Newsweek is biased like the rest of the media elite [Dick Morris]

The Hill ^ | May 18, 2005 | Dick Morris

[Malesherbes]

Me too. I gave up on Time first, and then Newsweek, and then US News. Now I read FR and a few other favorites and I'm better informed.

[cwb]

That's a riot. In other words, Isakoff wanted the Pentagon to tell Newsweak what they should and shouldn't have report in that story. Yet today, when Mclellan suggests the media be a little more repsonsible and fair in their reporting, the media accuses the WH of censoring and attempting to influence the Free Press. I can only imagine the story had Isakoff got his wish.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

In this article Dick Morris reminds us that:

• BBC maliciously, vociferously, and wrongly claimed that Blair "sexed up" prewar Iraq intel.
• CBS maliciously used transparent forgeries to attack Bush's TANG record.
• The NY Times launched an attack on the Bush Administration in the last week before the election, fraudulently claiming that the military had negligently allowed terrorists to steal 370 tons of explosives which it had control of.
• Newsweek has published - and had to retract - its inflammatory Koran abuse story.

Morris correctly summarizes these as political attacks against Bush, and concludes that, notwithstanding the constant scandal reports on the Cli;ton Administration, there was no negative reporting on that Administration which was not substantively, or entirely, true. Indeed he points out that Monicagate was broken by Drudge only because Newsweek was spiking the story lest it harm Clinton.

Morris then proceeds to lamely call on the MSM to " examine their own bias and correct it" - as if it were possible that the MSM had some doubt as to the political tendency it projects.

Morris makes half of a fine analysis. The truth is not only that the above facts are indisputable, but they omit such jewels of "objectivity" as

• wrongly calling of the Florida 2000 vote for Gore while Bush was ahead in the reported vote and polls in the panhandle were still open, and continuously insinuating afterward that Bush's win was tainted even after their own recounts showed otherwise.
• continuously portraying the impeachment of Bill Clinton (for lying to a judge under oath in a case he could have honorably settled out of court) as hypocritical harassment of Clinton's "personal life."
• And, worst of all IMHO, allowing FBI Filegate - between 900 and 2000 felony counts committed in the White House, and no Administration figure held politically or legally responsible - to fade away without even being an issue in the 1996 renomination and reelection of Bill Clinton.

That is not the behavior of an independent press, that is the behavior of a political party. "Objective Journalism" is an establishment which can get "Campaign Finance Reform" laws passed to eviscerate First Amendment freedom of the people for the enhancement of its own relative influence. The fact that it behaves as a coherent politically motivated entity is in plain sight. And anyone who is responsible for preserving, protecting, and defending the Constitution of the United States had, and has, an affirmative duty to remove from our laws and precedents any trace of favor to any member of the MSM.

That is the only challenge which really matters. And, be it remembered, it was Ronald Reagan who killed the Fairness Doctrine which was suppressing all serious examination of the MSM from the airwaves.

Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate

[Hemingway's Ghost]

The media need to examine their own bias and correct it, lest still more readers and viewers turn away in the face of their obvious manipulation of public opinion.

This will never, ever, ever happen: it's up to us here, online, and in these internet communities, to "report" the truth by vetting it in public and in plain sight. Everyone who posts something on FR is, in effect, a reporter, and everyone who reads a post, is, in effect, a fact-checker.

However, sites/communities like this aren't immune from drinking the Kool-Aid themselves. When I first discovered Free Republic in 1997/1998, it was a lot more anti-government/anti-Establishment/pro-freedom than it is now that "our guys" are in power. We have to be careful that our principles remain as rock-solid as our commitment to the truth, or else we run the risk of committing the same errors as the mainstream press, and being equally as blind to our failings.