own.
Well, she sounds like a conservative - and I'd like to see one of them get Dan's chair. Fat chance.
Fox News had a report about Viacom and all the LIBERALS on their board. Same thing at Disney and CBS (they each have a retired Democrat congressmen on their board).
Free Republic IS the real news. It's all here.
This belies the chick's personal bias:
"Fox provides relief from stories that are balanced in their presentation, but left-leaning in concept."
[Scratches head.] What?? MSM is never balanced in presentation. And anyway, what's the difference between presentation and concept? (As in this sentence.) Bogus use of English language.
Yes, she is a MSM type.
I think that's where her conflict lies.
Yeah, that little gem don't compute.
What an idiot. He's complaining that we're not buying his buggy whips, as we race past him in automobiles.
LOL
She has a point about seeing what you want to see. Ever notice over at DU they all think MSM is pro-Bush? And I didn't really start to gloat until MSM got on CBS-Rather for real.
Not expressed too well, but I think she means by "concept" the choice of stories, e.g., anything about global warming from "environmentalists" is treated as hard news, though they may have dissenters comment. Oil for Fraud is simply not a story, except on Fox. Pro-abortion marches are hard news, though dissenters may be allowed to comment; anti-abortion marches never happened. Etc., etc., etc.
My interpretation: They report both sides but highlight the LIBERAL stuff (beginning with a pro LIBERAL or anti-conservative headline) and put the conservative stuff at the bottom of the page, use inflammatory adjectives and/or edit it.
EXACTLY ! ! 99 % of Free Republic is nothing but all of us commenting on news stories from NEWSPAPERS! lol
Let's see. Her argument is:
The major media is overwhelmingly liberal, some reporters use their job to promote the liberal agenda and some editors can't even recognize it when they do.
But they're good at vetting, so please keep reading.
I will for sure. It' become a major source of amusement.
and this, of course, is sickeningly obvious (recall that michael ishikoff [sp?] with newsweek passed the lewinsky story on to drudge when his editors 'spiked' it).
your interpretation concerns what happens to and within a story, once a decision is made to run with it, and puts the lie to the author's preposterous claim that stories are balanced in their presentation.
nothing could be farther from the truth. remember the story a few days ago about the various voter fraud de jour working their way through the court system? out of the half dozen examples cited, only the case involving a republican was mentioned with party affiliation.
"balanced in their presentation." indeed.
but, it's nice to see an admission that they attempt to influence people's opinions by selective reporting. i'll take it.
we'll know that they've awakened to the power of the internet, though, when we read: "we have systematically lied to the american people without surcease for decades, but beg you to give us one more chance. please. what else will we do for a living if NO ONE pays any attention anymore? besides, it really wasn't our fault ... we had to lie because george bush wouldn't be honest about his tang time."
ooops. eh, plus ca la change, plus le meme chose.
Has absolutely nothing to do with not liking it, it has to do with not believing it. I don't read the National Enquirer and I am fairly certain I am not missing out on anything, either.
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