Mainstream malfeasance: Geoff Metcalf on why Arafat, Clinton, Jackson et al 'get away with it'

I have been itching and moaning about what the news media does and doesn't do for over a decade. When I first started writing for WorldNetDaily in 1998, my second column was about Selective reporting.

Even before joining WND, I recall interviewing Tony Vercillo about his 1996 book "Death By Media." Recent books about media malfeasance and bias have raced up bestseller lists (Bernie Goldberg's "Bias," William McGowan's, "Coloring the News").

Aubrey T. DeVera once observed, "Prejudice, which sees what it pleases, cannot see what is plain."

Consider just three ubiquitous practitioners of the Big Lie(s) and ask yourself how and why they have been allowed to maintain careers constructed on bovine excrement:

How have these three reprehensible, contemptible men been able to continue to flourish? If the Fourth Estate had done its job, all three would be anonymous, unknown residents of some "Stony Lonesome."

Each case study is different but similar. However, one common denominator in the sustenance of all three bad guys has been (and continues to be) media malfeasance and/or complicity.

Each man has his defenders and detractors – a blue team and a red team, "us" and "them," defenders of the indefensible and Don Quixotes.

Ambrose Bierce once said "Politics is the conduct of public affairs for private advantage." But where is the private advantage in the entire mainstream homogenous goo of (to use a Drudgeism) ABCCBSNBCTime
WarnerDisneyGeneralElectricCNNFoxNews
MSNBCCNBCMicrosoftNewYorkTimesWashingtonPost et al. consistently giving political cover to these weasels?

I have never been able to fully corroborate a notorious quote widely attributed to David Rockefeller from the June 1991 Bilderberger meeting in Baden Baden, Germany. Supposedly, then Governor Bill Clinton and then Vice President Dan Quayle were in attendance when Rockefeller allegedly said, "We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years." He allegedly went on to explain: "It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years."

Is that the deal? Are the conspiracy theorists right? Was Mel Gibson's "Conspiracy Theory" fiction or a Scribean foreshadowing?

Almost five years ago, I wrote, "Notwithstanding the obvious liberal bias of the mainstream media, many of us continue to wonder at what point will either embarrassment or territorial imperative compel the dominant media to return to the journalistic foundation of actually reporting Who, What, When, Where, rather than obfuscating the Why and the How, and/or committing mortal sins of omission."

I have used a line that has become an annoying refrain about fairness, and the ability (or inability) of people to "... not want to be confused with facts which contradict their preconceived opinions." People incorrectly assume that the mainstream is reporting objectively. In fact, the mainstream media is neither fair nor balanced.

Hey, this is an opinion column. Opinions are like intimate body parts – we all have them, me, you, he, she, them. I can't – and wouldn't want to – compel you to agree with me, but please, look and listen.

When will the presumed keepers of the Fourth Estate acknowledge their responsibility and report a full and complete journal of the facts – and allow the people the luxury of making their own fully informed decisions? Anytime before Hell freezes over?

The remarkable growth of WorldNetDaily, other "New Media" venues, and talk radio – I believe – is a function of physics. I'm not a scientist (and, no, I have never played one on television either), but I did retain enough to recall, "Nature abhors a vacuum."

Goldberg says, "in 1980, the three networks had 75 percent of the people who were watching anything during the dinner hour watching one of the network shows …Today, it's down to 43 percent." Where has the audience gone? Sure there are a lot more options today than in 1980, but one major factor has been the audience seeking (and finding) what the networks refuse to offer.

I have asked Goldberg, Jack Germond, Bob Novak, Dave Barry, Reed Irvine, John Stossel, Matt Drudge, Bill O'Reilly – even Reed Hundt (Clinton's former FCC commissioner) the same question. When are the networks going to get hip and acknowledge that all they have to do is provide the audience what they want and what they are not getting in the mainstream now?

Bernie doesn't "think that the news guys will do it, because they don't even acknowledge they have a problem."

Well there is a problem. And it is contributing to the maintenance of slugs like Arafat, Clinton and Jackson. Confucius said, "To see what is right, and not do it, is want of courage, or of principle." Metcalf says, "It is both."

I wrote the follow as a reply on another thread:

Yesterday evening, while poring over a trail of anguishing accounts of still more suicide bombing attacks in Israel, I stumbled onto yet another repulsive reminder of unbridled hypocrisy on the left.
Left-wingers relish parading themselves as heroic champions of "human rights" and "democracy", of "peace" and reconciliation", rather than war. To hear these snake-oil con-artists tell it, they -- and only they -- are the noble vanguard, gallantly battling -- not nations nor armies -- but racism, fascism, anti-semitism and other dark human impulses or aberrations.
Oh, they're champions, alright; indeed, they've set a world record -- for brazen shamelessness.
Make that two world records. Add hypocrisy.
Item: A European Kumbaya brigade of "peace activists" on Sunday stormed through lines of Israeli soldiers surrounding Arafat's terrorist headquarters in Ramallah. Their "mission"? Forming a "human shield" to guard Arafat, the terrorist butcher holed-up inside.
In Bethlehem's Azar and Aida refugee camps, another contingent of "international volunteers" formed "human shields" around "Palestinian" terrorists.
Some might dismiss this clique of Bohemians (there were 200 in all) as screwballs and kooks, but, in fact, their solidarity with Arafat -- a Hitler-wannabe who's called for hordes of suicide bombers to swarm Israel with mayhem and death -- is typical of liberalism's pervasive anti-semitism today.
For Jew-baiting, no one tops media darling golden-boy Al Sharpton. The sanctimonious charlatan poses as "civil rights" leader, no less. Sharpton wears his ugly bigotry proudly -- on his sleeves. He and Jesse L. Jackson are two peas in a pod.
Or how about Gore Vidal? The Jew-bashing novelist might as well wear a swastika armband.
Or the rancid anti-semitism of Alexander Cockburn, a chip off the old Soviet Bloc, as Nation Review would say?
Or, how about the U.N., the golden-calf of the left? The Israel-bashing, anti-semitism sizzles fiercer there than at a Klu Klux Klan rally.
Or how about the citadel of liberalism itself -- Big Media? The boardcast networks and CNN operate as veritable "Palestinian" mouthpieces, regurgitating every Jew-hating swill and slander from Arafat and his ilk like affiliates of al-Jeezera TV.
The Jewish state is relentlessly maligned as ruthless, cruel, oppressive; whereas, cold-blooded suicide bombers who blow up crowded Pizzerias in Jerusalem are routinely romantized as 'fearless' 'warriors', willing to die for a 'noble' and 'just' 'cause'.
A neo-Nazi Skinhead or Klansman would beam with delight at the flagrant and egregious pro-Arafat slant at the Gray Lady. The New York Times deserves a yellow journalism award, so appallingly one-sided has been its "reporting" on mideast affairs.
At the Times, Israel can do no right, "Palestinians" can do no wrong. Arafat and the bloodthirsty goon-squad of hoodlums and thugs he directs are placed on equal moral footing with Israel's freely elected government.
Bigotry, Jew-bashing, hate and intolerance are alive and well on the left.
My two cents...
"JohnHuang2"

Good article!

An outrageous double standard exists. Some people, especially select athletes and actors and the Clintons, get a pass for even the worst of crimes, including pedophilia, while others, such as Rocker, are harassed for the most trivial of comments.

Take Paula Poundstone. Today's The Washington Times reports she appeared in D.C., "the crowd intantly forgave her."
Poundstone was sentenced to five years probation and six months in rehab. Her adopted children live with a family friend and spend time with Poundstone during the day in monitored visits. She complained that the punishment (certainly a slap on the wrist) didn't fit the crime. Yet the crime has never made public, thanks to sealed documents. We may never lear what it was.

"It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years."

Is that the deal? Are the conspiracy theorists right? Was Mel Gibson's "Conspiracy Theory" fiction or a Scribean foreshadowing?

Argh! It is compelling indeed. One thing is sure, the polarisation of left vs right, poor fascists vs. rich fascists, is getting unnerving. Avoid revolutions of cults and classes people, maintain your consciousness and jurisdiction, is all I can say. Though the poor backed by Russian and CHina seem to be way ahead of the curve in terms of shafting the rich these days. In fact the rich are not so much making a revolution as but one of caving in and throwing bread crumbs around the world.

The nation will just keep going downhill to socialism and elitism (on the part of some) as long as the media owners and operators are not interested in the truth. The "Free Press" is a joke here. And while I'm at it let me say this. I'm tired of this FAIR and BALANCED stuff, lets just report facts.

It's like the Oscars being reported as Hollywood making up for 50 years of racial neglect with the awards to Halle and Denzel. Just report that they won the awards, we will decide whether Hollywood made up for whatever. Just report facts.......leave out the opinion and "analysis" please. Maybe news on the internet will save the country, but I fear it's too late. The liberals will lie to the end to keep their power. Soon in this country there will be so many people reliant on the government tit that it may be impossible to even "sell" a tax cut!!!!

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