This former newspaper reporter has great concerns about the mass media. Partisan passions of journalists strongly influence their decisions in writing, editing, running, and playing stories. Also, many of those who criticize the press live in big cities whose chief newspapers rarely, if ever, run AP stories. In the smaller cities and communities of America, AP stories lead; critics and residents in, for example, the New York City and Washington, D.C. areas have no idea of the content and impact of those stories.
My local newspaper, the Telegram & Gazette in Worcester, Mass., where I once worked, passed on an AP story that briefly quoted remarks of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Those remarks and Obama’s long association with Rev. Wright contradicted and nullified his appeal to end racial divisions in this country. Readers could not know of that because the story was not reported or referenced, save briefly, in one story that ran Page 10 of the Sunday newspaper. The AP led a story with Barack’s response to Bush remarks before the Israeli Knesset, with the Bush remarks pushed to the fifth paragraph, The paper put that story atop its second news page. (It ran there because coverage of the the California Supreme Court’s 4-3 gay marriage decision dominated Page One. The paper ran an unprecedented, four color shots on one story there, all celebrating the decision.)
Some on the left think that Barack won that round, a judgment no doubt shared at AP’s Washington Bureau and by some of the Telegram & Gazette’s current editors. Hooray! Our guy is fighting back! John Kerry’s willingness to ignore attacks, the left appears to think, hurt his candidacy. But the newspaper never printed in its news pages a single accusation of Kerry’s critics against his service in Vietnam or his conduct after his service. That noncoverage was typical of the press. To what was Kerry to respond, and would the press print the accusation? (it’s my guess that had Obama not responded, the Bush remarks would not have been printed.)
Mr. Boriss imagines that the press supports the Establishment. Oh? Which? Certainly that of government schools, whose graduates cannot spell English well and have limited knowledge of this nation’s history–currently, the fruit of initiatives Republicans and Democrats have supported.
That sort of thing is arguable. Consistently tilted coverage of government and politics is not. Many restrict their consideration of press propaganda to mass news vehicles supporting the views of a government. One can propagandize certain political and cultural views that oppose those of a government, too. But put Obama in the White House and give Democrats 61 seats in the Senate and a House majority, well, one expects the classic pattern to return, and it won’t need government coercion.
