Editing Their Way to Oblivion: Journalism Sacrificed For Power and Pensions by MIchael S. Malone
The traditional media is playing a very, very dangerous game. With its readers, with the Constitution, and with its own fate.
The sheer bias in the print and television coverage of this election campaign is not just bewildering, but appalling. And over the last few months I’ve found myself slowly moving from shaking my head at the obvious one-sided reporting, to actually shouting at the screen of my television and my laptop computer.
But worst of all, for the last couple weeks, I’ve begun — for the first time in my adult life — to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living. A few days ago, when asked by a new acquaintance what I did for a living, I replied that I was “a writer”, because I couldn’t bring myself to admit to a stranger that I’m a journalist.
You need to understand how painful this is for me. I am one of those people who truly bleeds ink when I’m cut. I am a fourth generation newspaperman. As family history tells it, my great-grandfather was a newspaper editor in Abilene, Kansas during the last of the cowboy days, then moved to Oregon to help start the Oregon Journal (now the Oregonian). My hard-living – and when I knew her, scary – grandmother was one of the first women reporters for the Los Angeles Times. And my father, though profoundly dyslexic, followed a long career in intelligence to finish his life (thanks to word processors and spellcheckers) as a very successful freelance writer. I’ve spent thirty years in every part of journalism, from beat reporter to magazine editor. And my oldest son, following in the family business, so to speak, earned his first national by-line before he earned his drivers license.
So, when I say I’m deeply ashamed right now to be called a “journalist”, you can imagine just how deep that cuts into my soul.
Now, of course, there’s always been bias in the media. Human beings are biased, so the work they do, including reporting, is inevitably colored. Hell, I can show you ten different ways to color variations of the word “said” – muttered, shouted, announced, reluctantly replied, responded, etc. – to influence the way a reader will apprehend exactly the same quote. We all learn that in Reporting 101, or at least in the first few weeks working in a newsroom. But what we are also supposed to learn during that same apprenticeship is to recognize the dangerous power of that technique, and many others, and develop built-in alarms against their unconscious.
But even more important, we are also supposed to be taught that even though there is no such thing as pure, Platonic objectivity in reporting, we are to spend our careers struggling to approach that ideal as closely as possible. That means constantly challenging our own prejudices, systematically presenting opposing views, and never, ever burying stories that contradict our own world views or challenge people or institutions we admire. If we can’t achieve Olympian detachment, than at least we can recognize human frailty – especially in ourselves.
For many years, spotting bias in reporting was a little parlor game of mine, watching TV news or reading a newspaper article and spotting how the reporter had inserted, often unconsciously, his or her own preconceptions. But I always wrote it off as bad judgment, and lack of professionalism, rather than bad faith and conscious advocacy. Sure, being a child of the ‘60s I saw a lot of subjective “New” Journalism, and did a fair amount of it myself, but that kind of writing, like columns and editorials, was supposed to be segregated from ‘real’ reporting, and at least in mainstream media, usually was. The same was true for the emerging blogosphere, which by its very nature was opinionated and biased.
But my complacent faith in my peers first began to be shaken when some of the most admired journalists in the country were exposed as plagiarists, or worse, accused of making up stories from whole cloth. I’d spent my entire professional career scrupulously pounding out endless dreary footnotes and double-checking sources to make sure that I never got accused of lying or stealing someone else’s work – not out any native honesty, but out of fear: I’d always been told to fake or steal a story was a firing offense . . .indeed, it meant being blackballed out of the profession.
Apparently Mr. Malone can’t get this piece published in the mainstream media. That says a lot.
Exellent post, There are so many stories on the left that could make this generations Woodward and Bernstein. http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/10/more-reckless-o.html http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/10/who-is-john-gal.html it’s a shame no one in the MSM will report this.
Sorry for the state of your profession, Michael. That said: burn, baby, burn.
“And then the opportunity presents itself: an attractive young candidate whose politics likely matches yours, but more important, he offers the prospect of a transformed Washington with the power to fix everything that has gone wrong in your career. With luck, this monolithic, single-party government will crush the alternative media via a revived Fairness Doctrine, re-invigorate unions by getting rid of secret votes, and just maybe, be beholden to people like you in the traditional media for getting it there.”
The most ironic admission in this whole confession is that the MSM’s extolling of the “Change” mantra of The One’s campaign is really directed at keeping things the same. Sad but true.
You missed what I believe is the main reason for the media pass for Democrats, fear. Just try to simply disagree with them on anything regarding Obama and prepare to be crucified, like Joe the Plumber. Big money behind rabid, hate filled, ideologues willing to attack and eviscerate whomever has made cowards of the MSM. Bravo to you sir for not cowering before them.
In closing, I have a question for you. Which is more dangerous to a free society, a state controlled, propaganda pumping, media like Tass or Pravda that only tells the populace what they want them to believe, or a free press with an agenda? I fear for our country.
You are delusional if you truly believe in the so-called “liberal” bias in the media. CBS is owned by Westinghouse, a huge defense contractor. NBC is owned by General Electric, a huge defense contractor. FOX is owned, along with most radio stations in the USA and several papers/mags as well, by Rupert Murdoch. ABC is owned by General Dynamics, a huge defense contractor. The unChristian Right owns a huge number of stations across the land. You could put in your eye and not feel the “liberal” owned media.
The very notion that these conservative fat cats who own most major media in the USA, put their editorial (I mean propaganda) departments in the hands of their sworn idealogical enemies, aka, “liberals” is laughable.
The “liberal” media is a myth. The truth is, there is so little substance to the McCain campain that there isnt much to report on it.
The Ayers connection is a non starter. Ayers paid is debt to society a long time ago and has become a leading educator. If Gordon Liddy can have a nationally broadcast radio show and be friends with McCain, I guess Obama can have a non-controversial relationship with Ayers without becoming the focal point in his campaign.
Moreover, if there was anything to the Rezko link it would already have been exposed, chewed, regurgitated, redigested and shat out repeatedly by the media. There is as much meat there as there was on the Vince Foster “murder” story or any of the nonsense on which Ken Starr wasted millions of taxpayer dollars.
Yes, the media have become a gaggle of propagandists and stenogs. Some are even “investigative” stenogs. However the fault lies in the destruction of the First Amendment and the notion that reporters have a naturally adversarial relationship and their job is to expose what the government (and some individuals) want to keep secret. They can’t do that by attending Georgetown cocktail parties and agreeing to keep every discussion is “off the record” at the pleasure of the interviewee. Millionaire journalists and “reporters” do as they’re told.
The media needs serious reform but chasing rainbows and tilting at windmils isn’t going to recapture the credibility that reporters and “journos” once had. That will take some serious self-reflection and the courage to ask tough questions and speak truth to power. That art has long since disappeared from journalism and is quite unlikely to return anytime soon, at least not in the US, where the entire population has been systematically dumbed down.
“Delusional ?” Wow, you have elastic standards.
Was this reporter embarrassed to be called a journalist during the multi-year free ride Bush enjoyed from 9/11, when the media promoted the WMD story and gave a pass to the Patriot Act? Probably not.
Tell us about that “free ride” for Bush. Did he know about the 9/11 attack ahead of time ? I would really like to know from an expert, as you undoubtedly are. Do you know a guy named Vann Jones ?
Just asking.
Wow! Thank you for bringing an insight to this problem of media bias like none I have ever heard. As an insider you are able to see things much more clear than the average person. I think you have found your “Good” story. If you write the book…they will buy it
“With luck, this monolithic, single-party government will crush the alternative media via a revived Fairness Doctrine, re-invigorate unions by getting rid of secret votes…”
Bullseye.
Dan Rather was willing bet it all to swing the ’04 election and now gets to play in the cable TV sandbox. Let’s hope the MSM gets a similar result after this election.
Strangely enough though, I WANT a daily newspaper. I’d resubscribe to the LA Times in a heartbeat if they ever got their act together.
You’re a brave and honest man, Mr. Malone. I spent some years in journalism, pretty humble compared to your experience. But maybe that was the point; even in my small newsrooms i would not have let such bias go unchallenged. I had no idea the “big leagues” were less principled.
And,no, I don’t mind the press going after Sarah Palin, but I don’t understand the delicacy about obama and biden. Doesn’t it bother these “journalists” somehow?
Mr. Malone,
Thanks for telling us the truth. Your last full paragraph is chilling, and believable.
Keep up the good work.
Duh! Thanks for finally getting around to recognizing what has been apparent for a while.
It’s akin to admitting an affair to your spouse. She/he knows something’s wrong, or noticing a change in behavior. It cathartic (and perhaps healing) for YOU to admit it. US on the outside are still stuck with crappy journalism.
Sir, it isn’t just the editors. The reporters are culpable, too. No absolution for them. And there will be a price for this–a loss of credibility mainstream news media will likely never regain, so there won’t be redemption, either. Imagine what it was like for the occasional principled man or woman writing for Pravda during the Cold War. Many of them probably dreamed of being journalists in a free world, where they could be real reporters doing real work, reporting facts, writing truth. I doubt very much those pitiable Soviet apparatchiks could imagine giving away such a beautiful responsibility willingly, freely, joyfully, yet here it is. There’s no going back.
Mr Malone, I feel your shame. I say that with sadness, rather than disdain. What seems to escape the traditional media is that the internet offers them ways of gathering information that were simply unimaginable a decade ago. What seems to escape the hectoring bloggers is that if they succeed in putting the traditional media into financial defibrilation, then there simply won’t be any serious news outlets left to criticize.
If you’re right, then much of the problem will go away in the next ten years, as those self-interested editors shuffle off to Buffalo one by one. But then again, who will take their place? And more important, why?
Thank you for being one of the honest guys.
It’s usually thankless.
good post. glad you still have some standards to work by.
I personally am looking foward to the death of MSM.
Mr Malone,
And I say “Mr.” as you are due the respect.
I greatly appreciate your profound article. Finally, at least one of the members of the “fourth estate” as the honesty to document what has been going on! The media and the government are in the tank for each other. A “paper” can not survive without access and information. A “government” can not survive without an outlet. Candidates clearly can not campaign without the free media. The current state of the shameless bias is digusting. Your column is a true breath of fresh air. Not only does it name the evil, but it explains the reasons why the evil is here.
Congratulations!
Great analysis! I hadn’t thought of their desire to eliminate the competition in order to save their own hides.
However, we have all had a taste of the new media, and we like it. They can try to get rid of it, but they will never get me to start reading newspapers for news again. I will find the new media wherever it ends up, and the dead paper industry will continue its decline.
Are Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko that hard to interview?
I’m not sure how many vistors Rezko’s allowed to have in the lock-up.
Mr. Malone: I agree with you that this is sad and, for the good of the country, frightening. You may, however, find some interesting perspective if you can get a copy of “Recollections of a Busy Life”, the autobiography of Horace Greeley. for what it’s worth, his descriptions of what “journalism” was like in the early parts of his career (~ 1830′s 1840) are, even by the standards of this election, startling.
Then fix it.
Wow. Be prepared to get tarred and feathered, Mr. Malone. Remember what happened to Bernie Goldberg?
WOW spot on.
explains why i haven’t bought a newspaper in a long time, and the MSM t.v. is just as bad.
for example i stopped reading the NEW YORK TIMES when the put on a front page in color photo of a Israeli policeman and bleeding teenager and said it was a arab being beaten by the policeman, problem was it wasn’t an arab but a jewish student in fact a New York Jewish student whom the policeman had saved from a arab mob. When the mother of the boy saw the photo of her son being protected by the and she contacted the NEW YORK TIMES when the put in the correction a week later it was of course on the back page and under the fold. An honest report would have had the mother on the front page and also talking about the anti semitic mob that attacked the boy. It was also noted that the front page of the NEW YORK TIMES with this photo was still being used by the PLO in their propaganda.
You should be ashamed.
And now you know why I chose my nom de plume.
May God save America from the coming storm.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who will cheer if, when Islamists next attack NYC, the New York Times Building is ground zero during the height of the work day; and/or that the upper East and West sides between Central Park South and 96th Street are decimated. Since people working and living in these areas are almost uniformly sympathetic of Islamist Nazis, it is proper that hey suffer the consequences of their misplaced sympathy.
Words fitly spoken, Mr. Malone. Bless you for an honest man and I know it hurts.
Your ideas about the editors sound about right but I’m not sure that’s all there is. A whole lot of these ‘journalists’ (who Speak Truth To Power) are products of campuses where what they’re doing seems just fine. They’re attack dogs for themselves and like-minded friends, not watch dogs for the public.
But, as you suggested, it’s not ultimately in their interest to be this way. They may end up like the guy in the in the crooked poker game who hasn’t figured out who the sucker is (it’s him!)
You came from earlier time and admit to doing some of this yourself but then it was less, kept under control by the then-editors of the time, didn’t slop over onto the news pages.
So–it’s a matter of degree, no? Never dreamed it would come to this? But the readers will continue to drift away, find their own sources, and a new kind of samizdat journalist will come into being, sooner or later.
But you can be proud–you have kept the faith.
Michael,
Finally, someone (amongst a very few others) that rscognizes why MSM is tanking! CREDIBILITY. I congratulate you for having the balls (if “Michael” is a feminine name, pardon me, but I hereby confer a set of HUGE balls on you) to call out these pip-squeak weasle MSM jibber-jabber experts. May Mr. T have pity on them; they’ll need it starting in January if Mr. BHO is elected President of the United States of America.
wow
Wow!!! This poor chap will probably be fired very soon.
I have a degree in journalism and instead of taking a job in the media out of college, I got offered a job teaching high school Journalism and English. I then persued a Master’s degree in Education as I liked that profession. In 2004 I thought about trying my hand at a small newspaper in South Texas near where I was teaching. I got so upset at the stories that I read and would probably have to write in order to keep the job that I gave up altogether. Unfortunately, education is just as liberally biased as journalism. Thank God I didn’t walk down that path because in 2008, I would definitely be out of a job.
To getaclue: guess you have never watched MSNBC, CBS, or ABC have you? If you had you would NEVER have made that ignorant statement that you made. People like you and then elite media is what is wrong with this country. Too much of the “move along, nothing to see here” attitude. You are either blind, stupid, or both!!
I think you’re kidding yourself Mike if you think that there are legions of liberal reporters out there just itching to attack Barack Obama. The average reporter these days sees themselves as a reporter, shaper of news and an advocate of the public good as they see it.
In any case you may be right about what editors are thinking this cycle but I would argue that it is because of this bias that newspapers and traditional media are on the way out. Perhaps what we really have here is the last chance for these editors to have their cake and eat it too. Maybe they see this as their last gasp to continue the advocacy journalism that is destroying your profession (but which gratifies their egos so immensely) by elimating the competition rather than making changes in their reportage. They must know that eventually someone is going to step in, look at the bottom line and say “Enough, either makes some changes to the content of the paper (rather than just announce another round of layoffs) or we’ll bring in someone who will.” At this point it looks to me like if things keep going the way they are going, eventually the New York Times (for example) will be just Pinch Sulzburger and 4 interns churning out the same biased crap from a boiler room in Brooklyn for $8.50 an hour wondering how they are still losing money. You’ve got to recognize the problem before you can correct it and these egomaniac’s in the MSM elite desperately don’t want to recognize the reason their industry is dieing.
Excellent column. In Philadelphia, we have seen the decline of the once proud Inquirer into a boring biased brain dead rag. It will be a pleasure to see it finally go bankrupt.
“The Internet and alternative media are stealing your readers, your advertisers and your top young talent.”
Were these readers stolen or thrown away? I used to enjoy reading a variety of national papers – NYT, Chicago Tribune, and WSJ at least once a week. Now the only national paper I can stand is WSJ. Even my local paper is now blatantly biased on national stories (mainly due to its reliance on AP) so I only look to it for local news.
I didn’t leave the newspapers – they left me.
Actually, Get A Clue has apparently not gotten one themselves. Mr Ayers never spent any time in prison for his crimes. He was let off on technicalities and never served a day.
getaclue is under the impression there is no liberal bias since big media are–according to him/her–owned by ‘conservative fat cats’, the heads of large conglomerates and the like. Get a clue, getaclue: fat cats are as likely to be left and liberal as conservative. You’ve got that Mr. Moneybags Monopoly game Republican stereotype floating around in your head, don’t you? George Soros, anyone? How about Ted Turner? The men (and very few women) running multinational corporations genuinely like things like government bail-outs and guarantees. They love a regulatory environment that smothers less government-friendly and influential competitors under mountains of picayune paperwork and onerous, unnecessary detail. Your argument doesn’t hold. The logic doesn’t follow. And the proof of liberal bias is evident, glaring, and–for journalism as a profession–embarrassing and tragic.
Mr. Malone, I can’t tell you how impressed I am with your column. You are a good person. God Bless you.
Where is Michael Malone’s shame over the media’s part in ramping us into the Iraq war?
The truth: No one on the right expected Barak to have made it this far. Their media had stores of ammunition with Hillary’s name on it. They should be angry with themselves for such a stupid miscalculation.
And that’s how it goes. There’s no point in whining how their own poor choices (and their candidate’s) are fodder for the media. That’s politics, baby.
Oh, by the way, one of McCain’s supporters carved a “B” into her own face and lied to the police about her attack coming from a Barack supporter. I guess that the story made the news is just more skewed reporting ….
Even if the MSM manages to drag His Obaminess across the finish line, this will be its “last hurrah.” To wit:
If Obama wins, the MSM is f***ed…because at least half of the country will never trust it again.
If McCain wins, the MSM is still f***ed…because that same half of the country will never trust it again.
If I were a father and had a daughter who was dishonored I would not despair over her; I would pray for her salvation. But if I had a son who became a journalist, and remained a journalist for five years I would give him up. Possibly, I should have been wrong in this particular case, possibly the daughter would have been lost and the son won back again; but ideally speaking my observations are correct: to serve politics through the daily press is too much for a man. Who would dare disclaim having sometimes, and perhaps often, made use of a little lie: but a little lie used every day – and in print, so that as a result one is appealing to thousands and thousnands – that is frightful. One is appalled at the way a butcher uses a knife: but that is absolutely nothing to the terribly irresponsible and hardened way in which a journalist uses lies.
– Soren Kierkegaard
The Russians have even noticed this circus and call Americans hypocrites.
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/story.html?id=901941
Thank you!Thank you!Thank you!Thank you!Thank you! You have validated everything me and my entire family and friends have been seeing for so long! I thought WE were the crazy ones but you have outed the MSM and I’m just sorry that this will never make it to mainstream. Bless you!
I’m not buying the editors are responsible bs. Almost all the news in newspapers and on TV form any individual no matter cub reporter to most highly placed tv “journalist” is in the tank for B. H. 0bama.
Editors – bah humbug!
OK THEN – WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR???
GET BUSY – VOTER FRAUD, AYERS, REZKO, COLLEGE YEARS W/ NO FRIENDS, MISSING YEAR, PAPER TRAIL, BIRTH CERT CONTROVERSY?
COME ON – PICK JUST ONE AND WORK YOUR REAR OFF FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS. OR HOW ABOUT JUST MAKING SURE YOU LET EVERYONE IN THE WORLD KNOW HOW MUCH THE PRESS DIDN’T DO THIS ELECTION.
BHO WILL CERTAINLY BITE THE HAND THAT FED HIM.
Thanks Historian for the tip – people keep saying that “politics is worse now than ever!” You only say that if you have no sense of history. People were always assholes.
Great article Mr. Malone, but I’ll disagree with your conclusion. Like the death throes of a dragon, mainstream media is frantically audacious in whipping its tail and destroying the foundations it has built. Drunk with fear and power, it’s feeding on the last of its reputation in an effort to show us all that it’s still relevant – we’re dismissing the very institution that is deciding an election. Creatures this old and bitter come to believe they’re entitled to respect. We’ve lowered the bar too low, and now we’re being beaten with the bar.
I think there is malice behind the shameless performance of the media right now – now more than ever. I dread perusing the Associated Press feed, an octopus that has poisoned a whole industry with substandard and childishly partisan reporting. Fatalism here has bred an indignant perspective. There may come a day without newspapers, but there will always be a need for journalists, we’re not talking horses versus the auto here. Who can say for sure what the world will look like in 20 years, it’s likely the internet will be considered ancient history and media will flow through us like air scented with curiosity. Information, clumsily spread now, will then be widespread and instantaneous. The future is not scary for the one with a bright mind, and that’s where the written word is born.
This unabashed bias happening today is either irresponsible or its power playing its hand without remorse. Is it the predictable reflection of a generation of journalists who have been re-educated to believe that modern journalism is here to change the world. Relativistic. Contemptuous. Idealistic. They’re gonna use whatever power remains of the medium before it crashes to the ground and lives on only on Wikipedia.
But I do appreciate you supporting my sadistic interest in the newspaper industry.
“But my complacent faith in my peers first began to be shaken when some of the most admired journalists in the country were exposed as plagiarists, or worse, accused of making up stories from whole cloth.”
Same as it ever was. Spewing lies and propaganda didn’t start with Danny Rather, guys like William Randolph Hearst and Walter Duranty were doing it before we were even born.
Now, they’re just getting caught doing it, thanks to the Internet.
Great invention the WWW.
Thank you for being honest, Michael. No need to feel embarrassed anymore.
Admitting the truth is liberating and you deserve credit for being an actual journalist.
Hold your head high, my friend.
Mike.
Thank you for sharing your experiences and observations. If the media you write about truly had the interests of the country at heart, “real” journalists would have followed in your ancestor’s footsteps and exposed Obama a long time ago.
For what it is worth, here’s a brief anecdote I would like to share with you. Shortly after receiving my BSJ way back in 1962, I attended an Editor and Writers conference in New York City. During that week, in addition to receiving a guided tour of the New York Times, (where “real” journalists actually worked back then), I was privileged to participate in a seminar hosted by Edward R. Murrow. Actually, the word “participate” is a bit strong since Mr. Murrow did most of the talking for more than an hour while the dozen or so attendees took copious notes. Even without those notes, I can still remember a couple of things from that day.
Mr. Murrow must have chain smoked at least two packs of Chesterfield or Camel cigarettes during the session and more importantly, he told the group that “if you are going to have any degree of success in the newspaper business, keep your bias to yourself and always, always get your facts straight.”
I believe your piece met both of Mr. Murrow’s requirements. Thanks again for writing it.
Wow. I stand corrected. There is one single journalist with an ounce of integrity left.
Kudos for your courage and honesty, Mr Malone.
Troy, you know what else is funny about getaclue and his “fat cat” phobia? Obama himself is a fat cat. Pulled down more than $7 million a year the last couple of years. My feeling is, if he wants redistribution of wealth, let him be first in line and give 57% of all he earns to the government for redistribution.
I was trying to think of something — anything — we “little people” can do to get some action somewhere. Call my congressman? Stage a sit-in? I’m too peaceful to riot. For the first time in my adult life I feel powerless as an American. And what I most fear is that… that’s the point… this is what the liberal left wants us to feel… this is some form of retroactive retribution that America must pay in order to achieve some hateful somebody’s idea of a clean slate.
what a cheap long and boring article this is
what? who cares? print gone and stay gone with all your drunk journalistic habits
Anyone who has read anything I have written in these comments, knows I agree with your premise. Thank you for standing up to be counted.
However, you are too soft on your brethren. Those cowards, hypocrites and liars who have stolen our information stream are more than equally culpable. The editors who conspired with them to cheat away the truth, have stolen a public trust. But the mendacious fabricators in the fields…who stage photos, forge documents, give us fauxtography, photoshopped pictures, this is NOT a “shaded” or “nuanced” parlor game of slanting the news, it is worse. They are creating FAKE news.
This election has been an abomination, a festival of lies, half-truths, shrouded stories, buried stories, intentional distortions, photoshopped magazine covers, …befitting a banana republic dictatorship or totalitarian regime state sponsored propaganda journal.
There is no shame, because it takes a conscience to feel it. The entrenched media has reached a level of disgrace, the depths from which it should never recover. I don’t know how they could get any more slimy and despicable. I can’t envision something lower than this ring of Dante’s hell they have entered.
They have stolen my information stream and I want it back. We can’t self-govern this land of ours, based upon a pack of lies and intentionally hidden truths. And EVERYONE who “goes along with it” passively or actively is a co-conspirator and a traitor to the American public.
Journalists love Obama because if he’s elected it will be like having a journalist in the White House: Jayson Blair.
Let’s see, the Repubs are losing the presidential race, and it’s the fault of the “liberal” news media. Does this mean the media were conservative in 2000 and 2004, when the Repub ticket won? Or is it just that Dubya’s overwhelming competence inspired voters to overlook the media’s liberal bias in those elections?
Of course the McCain-Palin fiasco looks bad in the press because it’s been one blunder after another, starting with Bill Kristol mentioning Palin as a possible VP pick. How can any observer take seriously a campaign that proposes to back up a 72-year-old, cancer-ridden prez with a babe who hasn’t yet been able to articulate what the duties of the VP are?
For those of you who have HAD IT with the Mainstream Media…a little rant I stumbled across yesterday.
Paddy Chayefsky would be proud.
http://blip.tv/file/1390319
Thank you for this article, Mr. Malone. I would only add that there is a real need for careful, factual reporting, and fact-checked editorial comment, as well as a separation between news articles and editorials. And those people objecting to the poor quality reporting are by no means all Republicans. I’ve been encountering quite a few like-minded Democrats as I use my computer and cable connection to cross-check my local paper (The Washington Post).
What we need is an upgrade in the quality and accuracy of our news. We aren’t getting that from the legacy media, even though the legacy media has the advantage of long-term customers, equipment, and people. And, all the big news outlets have websites, so it’s a problem that is simply not explainable as a lack of skill or resources. There is, however, hubris involved. For some reason, they have decided to tell us what to think, instead of what the news is. Further their heroes are people who have done evil with their lives. I think the worship of ideological fools like David Halberstam, has produced an entire generation of reporters who think their function is to F**k the system. Well, they have succeeded, and their customers have developed other sources of information.
The profession of journalism will survive, and be credible, again, but it will be peopled by a whole new set of names, and completely different organizations.
Oh my God, thank you. I only wish, as others said, that this had been published in one of the top papers in the country. Front and center.
You are so right about everything: the insitutionalized bias. The “different rules” for those of us who toil in the fields v. those who have managed to get the plum national jobs. I’ve been on both sides, and I know it’s much easier to work for a national publication than to do good work for a local or trade publication where you’re not handed stories on a silver platter by those who are using you.
I also am a journalist who has become horrified by my own profession in recent years. I don’t want to leave the business, but that decision may be made for me as print publishing continues to implode. Everything has a silver lining.
Sadly, this all means exactly squat.
Coming clean like this is something akin to telling a man with his house on fire that you smell something burning.
Dammit, we already know this. And because of the partisan efforts of the media to effectively brainwash a sizeable portion of the populace, we now have a situation where BHO could sacrifice a baby to Mao, Lenin, and Marx on live TV and most of his supporters still would vote for him.
The question is, what do we do now?
This is an amazing piece, almost a reverse “It’s a Wonderful Life”. It’s a distillation of what many people have been feeling for years and yet been unable to put into words. Hope that someday we will have a media that can live up to what it once was but has fallen so far from.
Bias? It’s gone way beyond that. Let’s call it what it is: corruption. You can’t pump out the one-sided bilge we’re seeing in this election without those doing it knowing it’s wrong. And it’s become so obvious that even people who don’t normally notice media bias are seeing it.
The MSM must believe that they can rebuild their credibility after the election, but I don’t think so. Not this time. Ratings are down for all of the network news programs at a time when they should be going up because of intense interest in the election. Newspaper circulation is also down and the NY Times stock is cratering. People are deserting traditional news outlets to look for alternatives and many won’t be back.
Too little. Way too late.
Thank you Mr.Malone.
This goes hand in hand with the Orson Scott Card article revealing the same bias. What the media and the democrats don’t seem to understand is the mindset they are causing in a significant amount of people. Profound skepticism will give way to antagonism. We are on our way to true culture wars unless some real statesman begin to appear. If a large group of the populous feel cheated and impotent, they will eventually act to their own best interest. The media was intended to be the referee not a power broker. I pray they begin to understand what they are doing.
Being a direct descendant of Gen. John Maddux of the conneticut state militia, who fought for the rights that are slowly being taken from us by the left, I had thought, in my heart of hearts, that the media in this country is a joke, and had thought that since the invasion of iraq. My brother was stationed in Vicenza, Italy when he was deployed, and jumped into the northern oil fields of Iraq. what he accomplished and what the news portrayed were drastically different. It has only gotten worse in the media these days. I love this country with all of my heart, and am sitting in awe at the decidedly biased left-wing media. I’ve always rooted for McCain (a true patriot and hero) in previous elections. I hold firm on that decision. God Bless you for speaking the last best bit of journalism this country will see for a long long long time.
The pen is more mighty than the sword, and obviously, more mighty than an honorable lifetime as an honest and sincere public servant.
Every thing that was said in the blog is correct. Unfortunately, none of it matters. Try informing a BHO voter about his anti-life beliefs, or his socalist views or his abortion of a tax plan and it just does not matter. The only resposes you get is “I just do not trust Mcain” or “I just don’t believe that what you are telling me is true.” Facts don’t matter, truth dose not matter and reality just does not matter to these people. I feel like half of the country has been taken over by body snatchers and nothing I do matters.
There is a *reason* why the MSM has come down on the Republicans like a ton of bricks, not giving them an even break.
It’s because they think that the Bush Administration and its GOP supporters systematically misled them about the Iraq War. And now they’re taking revenge.
The coverage of the Bush Administration was fairly supportive, and the coverage of the GOP was fair, from 9-11 right through most of 2003. The New York Times ran numerous stories claiming the WMD threat from Iraq was very real. In fact, I remember antiwar liberals complaining that *their* side of the story was being systematically ignored.
Then came David Kay’s report to Congress that no modern WMD had been found in Iraq. Then came the rise of the Iraq insurgency, despite Rumsfeld’s denials that there was even an insurgency (he kept calling them “dead-enders” and claimed they would be vanquished quickly). The coverage turned very hostile after that.
If you get caught lying and vastly exaggerating facts repeatedly, don’t expect people to give you an even break from then on.
So my suggestion to the GOP is to admit when they’re wrong, even when it hurts them politically. And to always tell the truth even when it hurts them politically. Once you get caught in a lie, your reputation is very hard to rebuild.
Tell the truth next time, even when it hurts your cause, and watch your reputation improve.
Lets not forget one obvious fact – NYT is slowly but steadily becoming insolvent. The only way out for them is to get a bailout. Same is true for other liberal newspapers. And who is most likely to give them a helping hand? Yes, it’s the liberal government.
It’s as simple as that. I am not sure NYT can financially afford for Obama to lose. A lot of very important people would have to change their jobs if he dies – from being very important media types to flipping burgers.
Simply outstanding writing and analysis.
It should be recognized as simple truth by anyone – regardless of ideology.
Liberals and Democrats should be as angry as conservatives at what the media has become this election cycle. Perhaps they should be even angrier: after all, opposing such things is (supposedly) at the bedrock core of liberalism. Or used to be, anyway.
Only the most short-sighted liberals can be cheering now. They must understand that they’ve abandoned too many of their own principles – and will pay the inevitable price. Perhaps next time around it will be their candidate or cause on the receiving end of such endlessly shameful “journalism.”
Actually, there are millions of angry liberals out there right now, who know exactly what I mean.
They’re all the Hillary Clinton supporters who saw their candidate get the early version of the McCain-Palin treatment.
Perhaps when its all over, the conservatives, the still-wounded Hillary supporters, and the (apparently few) adults in the Obama camp can work together to bring about real change in journalism.
For now, I understand exactly why you’re embarrassed for your profession. Frankly, I’m embarrassed to be an American sometimes lately: a whole generation has abandoned its most cherished First Amendment freedoms in exchange for a chance at already fading electoral victory.
How sad. For all of us.
Michael,
You may make enemies with your posting.
But, as Churchill said (and I know I won’t get it perfectly correct) “Do you have enemies? Good – it means you stand for something.”
It sounds like there are others like you, and I suspect they are around the globe.
Might I make a suggestion? Form an internet newspaper, with say $10/month subscription?
I for one would pay for crisp writing, with extensive links, where each author states their personal biasses and beliefs. I don’t mind having bias – there’s nothing one can do to eliminate it. I just ask that people be intellectually honest enough to tell me what it is.
Best regards,
And take me seriously – I think the world is ready for such a corporation.
Ken
Did I miss something?? Wasn’t McCain the one to throw Joe “the wannabe” plumber on/under the bus??
#26 DoctorP– you’re a disgusting troll.
It is reassuring to know there is one decent journalist left in this country. For years I have been saying, “I can remember when journalism was an honest profession.” That was back when the New York Times was the gold standard. I too would be embarrassed to have to identify myself as a reporter these days. And I don’t yell at my TV; I just don’t watch. Apparently, neither do most Americans.
My question is, once Obama is elected (and sadly, I think he will be, with plenty of thanks to the media), will the media return to any kind of watchdog status? Or will they become not just the propagandist arm of the Democrats, but the propagandist arm of the entire Obama government? At what point do they become willing and/or able to criticize the guy, or question him on anything?
getaclue — You are delusional if you truly believe in the so-called “liberal” bias in the media. CBS is owned by Westinghouse, a huge defense contractor. NBC is owned by General Electric, a huge defense contractor
So what makes you think a rich, military-industrial complex type — you know the kind Eisenhower warned about — wouldn’t want an authoritarian, such as Obama, who is rather flexible on the concept of inalienable rights as president?
Great article, Malone. As a retired editor I can attest to the accuracy of your comments vis-a-vis editors. But you didn’t go far enough, imo. Editors’ bosses are called “publishers” and they too often set a biased political tone for their rags and because of that share more of the blame than you impugned.
Ironically, in my view an Obama administration will probably NOT save/cure the careers of the editors and profitability factors of the papers. The die has been cast too long and too far afield by now for them to recover, at least in their current form, I feel. Also, when something new begins it almost always is awash with burgeoning youthful talent working for a pittance. Just what an aging careerist doesn’t want to see happen. Too bad. “Journalists” should have been more careful of what they wanted.
But what do I know?
RE: F. Paul Williams:
“Did I miss something?? Wasn’t McCain the one to throw Joe “the wannabe” plumber on/under the bus??”
To answer the first part of your question- yes, you did MISS something- it’s called a connection to objective reality. And based on the second half of your statement I’d have to say you’re not likely to get it back.
Excellent article, right on the money.
Lemastre: “Or is it just that Dubya’s overwhelming competence inspired voters to overlook the media’s liberal bias in those elections?”
Close, it was more Kerry’s overwhelming incompetence that overcame the media bias, which Evan Williams of Newsweek felt gave Kerry 15 points.
I am an ordinary reader and no journalist, but I think Mr/ Malone misses a key point in his conclusion. Political correctness plays a major role in the lack of due diligence by the media. Simply put, no one wants to be a racist, but to report negatively on Obama will surely bring about that accusation.
Michael, if you only lost your faith three years ago, you need to seriously review and adjust your perceptual machinery. Left-wing bias in the media has been egregious for decades. Two decades ago I stopped taking the NY Times when it had simply ceased being worth it wading through a swamp of bias to fish out a few buried nuggets of news. One decade ago I stopped getting the Wall Street Journal where left-wing bias had been creeping off the op eds into the regular news for years. The breaking point there was when “reporter” David Rogers described a speech by David Schippers during the Clinton Impeachment as shrill. And when I say described it as shrill, I mean he literally used that pejorative in his “report.” As I had actually seen this speech, I knew it was simply a lie.
Also, your diagnosis is wrong. Sure, the editors are biased but the reporters are too. Even if they were dispatched to Chicago to get a hard-hitting expose on Obama’s sweetheart property deal with Rezko, they’d come back with a report about what a good son Rezko’s been to his mother and so what, look at how many houses Cindy McCain owns.
Anyone with half a brain can see the blatant bias and shameful reporting (or lack there of) in this election. The media has directed the election and as an American, it sends shivers down my spine. The biggest loser in this election is the media, and thus, America. If Obama wins and has a poor presidency (which I believe he will), the biggest story in 4 yrs. will be the media’s role in not thoroughly vetting him and actually being complicit in getting him elected. Hopefully, it will be the final nail in the coffin for the MSM.
It appears to me, you are guilty sir of the very same behavior you accuse your constituents of…explain to me exactly how your article approaches Senator Obama and his campaign in a manner that relects anything short of your personal opinion, rather than an objective non-partisan evaluation. As for the media’s liberal bent…of course that would be the case…to a conservative. When I began reading your article I assumed (yeah, yeah we all know what assuming does)that you were going to present a fair and balanced view of how BOTH sides distort reality, make up lies, etc. Not so. Again, you did exactly what you accuse others in your profession to be doing. Am I the only one who sees this????
#70 Kastaco has it right. Trying to tell Obama supporters the facts is like trying to explain quantum theory to a poodle. You get a blank “so what” look of disinterest. All they care about it running the McBushitler/Tina Fey Lookalike Republicans out of office. And yeah, wouldn’t it be cool if a black man was elected prez! It’s all about the cool factor. No matter this guy is the most radical candidate EVER.
I would like the MSM to die too, but once Obama is inaugurated, he will return the media’s favor by doing everything he can to return them to uncontested dominance and crushing and alternative conservative media — the UnFairness Doctrine will be imposed, ownership rules will be rigged to favor liberal broadcasters, “hate speech” laws and excessive lawsuits by left-wing tort lawyers will be used to silence any criticism of leftist policy, and some excuse will be found to provide government subsidies to keep left-wing newspapers afloat.
And the brief media awakening will be utterly crushed and discredited. Think of it as the crushing of our Prague Spring, sans Russian tanks.
As a professor of information science, I predict this media bias is going to have far worse repercussions than most in the media realize.
There is a rule which I can state colloquially as “any screwing around with information and communications technologies will have unpredicted consequences, and some of those will be REALLY bad.”
They are toying with the national defense and the lives of many in other countries as well.
If people end up dying as a result of media bias, then the media leaders will be accessories to murder.
Well, They’ve done it. They created a system where we never have choices of who runs for office. They set a date where we have to vote for one or the other….and they divide us in our politics where we are too weak to interfear. Through this we are left with petty bickering and mindless competition to who’s beliefs are correct allowing our government to do as they please. None of this serves our future or our country. We were never meant to take sides against each other. A democracy is made of teamwork. Is being a Democrat or Republican more important than working together? The question is Who did this and why? Not who be our next President! We must look at both sides equally and make our own decisions together if we are to come out of this intact. I do….
I was watching that silly bird, Andrea Mitchell today on some newscast, and she had either a Democratic operative or ACORN spokeswoman on. The Obama cheerleading by Mitchell was so embarrassing, I had to turn it off. I was reminded why I simply DO NOT WATCH mainstream TV news anymore.
Really this is pretty obvious, and i think a blogger said it last week – the press is fine with wrecking their reputation now, because when Obama gets into theOval Office and Pelosi has both houses, and the scotus goes far left, the internet and talk radio will all be closed down and the mainstream media will be back on top as the only game in town. PRavda West.
I too would be ashamed to be a reporter/”journalist.” Not because of the past few months, but because of the “free pass” giving to the (never actually elected) Bush administration over the past eight years. Every shread of evidence points to the fact that they concocted an unjust war in Iraq, have destoryed our economy (for the long term) to the benefit of the few (many of whom are their friends and associates), usurped the Constitution, disabled our education system, and suppressed any possibility of real social and scientific progress in untold areas, including human rights, HIV in Africa, stem cell research, sustainable energy, immigration, environmental conservation, and voter disenfranchisement. For nearly a decade the “liberal” media has not bothered to fact check Bush’s various ridiculous “claims of knowledge” about the world and allowed his administration to side step valid questions they do not want to answer. Does FOX News stand for Fascist Obnoxious Xenophobic News, or is that just how it comes across?
It’s funny that the people who are against basic civil liberties, which would include gay marriage, a woman’s right to choose, criticizing one’s government, and REAL sexual education, are the same people who believe they are super-duper American. This country was founded on the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. However, apparently being “American” these days requires denying those same rights to those deemed too different. Who cares what Obama’s campaign has allegedly done (actually this article only points out the potential for fraud in the system)? Conservatives did not seem to have a problem with the election fraud in 2000 and systematic voter disenfranchisement in 2004. Pendulums swing back and forth. If you listen, and open your mind and heart to your fellow citizens maybe you’ll see that Obama has many good ideas, while McCain wants to follow the path we are only which can only lead to a violent and unforgiving collapse.
Get a clue wrote;
“You are delusional if you truly believe in the so-called “liberal” bias in the media. CBS is owned by Westinghouse, a huge defense contractor. NBC is owned by General Electric, a huge defense contractor.”
Tired old arguement the left drags out all the time. Why is it’s impossible that any CEO’s of these huge companies could be a liberal?
Years ago a NPR reporter asked Bill O’Reilly what his political affilation was. Bill bungled the question but the question was a valid one to ask of NPR who gets our money to slant their stories anyway they want.
Gears and Springs @ 31: Gee, that’s good to know….
Mr. Malone: The best political article I’ve seen this election season. Thanks and may God Bless you and keep you safe from the violent left.
Isn’t “impartial journalism” a recent phenomenon, beginning roughly with CBS’ great World War II coverage? In other words, I contend we had PARTISAN journalism from 1789-1940, and we did just fine.
The public apparently is aware, at 70%, of general media bias. If they are also *angry* about it, then there is no going back.
So we go forward with partisan journalism. That is not necessarily bad. All that remains is that the public’s blindness to the bias needs to collapse. As long as the public sits before its TV believing its getting anything like “truth”, we’ll continue to be in trouble. Once they know it’s all partisanship, then we can continue the way we did before 1940, and we will be fine.
your conclusion that the GOP in future “tell the truth even when it hurts them politically” makes no sense unless one assumes they did in fact “systematically misled [the MSM] about the Iraq War.”
Sadly for your little theory, however, you have no proof that they did so – that would carry any weight outside the left wing fever swamps at least.
No-one lied to the MSM Once you get caught in a lie, your reputation is very hard to rebuild.
Tell the truth next time, even when it hurts your cause, and watch your reputation improve.
More Kool-Aid, D. Marken?
(that was directed to SteveL)
91. Amy. Not the “only one” as I’m sure other Obamabots agree with you.
To those delusional souls that ‘feel’ there is no bias in the BM(big media), the only reason democrats do as well as they do is because they have, by and large, ‘always’ toed a liberal line and therefore are endlessly fluffed by their BM pets.
The only reason a libtard ever actually got grilled by the BM was because he ‘misplaced’ his DNA. Gimme’ that O face. . .Oooooh, Ooh, Oooh!!
Let’s get serious, most of the info that passes for fact (or lack thereof) from the BM is abundantly more dangerous than it is laughable.
Acorn, hello?!? The left is ringing a bell that it will not be able ‘un-ring.’
Well-reasoned patriots will not stand for a commie or 60′s inspired pseudo coup de tat that has been foisted upon us by an expertly concealed hippie fifth column, which we actually fund.
Don’t kick me in the cranium and call it a blow-job.
No Caesar hath perpetuity monopoly, so sayeth Our 2nd.
Or have you kids forgotten our Constitutional Control/Alt/Delete?
McCuda08/GOP2.0
D. Marken – you take useful idiocy to a whole new level.
“REAL sexual education?” HA! Like the soft-core pr0n for kindergartners Baracky-boy passes off as “education”?
Go on, boy. Keep sobbing because the media’s not left wing enough for you. In the end this bias can only mean the loss of individual freedom for EVERYONE. One day it will be getaclue who accidentally asks the wrong question at the wrong time. One day it will be D. Marken who has “suspect loyalties”, and gets his/her/its name dragged through the dirt-or worse.
The Teleprompter Jesus-Negro is promising his dupes a fairy-tale “revolution” where there’s a chicken in every pot, a welfare check in every mailbox, a government program for every ill, and a marriage license for every deviant who calls his perversion “love”. Don’t ask yourself how he’s going to do this without raising taxes on the middle class, or why he’s failed in the past at everything he’s tried to do. Just shut up and embrace the nanny-state.
I agree that journalism is now a big embarrassment. What they need to know is that the people are cancelling subscriptions to newspapers because they know they are not getting unbiased news anymore. We’re also not tuning into CBS, NBC or ABC to watch the news anymore because we’re tired of the bullshit.
Michael Malone wrote something I had 1st had experience in how the media can sometimes shut down stories they don’t deem worthy of the news.
Case in point, Vets For Freedom was scheduled to give a presentation to the students at Forest Lake High School this past spring but they were shut down by what was reported 300 protesting, so the Vets could not speak at the school. The controversy I think was fairly covered by local CBS network WCCO but when I contacted my local Pioneer Press asking why I didn’t see any news coverage in their paper or why they didn’t as least send a reporter out to talk to these Vets since they were in town, I was told flatly it was NON STORY.
http://wcco.com/local/vets.for.freedom.2.684622.html
You have to give them credit, bias doesn’t just happen, and some times you have to work real hard on it.
And you wonder why newspapers are losing readership?
No Caesar hath perpetuity on monopoly, so sayeth Our 2nd.
I hope Lincoln was right about foolin’ the folks.
Malone’s whine makes it sound like liberal bias in some big media is a bad thing. There is plenty of conservative media available in the marketplace. Incessant whining about being a victim of the big bad liberal media may be profitable, but it has become childish. Stop whining and compete.
I don’t quite buy Malone’s conclusion. It isn’t enough to explain the seeming conspiracy of silence. Remember, a scoop’s a scoop. There’s money to be made in writing the sensational story that unravels a national political figure. There’s fame to be had. Books to be written and lecture tours to be planned. Look at Woodward and Bernstein’s careers. The enterprising reporter would know this and act accordingly. Is Malone suggesting that damning investigative pieces about Obama and Biden have been written and editors consigned to oblivion by editors who know full well that they are pissing away a Pulitzer Prize? And that the reporters do nothing about it? This doesn’t add up.
Also, let me state something that I have heard whispered by reporters, which they dare not say outloud: affirmative action has taken over major newspapers to the point where white male reporters are the real minority. Even when they manage to get hired, they soon move on to greener pastures, discouraged at seeing their non-white colleagues promoted ahead of them. What is the impact of this in the newsroom, on a still mostly-white and male middle management? Resentment, I would guess. Resentment that wouldn’t work to Obama’s advantage.
The media bias is palpable. Malone’s explanation isn’t sufficient to explain it. Note too that it’s not only an American phenomenon — he mentions CNNi as an example. The same applies to the outrageous behavior of France2 in the Karsenty libel trial. The British media is notoriously biased — the Guardian and BBC famously anti-Israel, for example. Does ths all have to do with the impending collapse of old media and fear of lost pensions? I don’t think so.
I want to propose an alternative narrative: Liberals (I know, being a former member of that club) felt utterly cheated and robbed in teh 2000 and 2004 elections. They came to believe that Rove possessed demonic powers. And they berated their candidates for not being vicious enough, their allies for not being Machievellian enough. And now it’s pay-back time. Republican voter fraud in Florida? Now we get the Democratic version in ACORN. Republican fundraising irregularities? Now we see Democrats can play that game too. Remember that Will Rogers quote: “I don’t belong to an organized party; I’m a Democrat.” Well, I think Democrats decided this was the year they weren’t going to play that game (though Hillary gave them a fight). They are proving they can be ruthless, they can play hardball, they can be Machiavelllian, and by GOd, no one is going to STEAL this election. Whatever it takes, Democrats intend to win.
And I’ll go one further — if by some miracle McCain pulls out a victory, I predict the Democratic backlash will make Bush v. Gore look like a game of tiddlywinks.
Amy #91
So, only a “conservative” sees liberal bias in the media? FYI, I’ve been saying for months now how frightening (for America) the media has been in this election and I’m an Independent who voted DEMOCRAT THE LAST 3 ELECTIONS.
D. Marken #98
I stopped reading at the point ‘Bush was never actually elected.’ I didn’t even vote for him but I know how nauseatingly stupid (and tiresome) that canard is.
The Ayers connection is a non starter. Ayers paid is debt to society a long time ago and has become a leading educator.
Ayres never paid no debt to society.. He got off on a technical.. The group was responsible for killing cops even. In 9-11 He said he didn’t regret what he did..he wishes they had done more.. Now imagine if John McCain was friends with Eric Rudolph and Rudolph said that..
I never watch MSM.. it’s not news anymore..it kind of reminds me of Baghdad Bob in Iraq saying there are no USA plans in Iraq..while they are flying over head.
getaclue, @#6: “You are delusional if you truly believe in the so-called “liberal” bias in the media. CBS is owned by Westinghouse, a huge defense contractor. NBC is owned by General Electric, a huge defense contractor. FOX is owned, along with most radio stations in the USA and several papers/mags as well, by Rupert Murdoch. ABC is owned by General Dynamics, a huge defense contractor.”
Man, how old is this argument? ABC has been owned by Disney since 1996.
If you’re going to mindlessly parrot an argument, at least make sure it’s the new stuff, dude.
Joe the Plumber on Huckabee… and yes he really is a plumber and John McCain didn’t throw him under the bus..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U85wrwZwNgk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vyWfPpzaE0
Not only bias, but sexist. They want to talk about clothes donated to Sarah, that go to charity afterwards..and not one person has mentioned how much money any male spent on clothes.. Obama spent 21 million polling and almost half a million on food the past month.. Anyone see that on MSM? John McCain was hounded to release his medical records.. and now Sarah Palin is..Obama releases a one page statement about his health..no records.
Cindy McCain story, noone tried to find Obama’s drug dealer.
That’s why their ratings are down. The sad part is this is the only news some people get.
Troy, you know what else is funny about getaclue and his “fat cat” phobia? Obama himself is a fat cat.
As are the big shots backing him: All three nightly news anchors, Oprah, Diane Sawyer… Oh, the spectacle of the $12-mil-a-year Sawyer telling Joe the Plumber he wasn’t paying enough taxes! Delectable. Or Couric at the Alfred T. Smith dinner, with her diamonds that probably cost more than Joe’s house. The array of geniuses on The View.
They all know how your money should be spent better than you do. Or else they don’t realize how badly Obama wants to spend it, because they’re ignorant, overpaid imbeciles.
Wasn’t McCain the one to throw Joe “the wannabe” plumber on/under the bus??
No. He patted Joe on the back for participating in the process, and the bus went right for him.
Also, you’re a bad person.
You’re a little late to the parade, Michael. Conservatives have been castigating the media for left wing bias for nearly half a century. Almost 40 years ago I read this book:
“All The News That Fits: A critical analysis of The New York Times” Hernam Dinsmore 1969
They were doing the same thing back then, only not quite so blatantly, and there actually was a mix of opinion across the political spectrum in the various newsrooms. Not any longer.
It’s not that having a political slant is immoral or unethical. From what I understand, the media in Jefferson’s day made today’s media look objective. However, the main difference is that everyone was aware of the bias, and no one was claiming to be objective.
Conservatives are proud of their philosophy and positions. Limbaugh, Hannity, and others on the right will happily tell you they are conservative, and you can then judge what they say through your own prism. However, this is not true on the left. They are well aware that very few, at least in this country, will fall for the ideology of the left if they saw it coming.
So they lie about who they are and what they believe in, and hide behing the facade of objectivity that they have carefully constructed for a long time.
Well done Michael.
Your Great Granddad would be proud…
Thank you, Mr. Malone and thank you, the new media. I am dismayed by the distortions propagated by the MSM and deeply saddened by it. I used to respect the reporting done by our newspapers but I have ended two subscriptions I recently held.
snippy w shrub #113
Plenty of conservative media? Stop whining and compete? HA!
Whining? Liberals incessant whining over 1, that would be one, news outlet; FOX News–and it’s not even a ‘free’ channel.
Whining? Brittle Obama was actually whining about FOX News, saying he’d be up by more points if it were not for FOX News. UNBELIEVABLE!
Compete? Obviously, you’re unaware of FOX’s ratings.
Compete? BECAUSE conservative talk radio is successful, the Democrats are going to try and shut it down with the ‘Fairness Doctrine’.
If they try to do this, ESPECIALLY after what we’ve witnessed this last election with the media, there’s going to be civil unrest.
The real media self-destruction started when it contracted BushChimpHitler Derangement Syndrome.
A bunch of 60s retreads thought they were re-living their surrender in Vietnam….I guess being responsible for killing millions of Vietnamese when left unprotected wasn’t good enough…they wanted to kill millions of Iraqis too.
Pieces of sh*te, the lot of ‘em.
Now they have Barry Soetoro to get elected as their final coup d’etat against the eevil Boosh and his Halliburton hurricane machine cronies.
DIE DIE DIE Flatline Media!
And Malone: where the h*ll have you been? Too little too late.
Let’s roll America. McCain/Palin ’08
Hopefully, Obama will not win and start subsidizing the MSM as state media – for that is the only possible way for them to survive. Most of America is on to them and is turning them off.
Precluding that, in a Free Market system there will be a tremendous opportunity for some enterprising journalists to reclaim their profession and create honest journalism, not slanted left or right, just truthful, as opposed to truthiness.
Mr Malone, I just wanted to say “Thank You”.
Your essay is spot on, but I must also say that, in agreement with the sentiments expressed by IOWAHAWK, burn baby burn. I switched to the St Pete Times a few years ago, after cancelling the (NYT owned) Sarasota Herald-Tribune. But the SP Times, while an improvement, is also shilling hard for Obama. I will be cancelling with them too on Monday, after they officially endorse Obama on Sunday. I’m done with print media. Journalism is dead.
I hope you land on your feet. You seem to be an honest man.
“So we go forward with partisan journalism. That is not necessarily bad. All that remains is that the public’s blindness to the bias needs to collapse. As long as the public sits before its TV believing its getting anything like “truth”, we’ll continue to be in trouble. Once they know it’s all partisanship, then we can continue the way we did before 1940, and we will be fine.”
Ummm—- no we won’t.
Question :How exactly does the ‘public’ know what to accept as an accurate reflection of ‘reality’ and what is agit-prop by a corrupted and corrupting ‘media’.?
Answer: It doesn’t. It CAN’T.
And therefore it must perforce reject EVERYTHING, and the whole system begins to collapse from within. Which is precisely the point of the article. It’s the same with money. All Governments try to control the flow of counterfeit currency. And it’s not really about controlling ‘crime’. It’s really about protecting the basis of the society itself. If enough counterfeit saturates the system, no-one accepts the currency as valid or valuable. And that as they as they say –is that.
When ALL information becomes ‘counterfeit’, a ‘free’ society cannot and will not long survive. Not only is the vile MSM committing intellectual and financial suicide, it is also killing the very social fabric that allows it to exist.
When even a complete ‘believer’ such as Rather sees the truth, we are all in a serious situation. I want the entire MSM to die in a paroxysm of angst and anger, but at this rate it will take us all with it.
That is why the author is ‘ashamed’. He sees clearly the real danger beyond the current crisis. And he knows exactly who is responsible. It is him and his ‘colleagues’ with their ‘change the World at all costs’ tendentiousness. And he can’t do anything at all to prevent the inevitable.
Nor really when all is said and done, can we.
The MSM doesn’t need a Fairness Doctrine, it needs to come into our homes, put us in straitjackets, and wire their TV shows directly into our brains. Short of that, they’re doomed.
I have a simple question. Mr. Malone, you say you are a journalist. The root of “journalist” is “jour,” which means “daily.” Who do you work for, and what is your daily output? I did a Google search, and all I could find was that you used to be a magazine writer.
So, would you please provide your biography so I can know whether you are a “journalist?” I’ll relax the constraint on the daily nature of journalism, but I want to know what you actually do, as opposed to the label you apply to yourself.
Thanks.
Wow, there is a lot of hate and anger evident here. Please tell me which is worse, the media not investigating the Bill Ayers connection or the media not investigating the Todd Palin connection? One threw some bombs around forty years ago and now hobnobs with influential Republican refugees from the Nixon administration and serves on the same board with a presidential candidate. The other hates America enough to want to secede from the country and is married to a vice-presidential candidate. My lord, I can’t imagine what the reaction would be if Joe Biden’s wife were the secessionist.
For all your clamoring for media objectivity, you aren’t showing much.
120. Walworth:
You make my point for me.
The market has demonstrated that there is a demand for conservative media. Hence, Fox News and conservative talk radio are successful. The Washington Times is an example of success in conservative print media.
Fox News, talk radio and the Washington Times are willing to compete. Their incessant whining about the big bad liberal media is done for profit, but it still is childish. For their markets, childish equals profitability.
If the Fairness Doctrine should not apply to talk radio, why should it apply to print journalism or television?
CBS is owned by Viacom – a media company. ABC is owned by Disney – also a media company.
for #6 getaclue:
Please get your facts right.
#117 has already pointed out the ABC is owned by Disney.
Westinghouse spun off all non-media assets in 1997 and changed its name to CBS. There’s no defense business left.
General Electric does a number of things, including financial services, infrastructure and consumer products as well as running NBC. One of its businesses includes making aircraft engines for commercial and military use. It’s a huge exaggeration to call it a defense contractor based on this.
You are 0 for 3 on defense contractors.
William Ayers said when asked about what he did:.. “Guilty as hell, free as a bird. It’s a great country.” Doesn’t seem to me he paid his debt to society.
getaclue, @#6, you need to get a clue, NBC is owned by GE and they are run by a band of left wind losers driving my stock price into the ground. I wish Jack Welch, a solid Republican businessman, was still running the company.
You might as well call yourself a catamite and a sycophant as call yourself a journalist.
That’s right turn off the regular media and listen to nothing but knee jerk juvenile commentary from blogs and talk show hosts, most of them do no reporting or journalism. Does anyone see the irony?
Marken and your various sock puppets:
Every clause in your first paragraph is false, in the sense that not a one can be substantiated by real facts. If you think otherwise, let’s see some references. To give just one example, Bush has done more to address HIV in Africa than any person alive.
google: whitehouse infocus hiv aids
Given that, the opinions in your second paragraph are non-starters.
Now the RUSSIANS are outing the American media bias:
————————-
:
:
:
A preliminary report prepared by the group, after studying U. S. media coverage on the NBC, CBS and ABC television networks since September, has concluded Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, has a “hidden advantage.”
A preliminary report obtained by the Russian daily online newspaper Kommersant concludes the U. S. television networks devoted more time to Republican candidate John McCain, but “the material that makes up that time difference can be assessed as negative.”
The Russian study also said Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential pick, has been subjected to more criticism than her Democratic counterpart, Senator Joe Biden.
It adds that when the presidential candidates’ platforms are described, Mr. Obama’s is described last, to make it look better, and when platforms are compared, “Obama’s is presented preferable.”
:
:
:
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/story.html?id=901941
Good gawd, when the RUSSIANS are outing you, you are TOAST flatline media.
DIE DIE DIE!
Let’s roll!
Thanks for the brave article Mr. Malone.
I’m a Democrat that NEVER believed in media bias until this election year. I guess I had to actually watch the media turn on people that they had previously built up and covered for (the Clintons and McCain) before I finally saw it.
“There is a *reason* why the MSM has come down on the Republicans like a ton of bricks, not giving them an even break.
It’s because they think that the Bush Administration and its GOP supporters systematically misled them about the Iraq War. And now they’re taking revenge.”
Interesting point SteveL. Relatedly, the MSM may be overreacting to the criticism they endured from left leaning groups regarding the reporting during the run up to the Iraq War. (One thing I’ve noticed about many in the media is that they’re awfully sensitive and self-involved. They can be cowed by strong criticism.) What we’re seeing now may be their ham fisted attempt to make sure those “tricky wingnuts” aren’t manipulating them. (Basically Joe Klein’s myopic rallying cry.) In their attempt to ensure fairness though they’re over-compensating.
I think in general, liberals tend to self-select into journalism far more than conservatives do. I also think it’s likely alot of journalists don’t even REALIZE their bias. It’s a subtle, subconcious thing much of the time. That’s why paranoid lefty fantasies like the one being peddled by getaclue about evil corporatists forcing newscasters into biased reporting is laughable. Most bias isn’t overt. Moreover, the incentive for “the corporatist” is to make money. He doesn’t care WHAT kind of reporting is done as long as ratings and ad revenue go up. That may translate into shorter, more shallow news segments, a focus on sensationalism and with respect to this campaign – a focus on shallow but easy to digest punditry over serious, more challenging reporting about candidate policies. Logically, the rise in corporate owned media is more closely related to the disintegratoin in news QUALITY, not the increase in news BIAS.
The main reason for the greater bias this year IMO is political correctness (i.e., A black POTUS candidate makes political correctness a bigger factor than in years past.) For example, I’d argue the reason so many journalists were reluctant to look at the Reverand Wright (i.e., the info had been out there on blogs for over a year. It wasn’t until ABC bought a few tapes of Wright’s sermons at the Trinity Gift Shop that the story exploded.) story was because of political correctness/fear of being labeled a racist. I was shocked by the apologetic reporting CNN did on the matter (e.g., “this isn’t unusual for an African American Church”, Jeffry Toobin said something like “I would tred lightly on this story”, Anderson Cooper seemed embarrased to even broach the subject with Obama, etc.) Moreover, the Obama campaign has done a tremendous job playing the race card anytime Obama is criticized and/or his associations are brought up (e.g., McCain’s Paris Hilton/Obama ad was called racist because it had a black man and white woman in it, Hillary Clinton was derided for daring to compare LBJ to MLK, “That one” was deemed disrespectful to a black man, Bill Clinton’s “fairytale” comment was deemed disrespectful to a black man, Saying Obama pal’ed around with terrorists was said to incite racism, Using Obama’s middle name was called racist, Hillary Clinton’s 3AM Ad was called racist, the NewYorkers satirical cover was deemed racist, Community organizer was deemed called code word for black man, Socialist was deemed code word for racist, etc.) I think the MSM has bought into the politically correct thought police mentality espoused by the Obama campaign and the loony lefties. MSNBC for example is practically a seperate arm of the Obama campaign at this point. Ironically, in their attempt to ensure they weren’t being manipulated by Rove/Schmidt and the Republicans, the MSM ended up being manipulated by the Axelrod and the Democrats.
Nowhere is it shown Todd Palin wants to secede from the USA.. Things my party do or say I don’t agree with all the time. Todd Palin and Sarah sent their son to fight for the usa in Iraq. They are proud of the USA.
Joe Biden went around telling people his wife and child were killed by a drunk driver..Inside Edition did a story on it..talked the actual cop and the so called drunk man’s daughter. Cop said it wasn’t even the guys fault and no alcohol was involved. The man involved in the wreck is dead now, but his daughter said his life was never the same after the wreck. That’s just one of the many..
Why hasn’t anyone done a records check, court cases (mom’s divorces, traffic tickets), birth, death, marriage (mom’s marriages), assessors, property, fictitious business and whatever else on Obama aka Soetoro in all the places he has lived in this country? Not just some Lexis/Nexis online search, but a pavement pounding real records search. Index those records. Go back as far as the stone age!
I have worked on stories heavily swarmed by reporters where my partner and I were the only ones to do a full records check. Amazing what turns up.
Once in a while NOTHING shows up. I get a strange feeling. Too clean. There has to be SOMETHING. Makes me look harder.
Note to getaclue: ABC is owned by Disney. CBS is an independent company controlled by Sumner Redstone. Your facts are as wrong as your arguments!
“#133 The other hates America enough to want to secede from the country”
——–
Congratulations for the dumbest post in the thread….ROFL!
Dude, your tinfoil hat has sprung a leak.
Let’s roll!
I’m a liberal, and proud of it. I voted for Clinton, Gore, and Kerry. On Election Day I’ll vote for almost every Democrat on the ticket, and possibly not a single Republican.
Having said all that, the collective media bias in favor of the Democratic Party, and Barack Obama in particular, during this cycle has been unbelievable and embarrassing. The scorching of Joe the Plumber and the scrutiny of Bristol Palin are among the most egregious examples, but it’s the steady bias in the choice of everyday stories that’s the real scandal. I now trust any political reporting from any mainstream news outlet about as much as I trust FOX News, which is to say not very much.
When Saturday Night Live, Bill Maher, and even the Onion are making fun of media bias, you know something has gone terribly wrong with the media. It’s not just a conservative myth anymore.
I’ve never written for a paper, but I was part of the newspaper business for a couple of years, as a newsboy, for the old Chicago Daily News. To my dying day, I’ll remember delivering the paper on November 22, 1963, with those huge headlines announcing President Kennedy’s assassination.
In those days, the papers had a point of view, of course. In my home town, the Daily News was liberal, the Tribune was conservative, and most people read them both to get some balance. The problem nowadays is not bias: it’s that the bias all points in one direction. And you’re absolutely right about Joe the Plumber: in the old days, no newpaperman would have dreamed of doing what the press is doing to that guy now.
How I wish Mike Royko was still alive! How he would flay the poseurs who are wrecking his once-proud profession.
It’s a myth created by the press that the press was unbiased. Since the first rag that Thomas Jefferson used to criticize George Washington, the press has not be unbiased.
Mr. Malone reminds me of a convict confessing just before they come for him, the last time. Your timing is perfect for a little CYA, but it may just be too late for you heroic attempt. The MSM lit the match, you stood by and watched, now it will be used to burn the flag. It is like calling 911 after watching a rape.
The society of professional journalists has 10,000 members. If you include non-members, citizen journalists, bloggers and the pool of foriegn journalists that work here, it would not be a stretch to say that there are 100,000 people out there reporting the news. McCain polls around 45% so if 45% of the journalist were Conservatives that would give us 45,000. But lets take into account the liberal schooling they get and the liberal upbringing that many had and halve that, no quarter it, and we still have 11,250 journalists that might lean GOP. Okay, media people are trained to be non-biased, so lets say 90% of them do not lean either way and you still have over 1000 journalists paid full time for a year to dig up dirt on Obama. What do they dig up? Not much.
Rationally, it seems that the media isn’t biased, there just isn’t a “hidden” story to uncover, and Obama is just a another politician who is good at what he does. It would be easier for the GOP if there was dirt because their aint much good to say about McCain. I wish there were, because the GOP could really benefit from putting up a candidate that didn’t make me cringe for a change. Why don’t you take a long look at your own party for 4 years instead of looking stupid with this “anti-american” stuff.
“I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are.”–William Tecumseh Sherman
What ic said.
So, what you are saying… is that Chris Mathews is a King Maker? Maybe but journalism was going down the toilet back when Walter Chronkite was in charge of the plumbing so what is new here?
GREAT article Mr.Malone.
For years now we knew we could not trust the politicians on what they said so we looked to the media to dig up the truth and present it. Now it is so disappointing that big media is no different. It’s a sad state that we have arrived at.
Please tell me which is worse, the media not investigating the Bill Ayers connection or the media not investigating the Todd Palin connection?
The former. Obviously.
One threw some bombs around forty years ago and now hobnobs with influential Republican refugees from the Nixon administration and serves on the same board with a presidential candidate. The other hates America enough to want to secede from the country and is married to a vice-presidential candidate.
If Todd Palin does favor Alaskan secession, that would be what is normally known as “an opinion”, something that is not just legal in the United States, but is actually protected by the First Amendment.
Ayers participated in violent crimes that killed innocent people.
Holding an opinion is NOT equivalent to conspiracy to commit murder. Your attempt to equate them is dishonest and immoral. Be ashamed.
Please tell me which is worse, the media not investigating the Bill Ayers connection or the media not investigating the Todd Palin connection?
The media not investigating the Bill Ayers connection. Try a tough one next time.
Gee, only three years ago? Guess you bought into all those Republican=dumb jibes. Every last one, I surmise.
Obama didn’t attend an American school until he entered the fifth grade. What does that mean? What sort of person is he? He went to Pakistan by using his Indonesian passport. He even kept a Kenyan citizenship. His stepfather, who was he? Sotero the web tells me. Important fact: you bastards didn’t.
Meanwhile, I despair for our country when complete shits like BlindHog can parade incidentals about Sarah Palin’s husband as if he has something meaningful to say. As if he has in any way balanced the slime that surrounds Obama in Chicago or Barry Sotero’s arc through life towards Chicago.
My advice to Mr. Malone: better get practiced at telling people you’re a writer now, because in the future just looking like a reporter, let alone acting like one or in fact admitting you are one, will get the shit beaten out of you by roughly 1/2 of the United States. Could be worse, though. You could be Keith Olbermann. Or Ted Turner.
Alas, it won’t happen. But I can’t be the only person who fantasizes about directed mayhem against this organized and directed lying by the press and media.
Anecdotal evidence to show the media’s bias does harm as is McCain’s failure to call them out on this:
My wife’s politics leans towards the One. She doesn’t read much and gets all her information from MSM TV sources.
In a heated political argument I tell her that BHO needs to explain his relationships with Ayers, Wright and Acorn. She says “Well, if there was something wrong with those people I would have heard about it on the news”. Ergo, he has been vetted by the MSM to her satisfaction since they don’t report about these people. Not only that, she says John MCCain dosn’t seem to think there is much wrong with Ayers, Wright and Acorn because he says so little about in his debates and at his rallies and it’s never in the news (that she watches).
Malone is 100% correct about the MSMs double standard. It has real impact. People like my wife who learn about politics by watching The View, Oprah, and NBC Nightly News have been influenced by a biased media. Yes, she should read more and learn from other sources, but the fact is she doesn’t and there are so many more like her.
These people who plan on voting for Obama are not evagelical christians. Evangelicals follow God’s word and would never ever vote for a man that would leave a baby to die in a dirty linen closet! Nor would they vote for a man that supports the gay agenda as homosexuality is a sin in God’s eyes. Nor would they vote for a man that would put liberal activist judges on our courts to stifle the rights of real christians! So don’t try and say you are a evangelical when you don’t know the first thing about being one! Tell it like it is-you are a LIBERAL following the liberal anti-christian agenda.
“Please tell me which is worse, the media not investigating the Bill Ayers connection or the media not investigating the Todd Palin connection? One threw some bombs around forty years ago and now hobnobs with influential Republican refugees from the Nixon administration and serves on the same board with a presidential candidate. The other hates America enough to want to secede from the country and is married to a vice-presidential candidate.”
Comments like yours really make me fear for our nation’s future. Are your morals that twisted? Are you that blinded by your partisan hatred that you actually think associating with an unrepetant domestic terrorist that bombed the Pentagon isn’t as bad as being married to a man that joined a group that wanted to secede from the nation? I’m sorry but you are one sick, twisted waste of sperm and egg. I bet you’re the same type of Obamabot that mocks and belittles John McCain’s time as a POW while defending that piece of human garbage Bill Ayers.
I guess if John McCain launched his political career in the home of, wrote a book review for, shared an office with and worked on two foundations with Timothy McViegh that would be A-OK with you as long as later on he “hobnobbed with refugees of the Clinton administration.” I’m sure that wouldn’t bother you in the LEAST. SURE. ‘
I don’t give a crap that Ayers hobnobs with Republicans. If those Republicans were running for President and had the same relationship with Ayers that Obama has I’d be calling them out for their twisted “convenient” morality too.
Frankly, the fact that Ayers is considered a respected member of the Chicago liberal establishment doesn’t impress me in the least. It actually makes me think there is something SERIOUSLY wrong with the Chicago liberal establishment. Someone that essentially declares war on our nation, bombs the Pentagon, gets off on a technicality and then laughs that he’s “free as a bird and guilty as hell” should not be allowed to retain his CITIZENSHIP, let alone be rewarded with a cushy academic position and the respect of movers and shakers in the Democratic Party.
Your feeble attempt to argue Todd Palin’s membership in the AIP is worse than Ayer’s violence and cruelty would be laughable if it wasn’t obvious that you’re serious.
One way (hopefully) you’ll look back on your defense of Bill Ayers and feel shame. You’ll realize that you let your twisted partisan hate corrupt your sense of right and wrong. There’s NO WAY any decent, kind, compassionate, rational human being could defend Bill Ayers. NO WAY.
By the way, in addition to bombing the Pentagon and advocating “Killing your parents”, Ayers dedicated his “Prairie Fire” manifesto to Sirhan Sirhan.
http://www.zombietime.com/prairie_fire/
What a guy, right? Isn’t it awesome that he wanted to honor the man that murdered Robert Kennedy?
Oh! Here’s something else you might not know about the perfectly honorable and respectable citizen Bill Ayers: He’s basically a RAPIST!
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=9E8CD8A7-E90B-4311-8AA9-AEFD014A14B2
Nice guy that Bill Ayers. So much better than that detestable Todd Palin.
The absolutely best article I have ever read concerning the media and why such a lack of trust exists.
Thanks. You are to be commended.
Mr.Malone
No doubt you remember Bill Stewart and his last report from Managua.
Like everybody else at the time, I was shocked and appalled.
Today I would cheer. I don’t think that I am the only one.
When my daughter went to work for the newspaper in San Diego, we just told all our friends that she was a lap dancer in Tijuana.
If Obama is elected, normal Americans should cancel any subscription to a newspaper. Sure, Hussein will bail the newspapers out, but we’ll send a message.
“Journalist” and “prostitute” mean exactly the same thing and Columbia should change the name of their school, accordingly.
To quote Mr. Malone:
“The hotel I was staying at in Windhoek, Namibia only carried CNN, a network I’d already learned to approach with skepticism. But this was CNN International, which is even worse.”
I had traveled internationally for almost 10 years and have always been disgusted at the level of totally biased, anti-American or “Western” portrayals spat out by CNN, BBC, etc., since Bush was president. I saw nothing but praise (whenever I had some access to a cable network) during the Clinton years.
I was in Europe, in Munich during the Gulf II campaign and was attacked, though diplomatically, by my Euro-colleagues about how bad we are for engaging in this battle. This was at a formal dinner.
I reminded my colleagues that not far from our sitting, a concentration camp still stands as a reminder, and if any of them had the guts to visit it to understand why this country does what it does.
Silence.
What was more disgusting, was that on an individual basis, each one of those persons told me, in confidence, that they did understand our position, had support for it (in some bizarre form, depending on which country they were from- there were several European countries that rep’d our products), and that each of them felt some degree of encroachment of an “Islamic swarm” taking over their own country.
Now, I am completely hardened and disappointed at this “main stream” media that everyone taunts, spits upon, or grasps as some kind of religious drug that steers their lives. It is like the daily marching orders from 1984.
This will change. Either this MSM will die due to this new method of the Bill of Rights (I am actually engaging in this FREEDOM of the PRESS to all of you), or it will in a rash attempt sway back into the real main stream of the American people.
I actually believe the former than the latter. Most of these people have no ethics and cannot be re-educated (as the late Mr. Ayers saw fit. Is he still alive?)
2008 will not be remembered as the year that the American media died.
It will not be because of their continued existence; they will no longer exist. It will be because there is nobody believable left to record their passing.
For the unimaginative, this is not an apocalyptic prediction. This is an indictment on the Fourth Estate, which has collectively decided to sacrifice itself on the altar of political convenience.
Sometimes I wonder if Soros and his billionaire and millionaire pals may be underwriting this intellectual sloth and bias on the part of the editors of all the Big Media outlets and newspapers in the country. After all, they are bleeding money and ratings. The red ink has to be guaranteed somewhere. I do think the payoff will be the revival of the Fairness Doctrine (what a misnomer of a title if there ever was one!)
I’ve never seen anything like it in my lifetime. Even the local papers here in New Hampshire have a blatant bias for Obama and a hard edge for McCain.
What these charlatans have done to savage Palin and Joe the Plumber should be a clarion warning to all of us: the 1st Amendment (and the 2nd Amendment too)is under assault. If you dare to ask uncomfortable questions of socialist politicians, they will come after you, rip your life apart, turn you upside down, and then proceed to metaphorically gang rape you in public.
The MSM is not just irrelevant now. It is being transformed into an agent of the State to try to control the way we think and to whip up mass mockery of those who dare to question our leaders.
“153. Dave Surls: ‘I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are.’–William Tecumseh Sherman”
I always thought that was William Stephen Belichick. My mistake.
snippy w shrub #134
The MSM claims to be an unbiased news source. Conservative talk radio claims to be what it is.
And there is no threat for a government ‘Fairness Doctrine’ to be imposed upon the MSM (which claims to be unbiased but certainly is).
However, there is the threat of the return of the ‘Fairness Doctrine’ to radio, where programming actually states what it is.
There will be civil unrest if the Democrats try to bring back the Fairness Doctrine.
As someone whose training is to learn from the past in spite of biases, I cannot help but wonder how history will record the first decade of the 21st century.
Regardless of what the intelligentia consider “formal” history, we, through our blogs and mass literacy can insure that an alternative account is created and preserved.
Don’t lose faith, use the MSM abuses to redouble your motivation.
What a dopey article. While it’s quite true that what passes for journalism these days is a sad shadow of what it use to be, this has absolutely nothing to do with stupid, right wing nonsense like “the Bill Ayers connection” — 9/11 was as much a disaster for journalism as it was for several blocks in NY City. It’s one thing to be patriotic, it’s another thing altogether to be jingoistic and pandering, and the American press veered much too much towards the latter after 9/11. While nobody would begrudge us invading Afghanistan for protecting bin Laden, the lack of coverage of US military excess, as exemplified by that sorry business at Shiberghan, was a foreshadowing of much worse things to come involving Iraq. That Bush wasn’t impeached by the 2004 election is testimony to how wretched US news “coverage” was of all things Iraq and Bush, from the very sketchy “evidence” produced by Bush’s people and the military, to all that brain dead nonsense involving the Swift Boaters, Joe Wilson & Valerie Plame, the “forged” Killian documents, and so on.
When Bush actually got reelected in 2004 despite being a lying, incompetent President, the British newspaper the “Daily Mirror” had for its front page headline, “How can 59,054,087 people be so dumb?” The answer is that it’s easy when the press handles its responsibility so badly and sloppily that the average Joe, unlicensed plumber or otherwise, doesn’t have a friggin clue about what’s really going on. And these blogs, both on the left and on the right, haven’t exactly helped matters — they just cater to their own particular choir. This whole Ayers thing is a good example — on its own merit, it’s garbage, but right wing/conservative writers and bloggers don’t really have much to attack Obama with, so they have to make due with petty nonsense like it in order to please/appease their audience. The intent is not to inform, but to pander, and that’s not remotely journalistic. As with this article.
I don’t know if you’ll read these comments, Mr Malone, but you, at least, can hold your head high and say “I’m a journalist”.
I’m not sure what to say about what’s happened in the media over the last year, but for myself, I will never really trust them again. It’s sad because journalism– good journalism– is important. It is a vital part of a healthy democracy. I suppose, however, we are no longer a healthy democracy.
I am surprised nobody has mentioned the “Big Lie” technique.
It says, basically, that even if everyone knows they are being lied to, they will believe some of what they hear. The Communists used this in the USSR – everyone knew that Pravda (ironically, “truth” in Russian) was lying. But they still believed all sorts of outrageous things about America, because they had no other source of news.
In today’s America, there are other sources, but you have to go looking for them. Too many voters get their news as tiny snippets that go by on the TV as they await the sports scores, or whatever. They may despise the media, but they are also mislead by them.
Conservative talk radio has proved such a powerful force because it provided a credible alternative viewpoint – and one which didn’t pretent to be impartial. That liberal talk radio has been a terrible failure except in a few blue markets shows that liberals don’t need an alternative source for views that match their world view – it comes from the MSM.
So in 2004, we had an election where the Democrat was someone with a record of doing virtually nothing in his career, except when he was one of the most vocal and dishonest anti-war leaders, attacking his country (and the troops, of which I was one) in the most foul ways. And yet, the Big Lie meant he came very close to winning.
In 2008, we have a Democrat candidate who, as many have pointed out, has virtually no record of accomplishment, who conceals his background, and whose known associations and ideology are far to the left of the American mean – far to the left even of the Democrat mean. And yet, he is likely to be our next president. The press, acting as Mr. Malone points out, are using the Big Lie effectively.
If we had an honest press, America would be a very different place.
Whatever happens to the main stream media, they deserve worse. They are the lowest of the low in our society, scum who deserve only our condemnation.
If I had a million dollars, I’d start a nationwide conservative newspaper, and have you as my editor.
“Whatever happens to the main stream media, they deserve worse. They are the lowest of the low in our society, scum who deserve only our condemnation.”
I couldn’t agree more. I think they’re no better than dirty cops or pedaphilic priests. They’ve got enormous power over a vulnerable group (e.g., viewers/electorate, individuals spending time in that cop’s jurisdiction, parishoners of that priest’s parish). The vulnerable group NEEDS to trust them in order for democracy (in the case of the media), society (in the case of the police) and the Catholic Church (in the case of the priest) to function effectively. Once that power has been abused the whole system disintegrates. It’ll take a long time to regain that trust, if ever. To tell you the truth, I can’t imagine trusting the MSM ever again.
This election year has been transforming for me. It opened my eyes to media bias (starting in the Democratic primaries when the media vilified the Clintons and gave Obama a free pass) and the deep, enduring hypocrisy and intolerance of many of the new progressives (most exemplified by 1) their misogynism toward Senator Clinton and Governor Palin, 2) their endorsement of the MSM exposing and publishing personal information about a private citizen who did nothing more than question a candidate for POTUS, 3) their truly ludicrous defense of the lowlife scum sucker Bill Ayers and 4) their spreading of vile, vicious and ugly rumors about John McCain and his 5 1/2 years of being tortured in the Hanoi Hilton.)
The MSM and the DailyKos scumbags that give progressives a bad name are beneath contempt IMO.
Most impressed with the fact-checking of getaclue’s comment (#6) by various contributors to the thread. His comment is one of the first and would seem to carry some weighty points, so it helps to know that the information he provides on media ownership is outdated nonsense. I’d also point out that at the end of his comment getaclue seems to contradict everything he said at the beginning, attesting to precisely the state of affairs described by Malone. And for all his mistakes what an arrogant nic.
“If we had an honest press, America would be a very different place.”
And also an honest and unbiased educational system. From the elementary school level to the universities, they’re every bit as bad as the media. Maybe worse.
What I don’t get is the media has seen Obama try to shut down WGN a couple times because he didn’t like the subject matter. He has also threaten some TV stations if they aired certain ads.
What does the media think will happen to them if Obama becomes president? I think its pretty obvious.
Because New York City is the media capital of the country, go back and look at the 1989 mayoral race for a mirror image of the current campaign — the media, including many of the same people as today, believed that if the city elected its first African-American mayor it would be an end to crime, prejudice, poverty, that unicorns would romp through the streets, rainbows would sprout out of the Staten Island trash landfill, and candycanes and gumdrops would spill out of sewer lines into the Hudson.
The reality of course was six murders a day and racial tensions heightened by a mayor who was rolled by whatever special interest group shouted the loudest, and it’s also interesting to look at that, because on a national scale, how the media reacted then will be how the react to any crisis a President Obama lets get out of hand. Which means they’ll cover the events, but they’ll either try to hide key facts or spin the stories in some way to absolve Obama from any blame.
The positive thing is, even if Obama does win, if he turns in a crappy performance, no amount of media spin is going to fool the public in 2012. The media can tell people how great Barack will be now and get away with it because he is a cypher; four years from now they can’t tell people (or at least those above the Democrats’ normal 40 percent bace) a presidential record that’s a piece of crap is actually a pile of diamonds and gold and expect the voters to believe it.
Three cheers to Michael Malone for telling the truth about the mainstream media.
Everything so many of you say in condemnation of it is correct.
Unfortunately, my gut tells me that’s it’s too little too late.
It reminds me of Davy Crockett, Bill Travis Jim Bowie and 184 patriots trying to defeat Santa Ana’s army of five thousand at the Alamo, which, to me, is the mainstream media personified.
If Obama becomes commander in chief on November 4, which I feel is likely to happen, I think it will take a generation for the media to again be trusted.
They, in effect, are what has made this Presidential contest so patently unfair. There is no level playing field. CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, Hollywood money, Oprah, TV shows like SNL and the View are the disgraceful anti-American vermin that have swayed malleable minds toward Obama.
I hate to say it, but I’m afraid this extreme left wing, unchallenged Democratic President and Congress will lead us to a very scary place; a nuclear showdown between Iran, Russia, Israel and the United States.
With no governmental backbone to rely on, and a cowered, disbelieving, how-could-we let-this-happen citizenry, our very existence could one day be at stake.
The Michael Malone missive is dismissed by most Democrats out of hand, many of whom will be voting for the brown eyed handsome man. Actually, Barack is what he is. He’s a liberal extremist with a very socialist point of view. I don’t hate him. I simply don’t agree with him.
I see Michelle, though, along with Bill Ayers, Wright, Flager and the rest of the blame-America-first world in a different light; as evil incarnate.
What was the title of Churchill’s book about her pre-WWII days? “While England Slept?” Is it an apt comparison to today’s United States electorate? I hope not. I fear it is.
Likewise, I fear it’s too late to be asking Democrats to rethink their political positions. But I’m asking the Democrats who read this stuff to do just that. You’re smart. You’re thoughtful. You’re articulate. You’re not afraid to listen to a differing point of view.
I wish I were wrong about all this. I really do.
I know you want change. I know you hate Bush. I can’t be sure it’s a tragic mistake to vote for Barack Obama.
But you read what Michael Malone wrote. If it was left to the mainstream media, his voice would go unheard as it cries out into my night. Can one liken it to Paul Revere’s frightful scream, “The British are Coming”?
If so, then let it not fall on deaf ears. America, the hour is late. Before it’s too late, it is my heartfelt wish that America, an America that no longer has a trustworthy press, will wake itself up. And do what’s best for itself and its children. If that means in your heart voting for Obama, then so be it. For me, it means voting for McCain.
What’s made America great never was the mountains and lakes and buildings. It always was the people. For me, it’s not people like Ayers, Flager, Wright, Ellen, Whoopie, Joy and Dorne who I think are trying to lead us down a road without a turning back.
It’s time to stand up and be counted.
One wonders if “GetAClue” will ever get a clue and recognize that he has helped in a small way provide a wonderful example of the “who” and the “what” Mr. Malone speaks?
This is an excellent post. No, let me take that back — this is a profoundly excellent piece.
What Malone has outlined here goes to the crux of the matter, the problem with contemporary journalism no matter whether it is print media, internet, or something else.
Real change begins with each person and I can see this article motivating young and seasoned journalist alike to dot their i’s and cross their t’s next time they write anything that could be deemed one-sided.
Will they be able to keep editors away from changing their work? Only if they go independent. As Malone said, print media is dying. But, online media is thriving.
Let’s take our best work online and make a real difference.
I would like to add–I canceled my subscription to Time and the Chicago Tribune. I have learned far, FAR more about Obama and McCain from conservative talk radio and blogs. My disdain for the MSM probably initially started from reading European/Canadian press the last several years. I saw their blatantly one-sided view of America and Bush and was completely turned off by it (no wonder so many hate America). If Obama wins and things go poorly (as I believe), the MSM will be rightly castigated. Some in the European press are already starting to cover their tracks (we loved America before Bush).
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/comment/columnist/david_aaronovich/article4374704.ece
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,567165,00.html
oops!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/comment/columnist/david_aaronovitch/article4374704.ece
The mainstream media is actually pretty centrist. The proof is relatively simple: all the right wingers constantly whine about how liberal the mainstream media is, while all the left wingers constantly whine about how conservative the mainstream media is.
Get some perspective.
Dear Mike Malone: Kudos for honesty and insight. However, I don’t agree with your ending hypothesis, that editors and big-decision-makers at the NYT, WaPo, and other MSM outlets have decided to roll the dice and bet on monolithic Dem control as their salvation. Perhaps, yes it’s possible they think the “fairness” doctrine will help them. But that’s a HUGE stretch for them to think that way, b/c the FD and more powerful unions, whatever, any other reasons, will NOT help their business-model decline. Instead, as a 15-yr subscriber to the WaPo who finally could receive home deliv of the WaTimes 3 years ago, I think I understand — I could almost feel it reading page 1 every day — that the roots of antipathy of people like Len Downie and Punch Sulzberger go WAY back…….antipathy against Republicans. They started a more stunning brand of attack on page 1 of their papers in ’00 against “W” during his campaign. They didn’t just change their attack-model during this campaign as a “Hail Mary”.
What I’m particularly curious about, is why these icons of MSM, SO educated, have failed to see that the Democrats are intensifying their class warfare message, and the resulting additional over-taxation of businesses and high-earners will KILL our vibrant economy as we’ve known it. And when people over the next 10 years have less discretionary spending, newspapers will die even faster than they have. And our children will suffer by having fewer high-paying jobs in their 20s and 30s. That’s happened in western Europe, and it’s amazing to me that the MSM geniuses haven’t seen it and decided it’s too dangerous to ignore. But they’ve ignored it, going full-steam-ahead for the Obama semi-Socialist Express. It absolutely boggles my mind that they’re so short-sighted and partisan that they’ll risk ruining our country for people with “D” next to their names. Sincerely, Steve Bourg Ellicott City, MD
If I had a quarter for every time during this election either myself or a friend said “why isnt the media reporting this?”, I would have lots and lots of wealth for BO to redistribute. Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, Tony Rezko, Rev. Wright, Farrakhan, Father Pfleger, Acorn, his membership in the socialist “New Party”, Saul Alinsky, Rashid Khalidi, campaigning for Raila Odinga while in the Senate. If you were to put all of these characters in the same room it would look like a Legion of Doom reunion. I truly fear for our future as it looks like we are going to become the USSA very soon.
great stuff though wish he would have reported on some objective findings that would back up what we know to be true, like…
Media Analysis: Coverage of McCain Twice as Negative as Obama – Real Clear Politics – Elections 2008 – TIME Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism
http://www.time-blog.com/real_clear_politics/2008/10/media_analysis.html
I know that most Liberals admire rhetoric over record & don’t let facts get in the way of a good fairy tale, but…
TV election news has been hardest on Hillary Clinton this fall, while Barack Obama and Mike
Huckabee have been the biggest media favorites, according to a new study by the Center for Media
and Public Affairs (CMPA) at GeorgeMasonUniversity. The study also found that Fox
News Channel’s evening news show provided more balanced coverage than its counterparts on the broadcast networks.
Here is a PDF file if you are interested further: http://www.cmpa.com/Studies/Election08/07_12_21_Election_Study.pdf
For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.
Cancel your subscription(s)….it’s the only way to bring (I hate to say this) change!
I suspect that “The FlatLine Media” does not much care about their “future” or Obama being a threat to their First Amendment freedom for one of two reasons in particular:
EITHER
The FlatLine Media thinks, in their trademark hubris, that they can – as they have so often in the past – build someone up, only to knock them down later and, hey, it ALL sells papers, so…what’s the prob?
OR
The FlatLine Media is SO cynical, that the RECOGNIZE the threat and are resigned to the fact – and quite jolly comfortable with it – that they would then become an integral part of the Obama power system (i.e. Federal Government)…calling Joseph Goebbels!!!
EEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
Is Fox News not a part of the mainstream media? Is conservative talk radio not popular? What about Drudge? The Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, or Washington Times?
This is the first of two big problems with this sort of ongoing attack on the big, bad, elite, liberal “MSM.” First of all, nobody ever defines where the MSM starts and ends.
The “mainstream media” is no longer the three networks and your local newspaper. It’s every single local TV outlet in the country, every 24/7 cable network, and every newspaper in the country, plus a number of respected blogs and magazines, whose contents are scanned, scraped, harvested, aggregated, disseminated, blogged about, shared via digg, facebook, and other social networks, and evaluated by millions of commentators every day. It spans from Katie Couric down to your email account.
Those seeking information on Bill Ayers or Tony Rezco, or for that matter Bill Keating or Cindy McCain’s pharmacists, will not be disappointed. A quick Google search for info about Ayers would leave you to find everything from a fairly soft piece in the NY Times, to a more scathing inspection by Kurtz in the Post, on down through liberal and conservative blogs, as well as You Tube videos.
The second problem is the assumption by those who think a journalist like Katie Couric is unjustified or somehow biased in reporting on your candidate’s weaknesses. Joe Biden is a gaffe machine, no doubt. But there’s a big difference between him ridiculously asking a man in a wheel chair to stand up and Sarah Palin not being able to think on her feet and answer straightforward questions about the Constitution, Supreme Court decisions, her views on Russia, or the role of the VP in the Legislative branch.
I am not saying Sarah Palin is stupid. I am not saying all journalists or all articles are good, balanced, or fair — far from it. But I do believe that 1) John McCain has run a very ill-advised campaign, especially in regards to his media strategy. It does not pay off to circumvent the media or attack them when the write something about you that you don’t like. That just feeds a negative feedback loop. 2) The Republican base is having a hard time seeing this. When they do see this, as many GOP loyalists have come out against the campaign’s tactics, they run the risk of being run out of the party as being somehow disloyal. “He’s not a real Republican,” or better yet, “He’s a country club Republican, just another part of the elite.”
Finally, to get back to my original point, the notion of a coordinated, biased, fleet of liberal media editors, passing over hot stories at papers and TV stations/networks across the country is just ridiculous. These guys live and die by stories. I concede that some might be biased toward Obama, but certainly not all. But the fluidity of media today means that it just takes one reporter to get that news out to a national audience. And certainly, you would concede that there is at least a few right-leaning writers, pundits, editors, and TV personalities out there, right? The WSJ, a news source I respect a great deal, has not been easy on Obama and addressed many of the concerns you point about him and his party. The Fox News Network, a news source I don’t value at all other than entertainment, has gone above and beyond the call of duty in examining Obama’s associations.
Take your pick of sources, leave the rest. But stop blaming the media for John McCain’s poor standing in the polls. The American people are smart enough to sort out the good sources from the bad, the relevant news threads from the smoke and noise, and they are smart enough to know a candidate who is running a campaign they like and know the candidate they don’t like.
I must say that with writing skills like you have, I would hope that you would be able to keep writing.
Journalism is dead. I love fair stories that look at both sides. I think I can count on one hand then number of fair stories.
Thanks for the peek into the world of the editors. That caught my attention when Joe the Plumber mentioned that he had journalists apologizing to him that they were there, but their editors had sent them.
Okay, so you “outted” the media. That was really brave. How about going to Columbia and finding what Obama was REALLY up to there? How about finding how much Obama really was involved with Rezko. We need a hero!!
the media supported COMMUNISM AGAINST OUR SOLDIERS IN NAM. THE MEDIA COVERED UP THE CRIMES OF POL POT,MAO,THE SANDANISTAS AND FIDO CASTRO. THE MEDIA LIED ABOUT REAGAN AT EVERY TURN,TRYING TO CRIMINALIZE FORGEIN POLICY DURING IRAN-CONTRA. THE MEDIA COVERED UP ABOUT BILL CLINTON BEFORE 1992 ELECTIONS AND LIED ABOUT HIS PERJURY AND OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE DURING THE BLOWITSKY EVENT,INSTEAD CALLING IT A “PRIVATE AFFAIR”(OF COURSE BOB PACKWOOD WASNT). THE MEDIA COVERED UP SLEAZEBAGS LIKE THE PEDOPHILE GERRY STUDDS AND THE FAGGOT BARNEY FRANK RUNNING A “CALL-BOY” SERVICE OUT OF THE BASEMENT OF HIS DC TOWNHOUSE WITH STEVEN GOBIE. THE MEDIA HAS LIED ABOUT FANNIE MAE AND FREDDIE MAC,IGNORING THE ROLE OF DEMOCRAPTIC SYNCOPHATS LIKE FRANKLIN RAINES.JIM JOHNSON,JAMIE THE GORE LICKER,AND DANIEL MUDD. THE MEDIA LIED ABOUT BILL AYERS,ACORN, AND THE OBAMINATORS RELATIONSHIP WITH THE NEW PARTY. THE MEDIA COVERED UP JEREMIAH WRIGHT FOR OVER A YEAR AND CONTINUES TO COVER UP THE VIRULENT COMMUNIST RACIST HATRED OF OTIS MOSS AND MICHAEL PLEGLER(“AMERICA IS THE GREATEST SIN AMONG MANKIND”). THE MEDIA HAS NOT BEEN A “MEDIA” EVER SINCE THE AGE OF TELEVISION. LAW,ACADEMIA,MEDIA AND POLITICS BECAME INFECTED BY COMMIE ROT DURING THE MCCARTHY YEARS(YES,IM SAYING MCCARTHY WAS RIGHT) AND THE OBAM SCUM IS THE CULMINATION OF THE COMMIE WET DREAMS. TIME TO DOUSE THOSE DREAMS.
Every politician lies on the campaign trail. So before we vote we have to choose based on the past performances. Here it is incumbent upon the press to do the job of finding the truth and reporting it. In the case of Barack Obama the media has failed miserably. The dereliction of this duty has made the press invalid to the American people. Journalism is dead and now we must find our own truth by trolling through the blogosphere a truly sad situation.
6. getaclue:
“You are delusional if you truly believe in the so-called “liberal” bias in the media. CBS is owned by Westinghouse, a huge defense contractor.”
CBS is owned by Viacom, which also owns Paramount Studios, whose biggest star until recently was Tom Cruise. So, to use your logic, then the Dan Rather story about the President Bush’s service in the Texas National Guard was an attempt to please Scientologists?
Puhleeze!
“superduperman” @ 183 said a mouthful, as did Ed Wallis @ 187. Obama and his leftist Congress could (if elected) go far beyond re-enacting the “Fairness” Doctrine. In the interest of eliminating “hate speech” in the blogosphere and “bias” in the media, our “well-intending” government could very well create a quasi-government entity charged with oversight (laundering) of news reporting. Keith Olberman would be a perfect choice to head the Joseph Goebbels/ Baghdad Bob Agency of the re-franchised Pravda (truth)-Izvestia (news) Bureau. Get ready, folks, for Soviet-style news broadcasts!
I feel your pain. It feels awful to be a democrat. I won’t admit that in public either. The lies they are telling and the press gives them a pass.
It is just unbelievable. After the lies and deceptions and wars and deaths caused by a Republican President’s administration, after the smackdowns on liberty and human rights after the infamy of Guantanamo and Abu Graib, the journalists don’t support the Republicans?
You are two sandwiches short of a poor lunch.
A noble act to have written this article. Like many before me, I too thank you but how and when are we going to address this…
What happens when the democrats own all 3 branches of government? Do you think the press will be more likely to tell the truth or not? When the public do not have the facts on important matters such as who was behind the mortgage meltdown or Acorn crminality, who wlll tell the truth and bring them to account? I do not trust the MSM anymore and get most of my info from bloggers and talk radio. If the MSM had done their job all along, perhaps there would be no need for the alternative media.
This is a very dangerous game.
I heard a audio clip of Senator Biden saying that they were going to go after the CEOs of failed corporations, that they would go for their pension plans. I took that to mean that if your company fails, then the first thing the government would take is the private property of the boss.
“Pinch” Sulzberger should be concerned.
Uh, getaclue, I hate to tell you this but ABC is owned by Disney and Westinghouse has been out of the CBS business for twenty years. I see why you chose your screenname.
And you make the classic mistake of all stupid liberals: you assume that chief executives of “predatory” coporations are always evil consevatives when in fact they almost never are. The best example: Jon Corzine, Goldman Sachs CEO and a billionaire, who was one of the most liberal senators of the 20th century. To say nothing of Richard Branson, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, the late Armand Hammer, and so on and on.
Suggestion for a new screen name: seekingaclue.
Remember a couple of years ago when the journalistic folks were pushing for immunity so they wouldn’t have to reveal their sources. They don’t need it now, they can just make stuff up.
To “First Time Reader,” #132 (apparently a literal nom-de-plume, given the profound lack of reading comprehension skill manifest in your sadly ignorant post), i.e.:
“I have a simple question. Mr. Malone, you say you are a journalist. The root of “journalist” is “jour,” which means “daily.” Who do you work for, and what is your daily output? I did a Google search, and all I could find was that you used to be a magazine writer.
So, would you please provide your biography so I can know whether you are a “journalist?” I’ll relax the constraint on the daily nature of journalism, but I want to know what you actually do, as opposed to the label you apply to yourself.
Thanks.”
Try the “The Edgelings” link in the upper right hand corner, genius:
Mike Malone—Editor-in-Chief
Mike Malone has been Silicon Valley’s leading journalist for 30 years. He is the author of a dozen best-selling business books including The Virtual Corporation, Going Public, Infinite Loop (the Apple story), Virtual Selling, One Digital Day and the definitive history of Silicon Valley, The Big Score. His latest book is Bill and Dave: How Hewlett and Packard Built the World’s Greatest Company (Portfolio, March 2007). The Silicon Insider, Malone’s weekly technology column for ABCNews.com is read by 80,000 daily readers. Malone also contributes regularly to the Wall Street Journal, Wired, Fast Company. He was a columnist for the New York Times and from 1998 to 2001 was editor-in-chief of Forbes ASAP, the world’s largest circulation business-technology magazine. Recently, Malone was co-producer of the four-hour PBS primetime miniseries, “The New Heroes”, hosted by Robert Redford.
Good enough to douse the insipid snark of your “simple” inquiry, methinks.
“First-time” internet user, too?
ROTFLMFAO.
As a former editorial page editor who got out of the business (no golden parachute, alas) in the mid-90s, I totally agree with Malone that bias has taken a quantum leap this time around. It’s as if the editors said, “Screw it, we’re not even going to try to hide it this time around.” But I don’t think Malone should let reporters off the hook. Yes, they are “human torpedoes” who could blow up any target if properly directed. But they also have their own internal gyroscopes that, by and large, steer them to the left. The more freedom they get to inject opinion into their stories, the more left-leaning opinion you’ll naturally get on the news pages. Now, I’m old enough to remember when typical reporters, at least in an urban setting (Los Angeles) covering local news, saw themselves truly as reporters and not as change agents. Getting the story was the thing, not raising someone up or bringing someone down. They had their political views but generally kept such views to themselves. They also had definite opinions about the people they covered. But those views, too, were kept in the closet or maybe allowed to creep out in an occasional journalistic euphemism like “ruddy-faced” (alcoholic), “flamboyant” (gay), etc. Generally, they were professional cynics, trained by their professional culture to look for the bad in anyone and to report it as much as good taste and libel law allowed. The romance of Watergate did a lot to change that culture, as (perhaps) did the fashionable post-modern idea (from Derrida, Foucault and all the usual French suspects) that there really can be no objectivity, even as a platonic ideal, because there is no objective truth, just warring points of view, with power determining the view that prevails. So we have a generation or two of newspeople, infused with the worldview of 60s radicals now ensconced in humanities departments, who see their role not to approximate the truth as closely as possible (can’t be done, since there’s no truth) but to gain and employ the currency that matters — power. And when a politician comes along who flatters their own prejudices and looks like a winner, they want to be right up there riding shotgun with him. Who knows, if he wins he may give them a cool White House job and they can leave the sinking ship of old media. You can get the resumes — from reporters AND editors — will be flying …
“But in the last few days, even Democrats, who have been gloating over the pass – no, make that shameless support – they’ve gotten from the press, are starting to get uncomfortable as they realize that no one wins in the long run when we don’t have a free and fair press.”
That’s where he’s wrong. In this election, the media has a candidate whose flows they can hide because he’s attractive. If the media remains aligned with Obama and Obama wins, they and the democrats gain more power and they know it. Think of Pravda. The only ones who don’t win are the ones out of power. The dems and the media know this is their ticket to more power and they’re not the least bit upset about it.
That Michael Malone has a conscience, doesn’t mean the vast majority of journalists do. They lost a significant amount of power when the new media arrived, but realized with an articulate and attractice candidate, they could ignore his radical past because most Americans wouldn’t believe he could be that bad. As an adult babysitter said to me about Clinton, “He couldn’t have lied, he can’t be that bad, he’s too good looking.”
By literally ignoring and/or covering Obama’s radical past, they’ve convinced regular Americans Obama isn’t what he is. It’s sick, and it’s going to get worse when they work with Obama to push through his agenda. The bulk of the media are as radical as Obama, they’re old 60-70′s leftists and graduates who were taught by hippies.
As a journalist at times in my life I am appalled at how they are behaving on both sides of the Atlantic. I had a long conversation with a fellow journo who used to work for the BBC and he shared my disgust.
Their bias and frustration about getting it wrong two elections in a row has driven their need to completely mislead the American (and British people).
Mr. Malone:
What you’re seeing and experiencing is a painful and awkward transition between what we knew as media (‘paid’ media, ‘traditional’ media, ‘mainstream’ media, whatever you like) to – something new. Most likely a wide variety of ‘new’.
As present, the MSM is a commercial structure under siege, rather like record companies. They are trying to protect themselves, because those well-situated in the profit structure will NOT be so well-situated in the future. (See the NYT stock prices over the past few years.)
Bottom line: Desperate people do desperate things. Unfortunately, Joe Journalist goes along with the flow, writing whatever pleases hsi highers-up.
I suspect, as do many others, that said highers-up do not want a ‘free marketplace’ for ideas in the future. Such a marketplace, clearely, is not favoring them. However, nationalizing The New York Times (‘for the public good’) by bailing out the company while leaving key players in charge, WOULD favor certain interests. The ‘fairness doctrine’ can also be used to stifle competition favoring the bigger players.
For many reasons, Obama is ‘Big Media’s’ friend.
“I’m sure I’m not the only one who will cheer if, when Islamists next attack NYC, the New York Times Building is ground zero during the height of the work day; and/or that the upper East and West sides between Central Park South and 96th Street are decimated.”
You’re assuming The Times and those areas of Manhattan are where the enemies of Islamofascism are concentrated.
On what evidence do you base that assumption? I sure don’t see any.
great stuff that needs be heard by the countless people who rely on newspapers and the evening news for their information.what scares me is reading in the comments responses like that of get a clue .the fact people this stupid are out there and will be voting.we have the greatest overall existence in the history of the world and idiots like this want to destroy it .do we have problems ,yes,can they be fixed ,yes but not by trying ideals that do not work and have never anytime or anyplace in history.
I agree with this column entirely but for one thing… any reporter should consider themselves lucky to be sent to the Omaha bureau! It’s a great place and you can kiss my a– in that respect.
Why doesn’t a bunch of people in the US get to gather and launch a class action suit for fraud against the MSM.
They are advertising one product but delivering another. Ie: They say they are unbiased but this is not true, therefore fraud.
I’m a Canadian so I don’t have a dog in fight, just a interested observer. I am very worried about Obama because win or lose it could mean a civil war in the US and that would be dangerous to Canada
Agree with most of this, except that there are few if any young journalists who’d be going after Obama. Anyone who’s worked in a newsroom lately knows this. The majority of young journalists are all snark and bravado. To the extent that there are any long-term career possibilities in the MSM today, it would be career suicide to “go after” a black liberal (black conservatives are another matter).
The kids are more blinkered and biased than their editors; they came up through the PC school system; they came of professional age when journalism had become a ‘justice’ movement — indeed, not a few job ads state such a role for reporters. The older ones at least remember, if they’ll admit it, that things were once different; kids don’t even know there was any other way.
What’s most amazing is that none of them of any age seem to see that if Obama becomes president, he’s going to be the same person he is now: evasive with the facts, ready to call critics divisive or racist and ready to stomp on those who ask awkward questions (such as radio shows that host people looking into his background). How are journalists planning to deal with all that?
There aren’t any Murrows anymore. I can’t name a single journalist that I believe could tell it to me straight. There is no print media, television media that I believe in.
I believe in nothing that is associated with media. I question all of it. It’s like the entire profession has been taken over by adolescents who are shilling for their own liberal agenda, as opposed to ‘reporting the news’. I cannot even say those latter three words with a straight face. Reporting the news? No, they shape the news, they make the news, they are the news. What they are not, are real journalists which are basically funtionally extinct. If there are any journalists with some sort of integrity, they’re working in podunk somewhere, and not in the national media.
The fact that some dude like Joe the Plumber is excoriated and examined with a fine tooth comb for asking the great one a question, while a man running for President can say ‘move along here, there’s nothing to see’, and get away with it is shocking but not surprising. Whatever happened to that standard of guts and truth that showcased Watergate? Present day media is like the mirror image of what should be happening.
Don’t ask questions. Don’t make statements of opposition. Disagreement or dissent only belongs to the left. Bad economic policy is fine as long as it’s politically correct, even if we’re in the poor house. Bad foreign policy is fine, as long as it’s utopian. Doesn’t matter if it works or not, all hail the conquering hero. All hail the minority candidate whose policies would be mocked as snake oil if they came from some aging white guy. Don’t bother to do the math, don’t you like my perfect smile? A second grader could figure out that you cannot do the things that he wants to do, because it’s basic computation. But shhhhhh, he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread! Don’t look at the little man behind the curtain…
We’ve fallen down the rabbit hole and I don’t believe a generation will pass and it will be different. I’ve seen the death of the media, and I don’t think that it’s going to be successfully resurrected. It’s deader than that cliched doornail. Truth has flatlined.
This article is too little, too late. A tiny bell clanging that is drowned out by the din of the collective awe.
Read the stories (sorry, too lazy to provide links) about the Pew Research poll that showed that media is biased in favor of Obama – done by actually counting pos vs neg stories on each side. In the same stories (at least the ones I read – and possibly in the words of Pew itself), some conclusion along the lines of ‘the reason is not necessarily media bias, but because there is simply more negative news to report about the McCain campaign’.
Frightening.
.
Btw – I agree with those who say ‘don’t let the reporters off the hook in their culpability’.
It is my belief that reporters now write for each others approval, not the reader. Thus they are self-editing. They care more about the cause than they do about the industry. This is exactly the situation with Hollywood – look at all the anti-war movies that bombed and ask why a sequel to Mel Gibson’s movie hasn’t been made.
After skimming through the posts I have a few questions:
Does anyone honestly think that if Rev. Wright had been in Sarah Palin’s closet we would have learned about him too late to make any difference?
Does anybody truly think Barack Obama would have won the Democratic nomination if that story had surface ANY sooner (say before Super Tuesday)?
Does anyone (besides Hillary Clinton and me) wonder why it didn’t?
Barack Obama didn’t earn the nomination he was carried to it.
Is anyone troubled by the fact that a nominee for vice president of the United States can suggest that an international crisis would be imminent if his ticket prevails and the the main stream media wouldn’t have the intellecutal curiousity to ask him what he meant?
Does anyone believe that same media would let it rest if John McCain were to offer an explanation of a troubling comment made by his running mate?
Isn’t anyone a tad interested in Biden’s suggesting to the folks he was speaking to in Seattle that they may not much like his steely spined running mate’s response to the aforementioned international crisis?
What precisely does that mean?
Are we electing a cowboy or a diplomat?
Just how would a President Obama respond to an international crisis, and, by the way, just what sort of crisis are we talking about?
Is it wrong think the media would pursue a story about an international crisis guaranteed by one vice presidential candidate as aggressively as they do the clothing allowance of another?
Is that too much to expect?
Just Wondering
I was talking to my wife last night about this very subject. She was reading the local rag, & as wives do, reading an item here or there to me. One was about Palin’s clothes budget, & she was complaining that the writer didn’t seem to grasp that women like Palin don’t have a closet full of designer clothes, and that any woman operating at the national level has to dress to meet the standards that level has for women’s dress.
So I pointed out that such information would detract from the writer’s obvious desire to make Palin & the Republicans look bad for spending soooo much money.
In the past, my wife, a pretty establishment-oriented woman in most ways, and someone who doesn’t pay much attention to politics, would just say that she thought I was overstating things when I went off on my “liberal media bias” rant.
But this time, she told me I was preaching to the choir. If the MSM has lost my wife, they’ve lost, period.
And my hope is that the American people vote for McCain, & cram Obama back down the throats of the MSM.
Sphere says:
“The mainstream media is actually pretty centrist. The proof is relatively simple: all the right wingers constantly whine about how liberal the mainstream media is, while all the left wingers constantly whine about how conservative the mainstream media is.”
Brilliant analysis, Sphere, relativism at its finest! And with “proof”, no less! ….and then on to lecturing on “perspective”…… Priceless!
It isn’t just the editors. Journalists as a group are at least–at least–90 percent Democratic voters. I know in my time watching Texas state political coverage I have never, not once, encountered a single journalist for a major news outlet who was not a Democrat. Some are more centrist than others of course, but a staggering amount are extraordinarily left-wing.
The result is that they live in echo-chambers since there is no one from the other side to challenge them in their newsrooms. That’s the true tragedy–they don’t think Ayers is a real story but they are covering up for it. Their internal conversations have led them all to convince each other that it truly is a non-story.
At this point the echo chamber is so intense that there is no real difference in coverage between the most extreme voices of the left–DU and Kos–and the Times and other outlets. They only differ in the intensity of language used but the slant of every. single. story. is exactly the same.
What we need is more subject matter experts that have taken a couple rhetoric and writing classes – not College of Journalism types writing of things they do not understand.
The journalism profession is a disgrace.
The state of journalism reminds me, in a metaphorical sense, of the scene from “Wizard of Oz” where Toto the four-legged blogger pulls open the curtain to reveal the small, impotent journalist who tries in vain to keep pulling the levers of power even after being exposed.
Look at what is required to be a (print) journalist these days:
1. Ability to talk on the phone or email a lot and ask questions.
2. Willingness to tell anyone who will listen what you learned but with no apparent requirement to keep from repeating gossip or putting your spin on whatever you were told.
3. Ability to write to an 8th-grade level, the standard for newspapers.
Conclusion: a journalist must have the same skill set as a normal 8th-grade girl (no intent to demean 8th-grade girls). The fact that the internet has allowed many people who have other full-time professions to show they can do a better job analyzing and writing about events of the day as the “professionals” points to the notion that journalism should be seen for what it is: an activity and not a profession.
Ok Mr. Malone,
Have you listen to all of talk radio, or watch the fox news channel.
Be honest, you said you do not want fairness doctrine, you like the bias that is only in your favor. Fair usually means fair for all. Remember the swiftboat ads claiming that JKerry shot himself for a metal.
Red
201. Fuqua:
“Is Fox News not a part of the mainstream media? Is conservative talk radio not popular? What about Drudge? The Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, or Washington Times?”
There has been a quite consistent leftwing bias in the media for decades. It has been documented by EVERY study or poll of EVERY level of “journalism”, including editors, anchors, reporters, headline writers, journalism profs and their students. They SELF-IDENTIFY 7 to 1 as liberals. They give in the same proportion to democratic campaigns. And the voted for EVERY democratic candidate for president since the 19060s, including George McGovern.
Until Fox (which is only center-right, but to you lefties must seem far right) and talk radio and the internet came along, there was NO conservative media. Since in every survey 60% of the American public SELF-IDENTIFIES as moderately to very conservative, they have been abandoning the left wing media in droves, which is why the NYT just got downgraded to JUNK status by the credit rating agencies, and the networks and CNN have been hemoragging viewers since then.
Your “objective” media sees this as their chance to shut down the conservative alternativess.
Pelosi and Reid have made no secret about reinstating the Orwellian “Fairness Doctrine” as a first order of business. This will shut down talk radio. Obama and his surrogates have already threatened internet sites critical of him with legal action and conservative public interest groups have been threatened with investigations into the personal lives of their donors and with IRS sanctions. And they are not even in power yet.
If all this comes to pass, will you say that you were wrong? I doubt it – you’ll be the first one to cheer. But remember one thing about Marxism wherever it has been installed, the “useful idiots” like you are the first ones to be targeted.
All those young people went into journalism to “make a difference”.
Now they have.
What will it take to restore any credibility to the ‘profession’ of journalism?
I have been thinking the past few days about the implications to journalistic credibility of the current “in the tank” reporting. I’m glad you’ve written this column specifically about that.
This article is similar to the great book “Bias” which of course disclosed several years ago the incredible bias in CBS among other media outlets. Malone’s contribution is of great merit, but like someone else commented, it’s sad that it apparently has to be “hidden” in the alternative media, although it could still be picked up for publication elsewhere given the growing status of Pajamas.
My take on the press bias this election adds this scenario:
If Obama is elected, there will be a gradual media willingness to publish conservative opposition to Obama and his administration so as to help foment what the media wants to be more than anything else, the apparent portal to opposing the current power structure. In other words, the mainstream media wants to forever be the only way for opposition to gain traction, and live for the purpose of cycling the power structure playing one against the other. They used to do this simultaneously, presenting both points of view on a fairly constant basis, but have now gone to a greater wave length cycle wherein they will only present the other side after the defeat of the other.
It’s a dangerous game, and one that obliterates their historic objectivity in favor of retaining their own power. It’s all about power, and the mainstream media’s bias this year will truly backfire on them, but may take a portion of this country with them. Thank you to Mr. Malone for his contribution to expose this travesty.
Thank you Mr. Malone.
Sad but true. It has gotten so bad that personally I would not accept a free subscription to the NYT.
Excellent post!
I would add that while I was in Europe I found myself apologizing for the US media.
The price we pay is corruption
Hmmmmm.
The biased partisan media makes a civil war far more likely.
Wow! The interest in this post is revealing. Mr Malone struck a live nerve ending. I”m in agreement with one of the posts ascribing much of the blame and/or reason for this bias in the media to political correctness. affirmative action hirings, fear of the dreaded “racist” label, white liberal guilt over black America’s “plight”, pandering to the victimology lobby, all together producing the toxic newsroom environment in which a Jason Blair thrives. Obama becomes the perfect antidote to all these pathologies. Get him elected and we are all redeemed. What’s needed here is a rededication to finding the truth, the implied point in Mr Malone’s post.
There is another columnist who is a dem and who calls the msm out on what they have done and are doing in this election.
See the article by Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game). It’s been on hotair.com and Meridian and was picked up from a Greensboro – not sure of that name but it seemed like a newspaper.
From all reports you will be taking your career in your hands come the election, which I’m dreading, if you cross the “One” after it’s over.
When the vox populi is silenced, the people tend to rise up. I believe enough americanism still exists within us all to reject tyranny. If they attempt to silence Rush, I will march; I am quite sure I won’t be alone.
Many years ago I was on a gap year from my native UK in the USA. A part of my stay was in a very small town in Texas, with a local paper whose masthead bore a line that made an impression that has lasted to the present day: ‘Hew close to the line, and let the chips fall where they may’.
Simple, but still a pretty decent credo to follow as a journalist.
With a few exceptions, I had thought the spirit embodied in that still existed in the USA whilst publisher patronage and personal or corporate agenda has tainted almost anything here that goes under the well-abused term ‘objective news’. Including, or should I say especially from the BBC, my national broadcaster and an entity I am forced to pay for.
It is sad to see that the desire of some to shape issues to suit personal beliefs and/or boost careers through ratings has dragged you guys down too.
As a journalism student long ago, and as a newspaper reporter for both the university daily and a local, I recall that the absolute worst insult we could throw at one another, was to be thought of as a “shill”–someone who carried the water for some person or cause for their own personal gain. Possibly because the public relations students were part of the School of Journalism, and PR students were inevitably those would couldn’t write, it was a double insult to be associated with the PR “hacks”–those who would be making a living as shills.
It is now apparently a requirement in j-schools and newsrooms to be, first and foremost, a shill. The “news” is either manufactured or regurgitated public relations materials. Most of the pretty faces apparently don’t even know the difference between journalism and shilling.
As for me, I’m voting with my pocketbook. The newspaper sub goes dark at the next renewal, and never again will I buy those venerable journalistic pubs like Time, Newsweek, USNWR, and so on. The national networks don’t get watched in my household, and if we get to “unbundling” of satellite and cable programming, those channels will be the first to go.
“Please tell me which is worse, the media not investigating the Bill Ayers connection or the media not investigating the Todd Palin connection?” (Post #133)
Let me give that one a go. What’s “worse” is the fact that it was a matter of DAYS before we were enlightened about Todd Palin’s secessionist ties – ties that initially, and mistakenly (Oops!)included his wife’s membership in the secessionist party. It took TWO YEARS for the mainstream media to focus on Obama’s ties to Ayers and then it was only when it appeared the election was in hand and the din on talk radio had grown too loud to ignore with a straight face. Don’t get me wong, I’m not suggesting that Ayers is a huge issue, but Obama’s relationship with the former terrorist says at least as much about him as say Sarah Palin’s excruciatingly explored bid to ban books when she was mayor of Wasilla says about her.
By all accounts Palin never banned a book, but the mainstream media beleived the fact that she once ASKED about banning books was something that should be explored and reported because it says something worth knowing about who she is.
Couldn’t the same be said of Obama and Ayers?
Isn’t that a relationship that should have surfaced and been fully explored during the Democratic Primary instead of two weeks before the presidential election?
Why wasn’t it?
Just wondering
One threw some bombs around forty years ago and now hobnobs with influential Republican refugees from the Nixon administration and serves on the same board with a presidential candidate. The other hates America enough to want to secede from the country and is married to a vice-presidential candidate. My lord, I can’t imagine what the reaction would be if Joe Biden’s wife were the secessionist.
For all your clamoring for media objectivity, you aren’t showing much.
“Please tell me which is worse, the media not investigating the Bill Ayers connection or the media not investigating the Todd Palin connection?” (Post #133)
Let me give that one a go. What’s “worse” is the fact that it was a matter of DAYS before we were enlightened about Todd Palin’s secessionist ties – ties that initially, and mistakenly (Oops!)included his wife’s membership in the secessionist party. It took TWO YEARS for the mainstream media to focus on Obama’s ties to Ayers and then it was only when it appeared the election was in hand and the din on talk radio had grown too loud to ignore with a straight face. Don’t get me wong, I’m not suggesting that Ayers is a huge issue, but Obama’s relationship with the former terrorist says at least as much about him as say Sarah Palin’s excruciatingly explored bid to ban books when she was mayor of Wasilla says about her.
By all accounts Palin never banned a book, but the mainstream media believed the fact that she once ASKED about banning books was something that should be explored and reported because it says something worth knowing about who she is.
Couldn’t the same be said of Obama and Ayers?
Isn’t that a relationship that should have surfaced and been fully explored during the Democratic Primary instead of two weeks before the presidential election?
Why wasn’t it?
Just wondering
The national media: obama’s bitches.
A man, caught in a lie, is never trusted the same way again. He may, if he leads an exemplary life for years, regain some of his reputation.
What would the MSM have to do to reclaim the trust of the public?
If there is a way, are they capable?
I have not read all the remarks so I apologize if this has been mentioned. The value of the New York Times and its “onesidedness” has been recognized byi the citizenry now that it has been downgraded to a junk stock.
The operative assumption is that Obumba is going to win is a fallacy. The polls are seldom that accurate and especially now that the strings on the puppets are visible they are less likely to influence the average voter.
I’m not saying that Obumba is going to lose, but like the projections of the Gore Administration or the Kerry Administration, the Obamination Administration is still to early to call and may never come to pass.
The more the socialist rub their hands with glee and announce their intentions the more likely the quiet backlash will occur on election day. And not only for the presidency.
Now if McCain were to campaign against Obumba and all democrats this could become the mother of all upset elections.
Dump your GE shares folks. A McCain Administration will find every excuse in the world not to give GE any contracts it absolutely does not have to.
Angry and stubborn does have its good side as well. Don’t be surprised if NBC is up for sale in the next two years if McCain is elected. The MSM as a whole has whored its self into irrelevancy. They are dying and they know it and they don’t know how to save themselves.
I canceled my local newspaper today. I subscribed to it for almost 30 years. I am going to cancel my Newsweek subscription, which I have had for over 30 years. I am a moderate Democrat, voting for John McCain, the first time I have voted Republican. I am not a far right conservative, and I find the press coverage so completely biased it is beyond belief. Their failure to speak truth to power helped us get in Iraq, and not it is going to get us an unvetted and unqualified POTUS.
I believe everything that you have said about the media. My question to you is where are you and why are you not out scratching the dirt! The dirt that is Obama. There is certainly enough smoke—find the fire!
Mr. Malone nails it. The media has gone beyond its ordinary bias this time. He’s not the only one talking about it. I have read a few other articles with similar thoughts, some authored by confessed liberals. Its not going to change anything. Only we can do that. Perhaps a strong boycott of advertisors would do the trick but I am afraid that would not get universal support.
In any case, I do not agree with Mr. Malone’s conclusions about why we are seeing this bias. I think what we are seeing is zealous partisanship in the newsrooms, not because they are concerned about the future, but because they see no consequneces for their behavior. The media has been inching closer and closer to this point for years and no one has stopped them. They have learned, like tyrants throughout history, they can obtain power by controlling the information that reaches the people. The media has no oversight and no watchodogs to penalize them for their behavior – and they shouldn’t. What we are seeing from the media is a form of corruption – an abuse of the rules in much the same way they see the corruption on Wall St. where bankers stretched the rules to get rich.
Bankers may have destroyed capitalism as we knew it and eventually the media will destroy our freedom of the press as we knew it.
Another thing you won’t find in any news story about Ayers, be it Fox or whatever, is that Ayers is still the radical, anti-capitalist, anti-American that that he was in the 60s and 70s. He has just shifted his methods. Instead of bombing, he is attempting to brainwash children and young adults.
See his own website for his own views.
I used to be a Democrat.
If Jesus were running for president on the platforms of Hope and Change the media would be far more skeptical than they are of Obama. These are people with faith.
The web site I was searching for about another (Orson Scott Card) who sees what the msm is doing is:
http://www.meridianmagazine.com/ideas/081017light.html
6. getaclue:
“You are delusional if you truly believe in the so-called “liberal” bias in the media. CBS is owned by Westinghouse, a huge defense contractor. NBC is owned by General Electric, a huge defense contractor. FOX is owned, along with most radio stations in the USA and several papers/mags as well, by Rupert Murdoch. ABC is owned by General Dynamics”
A: some of this is not even factual. Example: Disney owns ABC News / TV. Before them it was Cap Cities. I don’t recall General Dynamics ever being involved. ABC Radio is now owned by a media group (citadel communications) that runs other radio stations.
B: More marxist conspiracy theory stuff. Because coporations own news companies THEY must control the content…
Anyway, I worked for ABC for awhile. The only time Disney tried to influence a story blew up in their face. Everyone involved leaked what was going on to other news companies. First and last time it happened… We really had little to no contact with them other than HR stuff (here is the healthplan stuff, fill out this form, blaw blaw blaw).
Oh yeah, and the story was about something that could have hurt the Disney brand… not politics.
and I should add C:
C: CEOs and upper management is ‘conservative’ is another left wing marxist myth… they’re lefties..
Michael, I agree with almost all of what you say, but there is one point you make which omits the most important fact and therefore leaves the wrong impression. The problem is not simply that the media were investigating Palin and refusing to investigate Obama and Biden. More serious is that a very large number of the stories retailed in the mainstream media about Palin were simply wrong — and not innocently wrong either, they were planted lies or distortions that the mainstream media had no desire whatsoever to debunk.
Wasn’t the advice during the Watergate investigation “follow the money?”
It appears to me that the media’s leadership have thrown “quality journalism” overboard as their revenue and profit stream has run drier and drier. This flight from quality has occurred over decades in small amounts so that now it what we see is death by a thousand cuts.
This never needed to happen. A little investigative journalism aimed at the “business” side of the journalism business is all you needed to figure out why clients were defecting and revenue streams were running dry. It’s still not too late.
“You are delusional if you truly believe in the so-called “liberal” bias in the media. CBS is owned by Westinghouse, a huge defense contractor. NBC is owned by General Electric, a huge defense contractor. FOX is owned, along with most radio stations in the USA and several papers/mags as well, by Rupert Murdoch. ABC is owned by General Dynamics, a huge defense contractor. The unChristian Right owns a huge number of stations across the land. You could put in your eye and not feel the “liberal” owned media.”
Getaclue;
One of these days you left loons are going to realize that your collective fantasy of corporations being run like some sort of Stalinist regime, are just that – fantasies. You stated the reason yourself; many of these corporations are huge multifaceted, diversified, entities. On their P/L the income from their news operations is normally way down their with the chump change, worth neither the time nor energy any attempt at change would entail. The news operations are a dying part of the business. Fox is a bad example, they make major money on the news operation, so they tend to be less one sided then those others you named. As for the others; the parent Corps will let them go, and and when they turn belly up, they’ll can those losers and sell the real estate. The public would miss the entertainment programs which are the money makers for the networks – not the news programs. Which more and more of us are tuning out anyway. As for newspapers, think of how many trees will be saved when those dinosaurs finally go under!
#201 you said “the notion of a coordinated, biased, fleet of liberal media editors, passing over hot stories at papers and TV stations/networks across the country is just ridiculous.”
It does exist,happens every day,books written about it. It’s called ‘spiking’ a story and editors do it ALL the time.
Mr. Malone: News flash….. most people knew this years ago.
Mr. Malone,
Though your article was insightful it missed a key point — change. Regardless of what that 50something editor does his ass is toast in 5 years or less. NYT is now junk status on the exchange. AP is losing clients in doves with their new rate structure. Philadelphia Inquirer has already stopped payment on their first tier debts.
Your industry is dying because they thought they were immune to change when in fact they were the most vulnerable. Companies like WalMart and Target became as large at they are by cutting out the middle man. That’s called supply chain collapse. When all you trade in is words come information then that can be automated as well.
AP could be replaced by $10k in computer gear. Fact in some cases they are by regional dailies sharing stories. That will go national. Somebody will design an automated assignment desk based on reader popularity of reporters work and their proximity and knowledge of a story. Then they will add a automated edit function that culls for interest levels on topics. But regardless it will all be online not in pulp as online is a cheaper more timely delivery.
MSM has become like Pravda in the Soviet Union… at least Pravda knew it was printing corrupt propaganda and the citizens knew they were reading corrupt propaganda.
Does the MSM (and I would love to name names here) realize they are complicit in their efforts to elect a man, Obama, who couldn’t even get a security clearance because his background is so suspect?
The MSM is now my enemy.
Just follow the money. Is all.
What seems to be missed by many in this comment thread is that if the media pulls this off and Obama wins, it won’t make any difference if the MSM readers “drift away”. We’ll be forced to continue paying their salaries as they disseminate “approved” news from the Ministry of Information and/or “USSSA Today”.
The free press will have morphed into a controlled press as the price of its continued existence. This is extremely disturbing and represents the total abandonment of principle by an important segment of a free society.
Thank you Mr. Malone.
“There is a *reason* why the MSM has come down on the Republicans like a ton of bricks, not giving them an even break.
It’s because they think that the Bush Administration and its GOP supporters systematically misled them about the Iraq War. And now they’re taking revenge.”
Uh Bull.
The media wanted to be against the Iraq War (read, relive their Vietnam “glory” days), but it was too successful and popular and first – a situation they set out to change by promoting the “insurgents. Bad policy on the part of the Bush administration only helped them. When the policy changed, and the Iraq war turned around it disappeared off the front page. Now they want to march the entire US military establishment into the mountains of Afghanistan and/or Pakistan, where they possibly can get a replay of Vietnam and/or the Russian experience.
BTW, since the Dems on the intelligence committee read the same reports the POTUS does, how come they didn’t blow the whistle on this “misleading”?
I applaud Michael S. Malone for his honesty. I equally applaud the attention given to Mr. Malone’s statement by all who have posted here.
The current election will soon be over, Thank God! However, the media bias and journalistic/political corruption will continue to exist unless ‘We the People’ can identify and act on solutions. Do we really want future U.S. elections manipulated and corrupted as they are today?
Freedom From The Press dot net was not created to make money or feed any ego’s. This site was created to punish politicians and media companies, at every level (local/state/national), who choose to abuse their power and influence for self-serving purpose.
Honest members of the general public, journalism and political communities are welcome to visit Freedom From The Press and offer your solutions along with your stories of media and political corruption.
The editors are as enraged and fearful as the managers of the buggy whip manufacturing companies who watched Ford roll Model-T after Model-T off his assembly lines.
After reading the piece, I said, oh my gosh! I am not the only one who was apalled by this situation. I had started to become nuts. I wrote an entry in our blog about the article,
http://bloggersforjohnmccain08.blogspot.com/2008/10/michael-s-malone-editing-their-way-to.html
Thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart for expressing here what so many Americans have been observing throughout this election year. Your article should be posted in every newspaper across this country. Please know that it’s being referenced on numerous blogs. You are absolutely correct in your assessment. I have never seen the principles and processes of democracy on which this nation was founded in such grave danger. I’m a senior citizen and have witnessed many, many national elections. Never before have I witnessed the corruption, fraud, lies, sexism/misogyny, thuggery, violence and suppression of First Amendment rights being perpetrated by the Democratic ticket, with full complicity from the media. The Fourth Estate, once the champions of the public’s right to know the unvarnished facts, sadly, apparently has capitulated to the forces of greed and power. Thank you for standing up, speaking out and fighting for a return to journalistic integrity, free speech and a free press.
71. SteveL writes:
“There is a *reason* why the MSM has come down on the Republicans like a ton of bricks, not giving them an even break.
It’s because they think that the Bush Administration and its GOP supporters systematically misled them about the Iraq War. And now they’re taking revenge.”
Nonsense. The MSM has ALWAYS “come down on the Republicans like a ton of bricks, not giving them an even break” decades before, during, and after the Iraq war.
Why isnt the MSM taking revenge against the Democrats who told them the same things, only earlier?:
http://forgetfullibs.blogspot.com/
“The coverage of the Bush Administration was fairly supportive, and the coverage of the GOP was fair, from 9-11 right through most of 2003.”
Oh please. The good, fair coverage of Bush after 9/11 lasted only about a couple of weeks at best, not a couple years, before the liberal media reverted back to their old selves and began their usual biased anti-Bush coverage whether he deserved it or not.
“The New York Times ran numerous stories claiming the WMD threat from Iraq was very real.”
True. But they also ran numerous stories about the anti-war liberals who accused the bush administration about well, everything.
“In fact, I remember antiwar liberals complaining that *their* side of the story was being systematically ignored.”
Their complaints are phony. I cant recall not hearing about their side of the story endlessly in the MSM.
You’re assuming The Times and those areas of Manhattan are where the enemies of Islamofascism are concentrated.
On what evidence do you base that assumption? I sure don’t see any.
Indeed, why would they want to hurt their allies and enablers? The truth is, one infidel is the same as another, to be subjugated and enslaved or killed.
I think an additional factor in the current media bias is that they invested so much effort during the last eight years trashing the Bush administration, that they’ve started to believe their own hype. The Bush years were supposedly so bad (mainly because the media beat the drum that way) that only drastic “change” will redeem America.
Also, these folks majored in journalism — what do they know about history, science, etc.? Nothing, but they know how to frame a narrative.
What happens when the democrats own all 3 branches of government?
I sincerely hope we never find out. These are not Hubert Humphrey, Scoop Jackson, Zell Miller, Jim Howard Democrats (who put country first; with whom you could disagree but still respect); they are Marxist, Maoist communists who want to end EEEVIL capitalism.
Fortunately, until Obama’s civilian security force is manned, we are still the ones with the guns. That may change in a hurry!
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Story?id=6099188&page=1
ABC posted it. It will be interesting if more “journalists” come forward. I hope they do, for the sake of American journalism.
When the people have no voice, they must resort to violence.
The only watchdog of our democracy is now a lapdog traitor to our country.
This makes the “Goebbels press” combatants, and they may be killed without regard to ethics.
Obama himself is a fat cat. Pulled down more than $7 million a year the last couple of years. My feeling is, if he wants redistribution of wealth, let him be first in line and give 57% of all he earns to the government for redistribution.
It is not wealth that will be redistributed, but income; that will prevent the accumulation of wealth for most. That is their goal; to retain their elite status while ensuring that few others can achieve it.
Sad, but true. “The Internet and alternative media are stealing your readers, your advertisers and your top young talent.” That’s not entirely true. They’ve shot themselves in the foot. Internet and alternative media will never take the place of sitting with a cup of coffee in the morning to read the newspaper. But I’ve learned to do without because the honesty, integrity and quality isn’t there anymore. You know how it goes, “Will-the-last-person-leaving……etc”
Malone is right about the mainstream media fearing its own imminent demise.
I grew up in Britain with the belief that the “esteemed” BBC was the greatest, most respected and objective news outlet in the world. This was before I learned to think objectively myself.
During the 80′s the BBC’s hatred for Margaret Thatcher was clearly apparent. Then when the Conservative Party lost power in the 90′s, they threw a party. It has been admitted that when the Labour Party won the election in 1996, the hallways of the BBC were “strewn with champagne bottles.”
This, from an organization which is funded by an extorted license fee (tax) payable by everyone who owns a TV set regardless of whether or not they actually watch the BBC. This, from an organization which consequently has a charter to ensure that it never forgets its role as am impartial reporter of facts and events.
The BBC Charter has in the last 20 years has become nothing more than an “in-joke” as the journalists within its once-hallowed walls have come to see the organization as a convenient platform from which to promote a one-sided leftist ideology and to endlessly spew dog-eared left wing bromides at the taxpayers expense.
Of late they have been referred to as the “Barack Broadcasting Corporation” as it has become clear that they too see themselves as nothing less than a full arm of the Obama campaign. It’s one thing to see the likes of CNN and other commercial stations lose the pretense of journalism as grown adults hail the coming of Obanta Claus, quite another to see a public funded organization like the BBC doing the same thing, if not worse.
Take a quick look at the online blog of the BBC’s Justin Webb, their “America correspondent,” for an example. Despite the fact that he is required by the BBC Charter to refrain from using his position to promote his own political views, he will quite matter of factly proclaim that “it’s generally recognized that McCain supporters hate America” and that “nobody with an intelligent mind could possibly approve of Palin.”
But the BBC, like the rest of the mainstream media, senses its own end and has discarded any pretense as a result. It sees a general public increasingly weary of its poor standards and a shameless bias which does not reflect the values of most of its potential audience. The BBC also sees that it cannot in all reality hope to sustain itself by way of an extorted license fee, the injustice of which the British public is slowly waking up to. Fewer and fewer people are paying for a license and realizing that there’s not really a lot the BBC can do about it, despite them having the law on their side. People are turning more toward non-mainstream internet sources for their information – and good riddance. It’s about time the mainstream media either reevaluated itself, or died ungracefully.
People still read newspapers? How quaint.
America’s great public intellectual and writer of non-fiction preferred to be called a journalist…Most of MSM in fact owned by money guys who are Republicans. Your guy–McCain got a nice ride till he began to make a fool of himself. The new guy, new face, had the buzz and people wanted to know about him. McCain has been around for years and simply was not newsworthy or exciting. Palin got on the scene and got plenty of coverage..but she lost out because of what she is and so coverage did her more harm than good.
MSM is ok..tired of it? try another profession. Or, better, open your own paper.
In the short term, conservatives are going to have to do a few things to keep from getting crushed:
a) If the Fairness Doctrine is imposed, and if court fights are lost, only then do they live up to the letter of the law — by giving the liberals 12 hours of programming — from 6PM – 6AM. Save the money making times for conservatives. This will minimize revenue loss.
b)Build the UPI back up into something resembling a news service. I think now it has 6 people. You don’t need thousands like AP, but 50-100 reporters in key locations would help.
c) Get FOX to put on a 6:30 newscast to rival the other three.
d) Conservatives with money need to buy some of the presently liberal media outlets. Yeah, they may not make money, but if the leftists are willing to forego profit for ideology, some conservatives had better be willing to do the same thing. Maybe they can get NBC/Universal on the cheap from GE. And who knows? Maybe with a rightward tilt, they will actually GAIN market share.
e) Buy some troubled newspapers — again, not a money maker, but the key is to get a message out, and keep some of these out of left-wing hands. Look at every market with at least two papers — at least one should be bought and turned into a conservative paper.
Obviously you are one who believes that Fox news is “fair and unbiased.” It is hard to talk to someone who is so far divorced from the real world. Still: the mainstream press has given Bush and the neo-cons a free reign for years. Truly fair reporting would have meant day after day of strenuous castigation on so many fronts that is is unsurprising that news media gave up through being overwhelmed with the choices. Palin is getting a free ride in comparison to what she deserves. Someone who believes the Genesis story of creation is categorically unqualified to even be in politics and John McCain deserves to lose for showing such poor judgment in choosing her that it should destroy all faith in him. What was he thinking? And if he made such a choice, what other crazy decisions would he make were he president? The news mendia should have been all over this, but it is as if they are embarrassed to be judgmental, so they refrain. Unfortunately, Fox and coservative media don’t even understand the term “restraint.” The crazy neo-con charges against Obama are not followed because they are crazy, because it is increasingly obvious that Obama is a decent, thoughtful, kind person who will make a great president, and McCain is a Bush-tainted Republican with terminally flawed judgment. By the way, I was a Goldwater conservative Republican in the 1960′s. My old party deserted me in the name of greed, religious fanaticism, bigotry, jingoism and cruelty (read torture). No wonder I am now a Democrat.
fred lapides ; speaking of making a fool of oneself, you sound like the epitome of a fool.The New York Times is owned by an America-hating jackass like you.
I quit watching regular network news back in the late 80′s. I quit watching regular cable news a few years back. I quit watching public television in the 90′s. I ended my subscriptions to a multitude of national magazines and local papers some 10 years ago. I did all that because I could no longer stand the bias, one-sided “reporting” that was masquerading as journalism.
Based on what Mr. Malone has written, it sounds as if “journalism” has gotten even worse. Thank goodness, I broke the MSM addiction.
Despite the cutoff of MSM news, I’m actually better informed of what’s going on because of alternative sources, both left and right. The alternative media universe keeps improving as the MSM continues to die a well deserved death. Thank you.
Finally, as an employer I decided over a dozen years ago never to hire anyone educated or trained as a journalist. It has served me well since I value truth and objectivity from my employees — characteristics that most journalists have never possessed. In general, the MSM journalists are worthy of everyone’s contempt.
Mr. Grinalds, based on what you just wrote, you probably also believe that 9-11 was an inside job and the Holocaust never happened.
That is how delusional you are.
Hail the new god. Farrakan says that Obama is absolutely the messiah. The media seem to agree. Now, to the re-education camps for those odious heretics, those non believers. They will be made to pay for their non-adoration of “the One”. SIEG HEIL, comrades, SEIG HEIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Do you understand America now, my friend??
The writer is complaining loudly now that he thinks the democrats are being favored. Where was he when the media were giving a total pass to George Bush, refusing to pursue any of the unsavory things about his background? When the NY Times refused to print a story about Bush’s sorry military service because it “might affect the election”? Where has been any real investigation of the myths that McCain has created about himself, which he lives by?
I’m sorry, but both the Columbia Journalism Review and I disagree with the writer–if there is a long standing bias, it is against the progressive viewpoint. The reason for this is that the progressive viewpoint is generally anti-establishment. It rocks the cozy boat of the Establishment. and the fault does not lie with the editors and publishers– it lies with the owners. Over the years the media have been busily consolidating until most of all media are owned by about six companies. and you can bet that those media all reflect the views of their Corporate owners. Whose views does FOX reflect, if not Murdock’s?
This bias against rocking the boat is shown as much by what the media don’t address at all, as by which pollitical side they favor. Where are the in depth researched stories about issues important to us? We don’t get them. The corporate owners are cutting news staff and giving us infotainment instead of news: All Monica all the time, Britanny Spears, and so forth ad nauseam.
Yes, our media are sorry, but I don’t see much chance for change. That’s why we MUST protect the integrity of the Internet. If not there, where will we get any information?
Myra Jones; You stalinists are exactly like your namesake Josef Stalin. While he was murdering millions , he always thought of himself as a victim.
This is not the america that I know. I am ashamed of the media and the biased it has shown. I guess every countryb gets the government it deserves, if Mr. Obama gets elected we will all suffer. We lived through the Carter years, we’ll live thsough an Obama presidency, our country will pay. I guess the end justifies the means. Sounds like Russia. The media is controlled by the party.
T. Grinnalds – You were a Goldwater Republican? My, you are gullible! Sen. Obama comes from Chicago politics. No one who hails from Chicago would believe the image of a politically untainted person immerging successfully from that environment without a complete understanding of politics and what really makes it run. Chicago doesn’t produce politicians who do not know how to use and twist the system for their own benefit.
Sounds more like you left a party which does not meet your own biases. The Republicans have fallen due to their own greediness, but they pale in comparison to what Harry Reed and Nancy Pelosi will do to our country if given free reign. Then add a far left President and this country better hold its hat because the ride will be unspeakable.
What Mr Malone mentions in this article will only be the beginning. I wonder how long it will take you to lose your rose tinted glasses and start to see the Democrats for what they really are. By the way, if you think that Obama will keep his promise on taxes you are living in la la land. He will make Bush and the Congress for his first 6 years look like the amateurs they really are. If you thought the four years under Carter were tough, just wait.
That is, of course, if the news will report what is going on. After all it was far more important to discuss Palin’s wardrobe than Biden’s guarantee that we would have an international crisis in the first 6 months after Obama’s inauguration. But then, maybe that is what he heard in the security briefing from the White House – makes you wonder if he can keep a secret. But then he is so ready to be president – or so the msm tells us….or could that be bias?
I have never been more frightened of the possibilities facing us right now. McCain is far from perfect, but we know who he is and what he really stands for. Sen. Obama remains a mystery package that we will not get to examine until after the election – again, that is if the MSM will report anything, but glowing view or this new savior. Who is spending how much for pillars in Grant Park??? If he cares so much for the people why not do it on a more modest scale and help some of those people with mortgages. Doesn’t seem to be walking the walk, just talking, talking, talking….
312. Myra Jones:
The writer is complaining loudly now that he thinks the democrats are being favored. Where was he when the media were giving a total pass to George Bush, refusing to pursue any of the unsavory things about his background?
Snicker Snort Snort.
Good little Stalinist you are!
Pew Research latest study, 90% of American think the media is bias in favor of Obama. Look. it. up.
Barrack said “…if it wasn’t for FOXNews we would be up 6 points in the polls…” – well that cuts both ways – if it wasn’t for MSM McCain would probably be up 20!
Myra Jones
Is your post some kind of a joke ? Honestly , do you ever think for yourself or do you regurgitate every marxist /progressive/socialist mantra drawn from the old soviet propaganda play book . Even the term ” progressive viewpoint” is in itself a big lie or a joke to those who knows what it really imply , it means that the only viewpoint that is acceptable is the one that follows either the Doctrine of the Party or the Doctrine of the Great Leader and any other viewpoint is regressive and it’s followers must be re-educated in the gulags by indoctrination and hard work and those who are resistant be tortured and killed in order to not infect the followers of the progressive viewpoint and to prevent others from seeking the regressive viewpoints .
The integrity of the internet stems from the doctrine of freedom of speech and freedom of expression and whatever opinion that is raised over the internet can be supported , defended , criticized , attacked or ignored and nobody is ever harmed except for some fragile egos .
The media is a business. It used to be an information source to tell others what is going on, but now it’s so competitive, it’s all about eyeballs and ad dollars, and it is biased. So are blogs. People have to eat. In my opinion, the real thing to be ashamed of right now is how stupid, lazy and blind we’ve all become as Americans. We shoved our country into an economic mess because we would rather have a big house than a savings account, a maxed out Visa to try to impress others. We’ve become so lazy, our own government has done horrible things for our future, but we’d rather know where Paris Hilton’s eating dinner. Most of our schools aren’t educating kids properly, we have healthcare, environmental, unemployment, and many other crises, yet we could care less until we can’t spend at Christmas or take our family vacations. We’ve been asleep at the wheel for more than 8 years. How can we be mad at the media? We should be mad at ourselves. Do you think anybody else got us in this mess?
Mr. Malone, your confession on media bias is a welcomed admission on what many of us have already known for years. We have a government media complex that has been telling the American people what they want to hear rather than what they should really know. The MSM’s behavior in this election has been a national disgrace and has dishonored a previously honest profession that was the people’s true bulwark against governmental abuse of power. Regardless what happens November 4th, the MSM will never be trusted again by the majority of Americans. This is not only sad but ominous because sooner or later, we are all going to pay for it.
Also, I believe you are correct in mentioning the MSM’s fear of the re- imposition of the Fairness Doctrine thinking they will avoid it’s restrictions by being shills for BO. However, when the radical socialists in the OB administration finish with talk radio and those on the right who question them and their policies, they will eventually turn on their friends in the MSM and begin shutting them down as well. I could gloat over the idea of the MSM getting their just reward but I won’t because it will mean there will be no one left to warn the people about their rulers.
Finally, at the end of the day, I blame the American people most for this. Many of our own people exhibit the kind of ignorance that is more than troubling, it’s outright dangerous. They have convinced themselves that things are so bad we desperately need change, which, few of us would deny. The present administration has been an utter failure but accepting the kind of change BO will bring is not change but national suicide. Americans want to believe that the new messiah BO will save them from all of their ills so much so that they have closed their minds to rational thought. People say things couldn’t possibly get worse. However, those of us old enough to remember the 1970′s economic and political troubles we experienced thought the same way when we elected a little known southern Governor from Georgia named Jimmy Carter. The rest, as they say. is history. The American people must bear the ultimate responsibility at the end of the day. We are about to unleash hell on America. Judgment day is coming and we are all going to pay the terrible price of our own ignorance and failure to stand up for what we all know is just and true. God save the United States of America.
Hey getaclue, do ya think defence contractors make any money when the world and its politics are in harmony? Buffoon.
You should be ashamed. You are all guilty.
Sure, some of you are ‘less guilty’ than others. You, for example, at least have a sense of shame – now. Where was it when we really needed it? And I don’t mean a few years back. I mean from Day 1 forward. That’s like a doctor not complaining from Day 1 that patients are being mutilated instead of healed.
All of you in your so-called profession – save a very precious few – have failed America, and yourselves, monumentally.
You’ve dome damage that perhaps can never be undone.
You should be despised as a profession since your profession is despicable. It didn’t used to be, but you all made it so.
Pride. You all stopped writing the story, and decided to become the story or to create the story.
If this were a proper age, you’d all be exiled or egged or both.
The lot of you make me sick to my stomach.
Our local fish wrap, The Oregonian, is certainly an example of biased reporting. Their presses would probably stall if they reported orther than “left side” comments.
I just thought I’d throw you guys a little sourced information.
Barack Obama opposes the “fairness doctrine”
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6573406.html
Nancy Pelosi supports the fairness doctrine, but does not see a bill reinstating it making it to the floor for a vote.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=27185
One question for Mr. Malone: I’m of the opinion that since the media (Walter Cronkite) convinced his viewers that the Tet Offensive and follow-up was a major defeat for the US and turned the public against the war, then the media (Woodward and Bernstein) brought down a president, then they have embraced the early Hearst philosophy that they can make the country believe anything and therefore influence history. Thus, they take nobody and make him president, just to show they can do it. Do you think there’s any justification for that in editors’ minds?
Second, for th eauthor of comment number six, never have I seen someone choose a nom de plume so self-prescriptive. Nothing to Rezko? Bill Ayres paid his debt to society? If you actually believe those observations, then Mr. Malone’s entire point could not be more clearly made. What mainstream media outlet do you work for?
getaclue: “ABC is owned by General Dynamics, a huge defense contractor.” ROFLMAO! This poster sounds like Joe The Blunderer (aka Joe Biden) who REMEMBERED FDR was President of the USA in 1929! Oh, don’t worry getaclue, Disney will not sue you, ABC WILL KEEP THEIR EYES BLINDFOLDED TO NOT SEE YOUR GAFFE.
This is the sort of reporter that we need. I cringe when they send the dogs after Palin not because I doubt she can take it but because I know they won’t touch Obama. I hate the Colmes part of Hannity and Colmes but I respect Fox for balance. Who balances Katy Couric?
A world in which anyone who disagrees with liberals is publicly eviscerated is a world prone to dictatorship. It appears that if you’re liberal no sin is remembered and if you’re conservative no sin is to great to be invented.
What offends me most, although it’s not the worst part of the issue, is the hypocrisy. The same folks who condemn Limbaugh, who is a commentator not a reporter, defend with vigor reporters who editorialize by both omission and commission. CNN has a life long Republican who used to work for a democrat congressman. A google search would have shown the lie but hey who can doubt an Obama supporter.
Thanks for being honest and sorry if you get lumped in with the rest of your trade.
Totally off topic. One reason i’ve never trusted the press. I went to UW at Madison for my PhD. I was giving a journalism grad student, and other folks, a ride home at Christmas, nice guy. Everyone else was asleep so he and i were talking. This was in the late 70′s, 19 not 18. Turns out he had no idea of who had fought who in WWII. The seminal political event in recent world history at the time and he was totally clueless. I’m not talking details of battles but stuff like which countries were fighting etc. I’ve seen that often since. Reporters have no idea of the factual milieu their stories are embedded in.
I think the attacks on Palin’s daughter were sick.
The failure of the media to remind citizens that the democrat controlled senate voted for the Iraq war and unconscionably abandoned and betrayed our soldiers in the middle of a difficult war was the bottom. In my opinion , this amounted to aiding and comforting the enemy by the democrats and their media accomplices. Hand wringing about the woes of the media hardly express the diabolical pit to which these folks have descended.
Since I have no address for Mr. Malone, I can only here implore him and Ms. West in Orlando FL at WFTV to be the historic REPORTERS rather than journalists of this day. These two are the new Murrows and Pyles that those of us who value excellence in reporting long for. Please be our news bearers!
If T. Grinnalds is dispairing about “neo.cons”, wait until he’s lived for a year or two under Obama’s neo-coms.
A major industry is gonna lose all its credibility due to this election.
If McCain wins, it’ll be a decade or more before anyone believes another media-sponsored political poll.
If Obama wins, come 3Q 2009 people are gonna be asking “How come no one told us about this guy?” and the MSM loses its last shred of (already undeserved) credibility.
Ron: “I think the attacks on Palin’s daughter were sick.” You are right! The day Charles Gibson fo ABC compared the hurricane Gustav 2008 to Sarah’s daughter’s pregnancy is the day American Journalism died. That night (Monday after McCain’s announcement of his VP choice – don’t confuse it with the convention), Charles Gibson began his ABC World News: “Good evening. Tonight we have two storms. One in Louisiana, the other in Alaska.” CHEAP REPORTING! A TOTAL DISGRACE!
Amen! I’ve been a journalist for two decades, and I am ashamed. Now that I’ve read Malone’s conclusions, I’m ashamed and scared stiff.
Actually, I wouldn’t mind secession from the US, not because I hate my country – I love it dearly!
I hate what it has become.
This is a beauty.
Let’s ignore for a moment that a very famous philosopher said “There are no good reporters.”, referring to their generally consistent camp fire personas, aggressively promoting what we simple folk call BAD NEWS followed by a “Human Interest” piece so that the average guy doesn’t just throw up and never watch again.
Let’s focus instead on possible explanations, beyond a died in the wool Liberalism of the new media, for all of this Press Bias in the Obama coverage. Could it be self destructive, and not of the Press but of Obama? Wasn’t it the Insurance Companies who nailed two look alike dummies on the couch, so that Billary would move on, out and far away from Medical Coverage Reform?
Haven’t we set this up as taxpayers with three decades of Headstart and Reverse Discrimination in Enrollment Quotas?
Can’t you imagine that we have a nation of must not look reporters when the object is not “White”? (I ain’t gonna be the one to mention the white elephant on the carpet in the middle of the room.)
Maybe it is another tangent altogether… possibly conspiratorial.
Michael didn’t say that reporters cannot read anymore, so it is safe to assume that they still can and have read all of the CRA scandal data and the parties involved and the Party involved and drawn their own conclusion. For example, “This guy is going to fail so badly, that he will be the last non-white guy to ever want to run for president.” Just like Bill probably said to Hillary, after watching those commercials… “F’ me, honey. If they can slam a sitting president into the head rails with impunity, imagine what they’d do to a black guy.”
Obama might even be a natural catalytic reformer, a tool on the cusp of Socialism in America, since Capitalism is a parasitic perversion and Communism will never work properly with our Human Psyche.
Or, maybe, god forbid, he really is Muslim in African clothing and simply plans on terminating our 46 year nuclear peace treaty with Israel.
Who really knows except him and his cohorts and we’re not asking them.
No matter what, it’s gonna be a Nero moment, whether Caesar survives or Rome does or neither.
To the poster calling himself ‘Camus’, who wrote, ‘…after the smackdowns on liberty and human rights after the infamy of Guantanamo and Abu Graib,…’ and so on, ad nauseum. Guantanamo? Its prisoners were captured on battlefields, for the most part–men without uniforms engaged in the killing American soldiers. Where then, is the ‘infamy’ in taking them prisoner and holding them? Hyperbole gets you nowhere. And Abu Ghraib? No one likes it when discipline falls apart and prisoners are abused, but those responsible have been punished–with a few going to Leavenworth, which makes conditions at Guantanamo look like a health spa. Claiming an isolated case of (non-lethal) prisoner abuse constitutes a major war crime is screeching hysteria. It was nothing of the sort. But hey, if you had your way, ‘Camus’, Abu Ghraib would still be administered by Saddam and the Baathists. You remember Saddam, right? He’s the guy who gassed his own people and fed political opponents into industrial meat grinders. No worries, though: I’m sure if Saddam was still above ground and around, a few face-to-face meetings with Obama–without preconditions–would soothe his fevered brain and calm his troubled heart.
@getaclue: “You are delusional if you truly believe in the so-called “liberal” bias in the media.”
No sir, you are the one who is delusional. Your cognitive dissonance prevents you from accepting the plain facts. Countless studies conducted with scientifically valid methodologies clearly have demonstrated a leftward media bias. Countless opinion polls of your fellow citizens, even of your fellow Democrats–even of journalists themselves–discover a clear perception of bias. Documentation of political donations and voting patterns by journalists is hard evidence of leftward inclination. Countless examples of double standards, fraud, bias, deception, and propaganda can be marshaled to support the knock-yourself-in-the-head-with-a-brick obvious reality that the media is leftist-biased (I don’t like to surrender the term liberal to the left.) But you refuse to see it. Would doing so start to put cracks in the carefully constructed myths you’ve built up over the years (e.g. Republicans have eeeevil in their hearts) to validate your otherwise incoherent leftist preferences?
And all you have to support your position is some poorly thought out conspiracy-type angle about Westinghouse. A deep thinker you are not. Typical Obama voter–delusional yet very comfortable projecting your delusions onto others.
‘Barack Obama opposes the “fairness doctrine”’
True, he supports a state controlled media where no fairness doctrine will be necessary…
‘”Sen. Obama does not support reimposing the Fairness Doctrine on broadcasters,” press secretary Michael Ortiz said in an e-mail to B&C late Wednesday.’
‘He considers this debate to be a distraction from the conversation we should be having about opening up the airwaves and modern communications to as many diverse viewpoints as possible,” Ortiz added. “That is why Sen. Obama supports media-ownership caps, network neutrality, public broadcasting, as well as increasing minority ownership of broadcasting and print outlets.”‘
Network neutrality? I can hardly wait to see how the new messiah will enforce that one.
The press covearge of this 2008 will backfire on them for many years to come. There will be numerous studies on American Press in this election – from the moment they were completely surprised by McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin (oh yes, how dare McCain keep it a secret from the press!) to the smearing of Joe the Plumber (Ohio authorities have now initiated theri investigations on how Joe’s records were accessed). American Journalism Is Dead.
Tom the pgmr at #338? Go back to pgmr’ing or whatever it is you do and try not to inhale the fumes from any more industrial solvents. I must admit, though, phrases like ‘natural catalytic reformer…a tool on the cusp of Socialism in America’ and ‘Capitalism as parasitic perversion’ do stick in the head, kinda like William Burroughs, but less coherent.
Good riddance to the MSM and what is comically called “journalism” these days. No newspapers or TV news for me. The entire industry can’t die soon enough.
This is a good piece but it’s like closing the barn door long after, etc. Bernie Goldberg nailed the truths long ago and things have actually deteriorated much more since. We are now being fed outright lies while the truth is being withheld, by our “free” press. Free my ass. I never saw a more intolerant, lock-step, corrupt bunch of liars and thugs in my life. Depraved and detestable.
A relevant quote by one Thomas Jefferson: “The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.”
Before the Internet, I used to rely on “The Economist” for information and world news. I could read it for free in the library, the writing was solid, and business interests tended to trump political spin. Yet it seems to have become more of a leftist/statist magazine. It’s not yet a Paul Krugman oped clone, but I fear it aspires to be one.
Most people simply don’t have the time to digest enough diverse opinion and material (why, Washington Post and Washington Times might almost suffice) to get closer the truth hid somewhere in between. But little truth is to be found in Big Media. How much worse is it in Western Europe where governments subsidize (i.e., influence) the press?
The few journalism students I knew in college had chosen their major “to change the world” (instead of “Just the facts, ma’am”) and because it was known to be easy.
Its seems to me that the solution to change is very simple. To have an effect on the obvious bias in the media, you need to hit them where it counts…the pocketbook. As someone who didnt vote for Bush, and in fact never voted for a republican in the past, I can tell you now…I’m voting McCain. I will never again vote democrat due to the bias I have seen. It took some time to open my eyes. But now that I have, I will never again watch the major networks and I will cancel my subscriptions to Time, Newsweek and New York times(online). And to take it a step further, I will not buy any products or invest in stocks of any of the companies that support the big media. In fact, I’ll probably go in on monday and short a couple thousand shares of the NYT stock, maybe even a few other media companies that are going down. This is how you make change people. Money talks…how else do you think Obama was able to win? Illegal contributions, hollywood dinners at thousands of dollars a plate, foreign money, its a shame the most powerful office in the world was purchased by this unqualified joke of a candidate.
There is some feeling that this election may have a detrimental effect on media abroad as well. The BBC is being seen in an even worse light, even by some journalists, for their completely skewed coverage of this election. They don’t even bother to hide their hatred of the Republicans and anyone on the right in the US. Their coverage of the whole Palin’s clothes thing marked a new nadir for them.
For those who suggest Ayres is “no big deal,” Obama has endless ads running in the Chicago markets on the value of His Education Program, which becomes cradle-to-? classes in SOCIAL DEMOCRACY. Guess who’s on his advisory team? Ayres’ compatriots. Ayres, who is STILL training teachers around the U.S. and world (lauded by Chavez of Venezuela) in SOCIAL DEMOCRACY. Guess how Ayres/Obama distributed their $$ from Annenburg? Through ACORN and similar COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS. Ask how much science, math and reading scores improved. Nil. Beyond housing, voting, lending and taxation, Obama is determined to use education to restructure America. Get ‘em while they’re young!
As for journalism, some of my professors at Northwestern are turning over in their graves right now…but not all. The liberal media has been around a long, long time, but the adherence toward unbiased REPORTING went out the door with the multi-million dollar salaries. Delivering balanced news is not sexy.
What has not been covered throughly by the MSM? The Daley/Chicago connection in general. Daley-the-Father and the Tom Ayres connection (how Bill and Bernadine made it out of the Weather Underground into legitimate society, teaching at, eventually, UIC CHICAGO and Northwestern Law School). Sidley law firm (Newton and daughter Nell “Harvard law prof” Minow). Judson Miner, Harold Washington’s attorney. Dr. James Cone’s book “Black Power and Black Theology” in relation to Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Trinity Church’s belief “there will be no peace in America until whites begin to hate their whiteness.” How Obama won his state senate seat by questionable disclosures of sealed records. Emil Jones and Obama’s fast-track through the state senate. Richard M. Daley and Blago in re Rezko’s fast rise to influence. Endless money coming from? Names like Amid, Auchi, Khadidi, Alsammarae and then Freddie/Fannie contributions. Contributions from Exelon (parent of ComEd, where Tom Ayres was former CEO) where Senator Obama smoothed over some nuclear leaks problems. Sub-primes loans and subsequent fallout re Rezko, the Pritzkers and decimated markets on the south side. Financing Odinga. Etc.
Doesn’t anybody care? Does the media think we are fools?
what i don’t understand is this. obama has socialist/marxist leanings, does the media really think they’ll be “allowed” to report truthfully on him if he is elected? its quite apparent that dissent will not be tolerated, from joe the plumber to the news station in fla. if you question obama, you are destroyed.
and if obama,pelosi, and reid begin to pull the licences of the broadcasters, who will care? would america stand up to save the networks? i think not. pick any ultra-leftist government and look at their media. cuba, n.korea, venezuela, russia, china. hell, even europe. sad to see the media hang themselves, but they brought this on themselves.
T. Grinnalds:
You are an idiot. The old cliche “When you are young you vote with your heart, when you are older you vote with your head.” You got it the other way around. When does it make sense to vote for someone who is a decent, thoughtful, kind person? You are buying into the MSM BS! DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT OBAMAMESSIAH! He is the nominee the masses who are asses are voting for because it will be hip and cool to put a black guy and socialist in the White House although they (you) know nothing about him. Since when is hanging around with terrorists (domestic and abroad), thieves and liars (him and his fellow Dems in Congress), Commies and Marxists (Franklin Marshall Davis for one), being impressed by the likes of Saul Alinsky, and all the other shady characters he cares to hang with including his wicked wife, give someone a pass to be President of the United States? I am terrified for my country but it’s people like you that really scare me. PLEASE READ DAVID FREDDOSSO’S, “THE CASE AGAINST BARACK OBAMA,” SO YOU WILL KNOW THE REAL OBAMA, UNLESS IT IS TOO LATE AND YOU HAVE ALREADY VOTED. GOD BLESS AMERICA!
To John Steele… What you’ve posted says a lot about you too. You’ve just opened yourself like a book.
As some have said on this thread, the accusation that the media has a liberal bias is nothing new at all. I’ve heard this complaint ever since I was a kid. As a liberal, I find it funny that those on the right do not recognise that the left gets scrutinized just as much. For much of the time Obama has been campaigning (against both Hillary and McCain) the media have hounded him about such things as pastor Wright, “clinging to guns and religion”, admitting the surge worked, etc. None of that coverage was good for Obama, and it took up valuable media time which could have been more positive for his campaign.
I also think its funny that while complaining about the liberal media bias, those on the right have no comment regarding the fact that many of the slip-ups and verbal gaffs that McCain have made in this campaign did not get covered or were barely touched. Because of this, some liberals began to refer to McCain as “Teflon John”. Liberals complained that if the same gaffs had been made by Obama, Obama would have been crucified because it would have proven he was unqualified to lead.
Currently there seems to be a shift toward positive coverage for Obama, but is it because the editors are trying to save their jobs that they perceive will one day be lost as Malone suggests? I think Malone’s conclusion is way off on that. Maybe its because of the manner in which the McCain campaign has positioned itself against those evil, big city media “elites”. Maybe its because his campaign tried to lock up his vice presidential candidate and deny the big bad media the chance to do their jobs. Maybe its because, in his vice presidential pick, it has become excruciatingly clear that McCain blew the most important public decision that a presidential candidate can make. Maybe its because the McCain campaign is imploding and the media is by nature prone to cover disaster first and success last.
I think both sides have much to complain about the media. My issue is not so much that they favor one side over the other because I know their favoritism shifts back and forth. My complaint is that they focus on the trivial. 24/7 its all about the polls. Its all about the lame attacks one side makes about the other. Its all about what titilates. They always want to feed us the soap opera aspect of the news rather than the facts. The shame of the media today is that its purpose is not to inform, it is to entertain.
And what is your opinion of the Murdoch network of ‘News’ organisations? Do you believe the marketing line that Fox News is actually ‘Fair and Balanced’?
Malone is WAY off on Joe the Plumber. That guy deserved to be examined. Malone says, “so much for speaking truth to power.” Trouble is, there is very little truth behind Joe. Joe isn’t a licensed plumber. He said he was about to buy a business that makes more than $250,000 a year. The business doesn’t make that much annually. How much has he saved towards buying that business? Apparently little if anything. How much does he make annually? $45,000 a year. Obama’s tax policies will clearly benefit him much more than McCain’s.
Everybody keep their eyes on Joe, and see exactly when he buys that business he told Obama he was about to buy.
I’m a conservative that agrees with this article pretty much entirely. But I would have have liked Mr. Malone to have mentioned the fact that it’s the entire media, not just the liberal biased media, that is playing a dangerous game. Fox News admittedly is a conservative organization, but what theyve resorted to the past month is dispicable. For the past 4 weeks Fox News has broadcasted endless anti Obama coverage, shamelessly and non-stop. Granted, Fox does not promote McCain the way the liberal media does with Obama, but the endless attacks against Obama and the left are just as bad. Fair and balanced? Laughable. Even Oreilly, whom I watch religiously has even fallen off the deep end with his anti Obama coverage.
The desperation of the left biased media that Malone speaks of is just as bad as the desperation of the conservative media. A Democrat one-sided government will absolutely do all that it can do to shut down any dissenting media and that frightens media outlets like Fox, to say the least. So is the conservative media really against Obama for who he is or are they just affraid of losing their jobs? And is the liberal media really anti McCain or are they just promoting Obama to save their own jobs? In both cases its probably a little of both. But in both cases its downright corrupt because we should never have the media choosing our leaders for us.
Think about this…only 8 years after 9-11,in the midst of the most dangerous time in our history and after thousands of Americans citizens and soldiers have been killed by hardcore anti American terrorists, 100,000 Americans showed up at a campaign rally to praise a presidential candidate that once made excuses why not to wear a flag pin and had a hardcore anti American terrorist friend/associate, not to mention all the other anti American associations. But I’d submit that almost all 100,000 would say that Sarah Palin has far worse character and judgement issues than that. Thats what they’ve been told by the liberal media and thats what they believe.
Change we can believe in? This country is on the brink of change, change we should all be affraid of. Belive it or not.
outstanding piece. i think the take on the editors who give their blessing and encouragement to bad, one-sided reporting is very key. great writing…
Thank you.
Barack Obama is just the newest brand name product, like a Ken doll, or an I-Pod. He desires the presidency for the presidencys’ sake. So he can be “the first”, “the one”. This man, like Bill Clinton, will never sacrifice ambition for ideology. That should allow us liberatarian conservatives to sleep just a little at night.
The bigger issue in this contest, and in fact our modern time, is the complete surrender of credibility by the main stream press during this election. They have foresaken their mandate, and have unabashingly and willingly linked their profession to a POLITICIAN. How little respect does the printed national press and their cohorts on NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC and CNN have for their profession. Their messiah is Ken doll.
But the reality that we may soon have a Federal Government tilted strongly toward the activist left, and a press that is not only complicit but may actually work to stiffle debate is the true issue. The system of checks and balances is deeply fractured. This can only lead to bad things.
I enjoyed your piece. I don’t know if the collapse of MsM ethics correlates to the advent of the Internet. Recent politics aside, was the start of this ehtical failure caused by the Internet’s market pressure on journalism’s print and electric conventions or, alternatively, were the ethical failures always there and the Internet suddenly allowed the public to hear about the unethical practices and events?
I run a media ethics program that is at the front lines of fighting for media corrections and ethical behavior. Trust me; it’s ugly. To get the media to take responsibility for serious ethical breaches–even a case where they have put a human being’s life in danger–is a Herculean and thankless task. Unless its a misspelling, my experience has been that even the most eliete media will refuse to tell the truth if it’s embarrassing to them–even in the face of expert testimony and documentary evidence.
Unless you learn how to out-maneuver, MsM will rely on their friends in other media outlets and even the media ethics journals (AJR and CJR) to hold the line of silence to protect sacred cow writers or outlets.
Indeed, I agree that something must be done. I believe this inability of MsM to own their mistakes is not a left or right wing issue, but is an industry issue.
If journalists keep silent only so they can keep their jobs or so they can possibly get their article published in The New Yorker or the Atlantic as a team player or be mentioned in The Times–they have failed themselves, journalism and democracy.
Please contact me if you are interested in the fight and check out http://www.stinkyjounalism.org. Email me: rrs at asrlab.org
“Isn’t “impartial journalism” a recent phenomenon, beginning roughly with CBS’ great World War II coverage?”
I have news for you. We had total press censorship in WWII. All war reporting was subject to the rules laid out by the Office of Censorship.
There was no “impartial journalism” in WWII.
“During World War II, President Roosevelt had the power to control information given to the media. Legislation had been passed in 1938 that forbade unauthorized photographs, sketches, or maps of military bases, and gave the President the authority to define which types of military information needed security protection. Roosevelt cited this law when he issued Executive Order 8381 in May 1940, imposing presidential control over classification systems. The President was reluctant, however, to exercise these authorities. He recalled the overzealous application of espionage laws during World War I, which resulted in the jailing of hundreds of socialists and pacifists for criticizing President Wilson, war profiteering, and anti-German violence. He also was sensitive to potential tensions between censorship and the work of the wartime information agency, the Committee for Public Information. Believing that it was critical for Americans to receive news about the war, he set two conditions for the media: their stories must be accurate and they could not help the enemy.”
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol46no3/article10.html
If the MSM is in such a decline and they won’t exist in 10 years, how were they so easily able to get the candidate of their choice elected to the most powerful office on earth without a single difficult question asked of him? Can you imagine to what level of power they will rise when they call in their favors to President Obamassiah? God be with my no-longer-existent Constitutional Republic…………..
Is everyone brain dead out there? The media bias has been severe for the last at least eight years. The first act by a possible President Obama is to get rid of any radio, T.V., or written reporter that does not support everything he wants to do. There will no longer be Rush LImbaugh, Fox News, National Review, etc., period. Wake up America. The Chinese have an article in Reutgers stating that they want europe and asia to no longer honor the American dollar. Do you really think the Democrats will stand up to what the Chinese want or the europeans? Get a life.
To “b:” It’s not “getaclue” who is delusional, it’s you. Where was all this “liberal bias” in the run up to the invasion of Iraq, when there was an almost lack of coverage of info indicating Bush and his people were not exactly being honest with their evidence? And what about Judith Miller’s gung-ho, pro-invasion nonsense published by the allegedly liberal NY Times? Where was the liberal press during all the Republican pushed, lying, right wing attacks on Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame? Where was the liberal press during the all the attacks on John Kerry’s completely honorable military service and his post-service activism in 2004, while inquiries into Bush’s sorry, mysterious Air National Guard duty faded from view — just like his military service?
Getaclue actually has a clue ot two, unlike you (boo hoo). If a news network is just part of some large conglomerate, whose interest comes first? If you were running General Electric, would you really want some NBC reporter doing an embarrassing, hard hitting expose on the way the Pentagon awards contracts? Would you?
If you want to do some real reading, this isn’t the worst article on the subject:
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-liberalmedia.htm
The Media has been into communist propaganda mode in this country for a lot longer than Malone gives it credit. How about CNN and Eason Jordan intentionally lying about Saddam in Iraq; their cozy approach to Arafat and his murderous thugs; the slanted lies and propaganda from “The most trusted newsman in America” Walter Cronkite and his CBS cohorts about Vietnam and the Tet offensive; et al, ad nauseum.
We no longer have a Press in this country, we have a cluster of Maggots, all doing their best to turn the beauty of America into the carrion of last month.
I agree with BC that unchecked corporate ownership of media is a real threat. Also behind the scenes, media outlets share information and sources– but do not disclose this fact to the public. Think about it: what kind of competition is there among news outlets, if this “content sharing” is going on. Even if there are different corporate owners, if they share information and web traffic, they are defacto partners and non-competitive. Instead of 6 or 7 big media companies, content sharing deals make far fewer still.
Before we started to investigate and complain on StinkyJournalism, Newsweek did not even have their own web site or URL! If you typed “newsweek.com” it redirected to MSNBC.
Newsweek is not owned by NBC (aka GE) but the Washington Post. So what the heck were they doing with such an arrangment with MSNBC?
See our coverage on this problem and how Newsweek under pressure changed their arrangement with MSNBC. See ” STEALTH REDESIGN: After splitting its website from the MSNBC.com site and reclaiming its copyright, Newsweek also removed the MSNBC and Microsoft logos from its print masthead. Why?” http://www.stinkyjournalism.org/latest-journalism-news-updates-128.php (Click on image to see funny animation)
What a fantastic article. I couldn’t agree with you more. I also agree with the writer who suggested you write a book about he MSM/tradiontal newspapers. I think people would really be interested and maybe put the MSM and traditional newspapers out of business (i.e. The New York Times whose stock is now “junk”. Thank goodness for Fox News and the Internet where we can get the “real” news.
“Where was the liberal press during the all the attacks on John Kerry’s completely honorable military service and his post-service activism in 2004, while inquiries into Bush’s sorry, mysterious Air National Guard duty faded from view…”
They were presenting false documents in an attempt to destroy George Bush. Unfortunately for them, they got caught at it.
Bye bye, Dan Rather.
One liberal media clown down…many more to go.
Getaclue, you’re delusional if you don’t think the MSM is criminally liberal. Any fool knows that and you don’t sound like a fool, just in denial. Nothing to Klesko and Ayers and Farrakhan and the Wrong Reverend Wright and ACORN and the unresolved question of Obama’s birth certificate to name just a few puzzles about The Messiah? How would anyone know since, as the author points out, this least qualified candidate in political history for any important elected office, let alone the Presidency, has not been vetted, indeed he’s been behind an iron curtain provided by the media??? If you’re able to be honest about the proposition ask yourself this question: If the tables were reversed and McCain were the candidate in question do you suppose that perhaps, maybe he’d have been asked a few teeny weenie questions about his background by the press? Not only his background but how his far-left tax increasing, military cutting, socialist agenda can possibly work, ever and particularly in a financial crisis? Give me a break!
The Count
Thank you, MSM, for letting me know that Mr. Obama has tenuous and irrelevant, at best, connections to almost everyone in his past. Your insight into the matter greatly relieves my anxiety concerning the matter. Now, since you have delved so deeply into that, can you name 2 people he did associate with, not counting family? What’s that? Sorry… I can’t hear you over the deafening silence.
But isn’t that where Journalism is headed? Its not about reporting FACTS anymore… Its about Marketing Strategies.
Hitting targeted readers by appealing to their bias, equals more revenue for a Newspaper/Magazine with increased readership, and Advertising revenue. The later being the most important.
Why would any media outlet want to cut off their revenue stream… in this case, Obama… for the good of the American People?
The founding fathers knew, that some day everything that they tried to prevent from happening, would eventually come to pass. They understood that the most important part of any thriving and free community was a free press, but not only that, but a moral press. The last 30 some years or so our public schools, and Universities have been used to propagandize our young people into a mindset of dependency and the United States is the reason for all troubles around the world and in there lives. It is a shame what people (sheeple) will do for money and acceptance from a group. Our once great experiment on Earth is doomed. It use to be, We the People of the government, but now it is just, what can I get from the Gov’t which is us. Anyone with any sense will be hiding there money and like many others that have recinded ther U.S. citizenship will do so in droves. What is the motivation to better yourself, when the Gov’t will dictate what will done with your money! The press should be ashamed and many should of been brought up on treason charges. Without a free and moral press the power in Washington D.C. has gone unchecked for years and now get ready, a revolution is on the way, because those that care about freedom will stand by for only so long, or leave!
>Joe the Plumber… So much for the Standing Up for the Little Man, so much for Speaking Truth to Power, so much for Comforting the Afflicted and Afflicting the Comfortable…
So much for Joe being an actual plumber, or owning a plumbing business, or having even the most tenuous grasp of economic policy vis a vis running a business. (Here’s some free financial advice Joe: it’s called an s-corporation – look into it).
If Joe is the best the GOP campaign has, there’s no wonder it’s losing.
cfbleachers,
when you post something, please add me as a “ditto”. You have been one of the most articulate posters I have read on any blog. And, you always express my opinions in ways I cannot. Thanks.
getaclue: You are the typical Obama supporter. Never doubt the man, no matter what. The evidence presented is not speculation or fabrication from whole cloth, it is there – in black and white for all to see. I used to wear blinders when it came to some politicians but they have been removed for a very long time. Isn’t it time you removed yours and actually took a long, unbiased look at Barack Obama’s past associations and affiliations and admit he is comfortable around the far left, ACORN, Ayers, and other people who he befriended or who befriended him? He is a product of his environment, whether by birth or choice, he chose his path. This path is strewn with socialist organizations, domestic terrorists, anti-Zionist supporters and advisors, and a litany of questionable alliances. But, with you and others who enjoy the taste of the kool-aid, no matter how much evidence, actual or empiracal is presented, it will be dismissed as having no consequence or relevance.
You will most likely get the government you wish come November 4th. Socialism will be introduced to America in a major way over the next four years.
Thanks Mr. Malone for putting into words what most of us have known all along. Well said.
You missed an important factor; reporters became celebrities. Worse, they became talking head pundits on TV. They became paid to be open about their biases. Celebrity had another perk; reporters started hanging around with the ruling elite–going to dinners, chatting on planes, getting invited to do “exclusives.” All this has corrupted them far more than simply having a bias.
Regarding the coverage of Joe the plumber, it shouldn’t matter whether it’s Joe the Plumber or Joe the Axe Murderer, he asked a legitimate question.
The only reason the media tore his life apart was to try to help Obama.
too bad his wiki entry has been updated on 10/27 to include “right-wing” journalist.
This piece is kinda sad. It’s written by an old grumpy guy who is mad at a changing world and the threat of a breakdown of the status quo.
It’s not that the media is getting a liberal bias, it’s that it had a conservative bias for many years and it is now finally dropping that skin. So you might perceive it as becoming more liberal, whereas it actually is becoming less conservative.
The lack of purely political hit jobs on Obama and Biden is bevause they have less to be attacked on, their campaign focusses on issues.
Maybe the media isn’t reporting on a lot of “findings” inside Obama’s life because there isn’t any really worthwhile. This seems to be another attempt by someone who is obviously affiliated with the GOP to find an excuse to blame anybody else, except his own party, for a campaign that could never quite get far enough away from their worst problem…the current administration. It has always been apparent that media chooses to cover stories that are more negative (ie. trainwrecks and hurricanes) than positive (US military opening schools in Iraq). The media has more to cover with McCain campaign because of the constant trouble inside it (ie. Palin and the McCAin aids). This article shows the desperation that many Republicans probably feel in the last week before the election without putting any blame on the ones within their own party that helped create this mountain that increasingly seems to be impossible to climb.
I spent 40 years working in the newspaper racket. I always told my mother that I was the piano player at the Mustang Ranch whorehouse in Nevada. It would hasve broken her poor old heart if she ever found out the I was a newspaperman. The shame of it all . . .
– 30 — yer pal, Bubba Billy
Dear Mr. Malone,
Have you read Rose Martin’s “Fabian Freeway” or G. Edward Griffin’s “Th creature from Jekyll Island”?
Warm regards,
Richard Hild
Port Townsend, WA
Home: 360-385-7371
Email: richhild@olypen.com
This morning at work, I send the link about Obama’s radio interview about wealth redistribution to seven different people I know, four of whom are in my office. Sorry to say that no one cares! They actually laughed at me! And half of these are people who voted for Bush four years ago!
This Obama interview means something to we conservatives. But I’m afraid we’re not in the majority on this. Most people have made up their minds and they’re not listening anymore.
One guy said to me, “Oh, you right-wingers are always crying wolf about something. What are you gonna call Obama next, a Nazi?”
It’s depressing. Look at the polls, even in places like Virginia and North Carolina. Not to mention Ohio and Florida. I have to be a realist here. I knew this would happen as soon as we nominated McCain instead of a real conservative.
I think McCain’s goose is cooked. No matter what we do.
How can anyone think that McCain has a ghost of a chance anymore? Sad to say, it’s over.
Stan B—you are right. It should not matter. Joe the Plumber just asked a question. And he just got an answer. End of story right? It was all on video. We saw the question. We saw the answer. But then John McCain turned the poor man into a national cause to rub it in Obama’s face in a national debate that poor Joe the Plumber would suffer under a Barack Obama tax plan. Damn the lousy liberal media for pointing out John McCain was wrong on his major campaign talking point! Damn the liberal media!
Avg. Jay the student supporter of the O&B RxR — the guy or gal that’s never held a job or paid a dime in taxes — will government computers be used to look into their backgrounds too? I don’t think so.
under stand repition words and the problems that come from reptition
sometimes less words is more unconfusing
righter not wronger
exues me “writer”
WOW!!! Thank you for writing, and publishing this column
Do not permit yourself to become demoralized.
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2008/10/worth-bucket.html
“She said she has very little doubt that the public polling is part of a “concerted voter suppression effort” by the MSM.“
Anyone who is dumb enough to believe that their taxes are going to go down under the gentle rule of the libby wibbies deserves to have Barack Obama as their president.
Mr. Malone,
You mentioned the interviews that should have been made and the resulting articles that should have been written about O & B. Have you done those interviews and written those articles? Could you give me the links?
Phillip Arnn
I disagree. You showed a lot of your own biased in this writing.
- can easily be solved with a few newsroom smackdowns and temporary repostings to the Omaha Bureau.
HEY HEY HEY! We don’t want them here either! Try LA or SF!
Picture yourself in your 50s in a job where you’ve spent 30 years working your way to the top, to the cockpit of power . . . only to discover that you’re presiding over a dying industry. The Internet and alternative media are stealing your readers, your advertisers and your top young talent. Many of your peers shrewdly took golden parachutes and disappeared. Your job doesn’t have anywhere near the power and influence it did when your started your climb. The Newspaper Guild is too weak to protect you any more, and there is a very good chance you’ll lose your job before you cross that finish line, ten years hence, of retirement and a pension.
Welcome to the party pal! From an outsourced engineer/software designer/tech manager, it’s going to get worse too. If journalism owners don’t wake up and smell the Internet, they’ll continue to lose money by the bucket.
I empathise. I’m no particular fan of Sarah Palin myself, but Anderson Cooper 360 appears to begin each evening now with variations on, “New details tonight on the latest really stupid and or contradictory thing Sarah Palin said or did on the campaign trail today.” New arrivals to the planet would have no way of recognizing the name “Joe Biden” on America’s Most Trusted Name in news as it rarely never spoken. This is “Keeping them honest”?
The definition of our two party system is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
The two major party candidates are really parts of a super major party called The System. They are allowed to run against each other because it doesn’t make a difference which one wins…The System survives.
We’ll know we are on the brink of freedom when, SOMEHOW, a candidate for president actually becomes a presidential candidate, running against The System. Our rulers will never let that happen, if they can help it…and they can.
I’m picturing myself in a boat on a river, with tangerine trees and marmelade skies (and taking a lot of LSD too just to get myself into my normal, liberal frame of mind). Obama calls me, I turn and I listen. His voice is so soothing as he tells me “your taxes will go down if you make less than a quarter million dollars a year–just like Joe the Plumber’s”. I’m so happy and stupid but I believe him because he is my messiah and he’s smart and good looking, and I have repressed guilt about my country’s racist past, and so he must be a great leader right? And because he couldn’t really lower the taxes could he? I mean he’s not God right? He is the ONE but isn’t that different than actually BEING GOD? And wouldn’t a democratic president HAVE TO BE GOD (or some democratic version of Ronald Reagan) to get a tax plan to pass through a congress that is going to have so many more democratic members this year? And besides that, isn’t Obama really the Anti-Christ? And in bed with Terrorists? I’m sure his dark past will probably come to light with the help of the good people on this thread, and he will become known as the dark hideous monster that he really is. But regardless, I love him (because I’m stupid and drinking LSD Koolaid given to me by the Huffington Post) and he wets my panties, though I don’t wear them, and I’m probably gay but I just want him to be president! I know he will never lower the taxes for the middle class like he constantly say he will. That’s just the communist in him. We all know that he is lying about lowering taxes just so he can get control of our nation and then turn it over to Bill Ayers as a birthday present to thank him for all the years he was (and still is) Barack’s mentor. We all know the dark ONE will bring nothing but darkness and dread to our lives, (I heard he eats babies!) but he’s so cute, lets vote for him anyway. The liberal media says we should! Keith Olberman says we should and I always listen to Keith! (is he gay? I hope he is!)
Libbie Wibbies Rule!
Hannity gave you a thank-you shout out and so do I ..I belong to teamsarah.org a group 1 month old and just passed 37,000 strong including Hillary voters..and we all have been waiting for someone to get a clue and report it.
Didn’t you notice the beyond the point of laughable spin over the last 8 years? NOW you are cringing? Give me a break.
Quite GUTSY of you to put this in print! I applaud you!
It’s really sad when the editor picks expediency OVER truth.
I’m glad you wrote this and I put it a few more places on the web!
Alternative media – is the best! We can decide for ourselves if it’s true and not have the liberal MSM shoving CRAP down our throats.
Thank you a million times!
this is the GOP
andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/10/the-n-word.html
After BO’s campaign banned the Orlando station for having Barbara West give Biden a ‘tough’ interview, he’s just had to endure another ‘toughie’ — this time in Philly.
So CBS3 got a piece of their mind and has been banned too.
gatewaypundit.blogspot.com
has the video and story. A great site to visit at least once a day to stay on top of breaking news.
Power, Pensions and beliefs. No one could write the tripe and lies they churn out without many of them believing in the leftist utopia with Obama as their savior. As far as your shame in being a Journalist…sorry to little to late.
CB
To BKG: Love it! Love it!
every one has a type writer now adays (kinda of)
is every one right?
the internet kinda gives every ones oppinions
its funny to see those that think they know government
talk about govenment
its kinda like me talking about how to use an SSL or Neve large
frame desk
I have never used one so I cant give an oppinon
I can only , listen and hope the person that is talking about it knows
what they are talking about
and hopfully I will shut up untill I am experianced enough to gather my own opin-yon
__________________
I have read a great many kudos applauding the courage and grit of the author.
In a manner of speaking, it is somewhat deserved.
I believe, though, the true grit is yet to be displayed. It is easy to mock the bull that is safely behind bars, harder still to run with it.
Even more courage is displayed by the rodeo clown who stands in front and distracts the bull.
The true heroes have yet to enter the stage. Save your applause for them. They are going to need it and you, my dear, dear Americans, what few there are left, will need to provide it.
I believe there is a saying about Trees of Liberty and their nature manure.
God bless you for your honesty, now help to change it, we have a few days left.
THIS (in addition to this fine article) is journalism:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YmFhYzIzMGQ1Y2FlMTA4N2M1N2VmZWUzM2Y4ZmNmYmI=
Mr. Malone, Thank you for a fantastic summary of this amazing situation. I have written to many friends and yet they truly believe that if Obama were involved in the things I forward (i.e. legal killing of preterm newborns, burning the American flag in the past), it would be in the headlines. I’m sorry that grown adults haven’t noticed the bias…we shouldn’t be hearing more about Joe the Plumber’s background than the actual Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates.
He did get it published in the MSM on ABC and it has been picked up on realpolitics.com as well.
Is anyone besides us upset that Mr. Malone, a journalist, has taken to referring to himself as a writer? If this confusion persists, it poses a greater threat to the republic than one sided journalism.
Yrs faithfully,
The Playdo Institute
Handel Glassberg, President
Yes, of course, the conservatives who bought up all the media have naturally turned the reins over to their idealogical enemies: Liberals.
That’s why the media cheerleads and covers for the Bushies and will again once the GOP steals another one for McCain.
Go back into your comas, people. Nighty night.
After years of school and internship and of course board exam to be rightfully called a doctor. Then there’s the bar exam to be rightfully called Attorney.Other registration board exams gives out titles to Engineers or Architects.
Please tell what does one have to do to earn the title Journalist? what is the licensing body for journalism?
Mr. Malone, nice try. It’s a little too late. Frankly, the GOP should feel no less guilt. Their whimpy responses to GOP attacks and lies over the past 8 years has been disgraceful. Ultimately, perhaps you can be the first to begin the Peoples Free Press Underground. We can’t look to the internet to be the last vestige of freedom of information. I have absolute confidence that the Obama and the radical wing of the Democratic Party, utilitzing the Fairness Doctrine. will promptly establish commuication restraints reminiscent of the USSR 1960s. Thanks a lot!
getaclue wrote:
“The Ayers connection is a non-starter.Ayers paid his debt to society a long time ago,and is now a leading educator.”
Get A REAL Clue,getaclue; Ayers has anything but paid his debt,he(And his equally repellant wife,Bernadine Dohrn) is still the same hard-core,True Believer Communist he has always been,still hates the US with the same raw fervor he’s always had, and still lusts and burns to overthrow it.
You claim he’s “a leading educator”? He(and again,his wife)is nothing but a leading INDOCTRINATOR, someone who brainwashes the young and naive into the same hateful beliefs, self-righteousness,mindsets,attitudes and doctrines that those like him still harbor.He and Bernadine are nothing less than complete traitors and should have been executed,like those other famous married traitors,the Rosenbergs( Whom an old relative finally put to rest the last remaining doubt,when he confessed,55 years later,that both of them,especially Ethel,were traitors,and did steal secrets for the USSR ).
Here’s liberal bias for you! Compare the following headlines taken from the news websites of Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS. Judge for yourselves which one is the most biased:
Obama to Flood Airwaves
Democrat, flush with cash after changing his position on accepting public campaign financing, buys half-hour of prime-time TV tonight to deliver infomercial — on him (Fox)
Obama-mercial: The Unprecedented Primetime Pitch “Flag-festooned” 30 minutes is the ultimate expression of Obama’s spending flexibility. (ABC)
McCain, Obama make last-ditch pitches
NYT: Democrat to air half-hour ad as cash-strapped GOP picks its spots. Story | Vote: Will you watch Obama ad? (NBC)
From The Road: Obama Uses Infomercial, Bill Clinton to Gain Midweek Buzz (CBS)
WOW that WILDLY LIBERAL ABC is airing a McCain special tonite (NOT paid for by McCain’s campaign…this one is ON THE HOUSE!) instead of Barak Obama’s PAID 1/2 hour!
WOW ABC sure is in the tank for Obama!
LIBERAL BIAS!!! LIBERAL BIAS!!! LIBERAL BIAS!!!
http://tv.yahoo.com/listings?starttime=1225317600&provider=199
While I feel for his anger, I have to remember that for decades and decades, the US news media was 100% pro-Israeli. As far back as the 1948 war, the US media on the spot were about as objective about the war and its causes as the American intelligentsia had been about the Spanish Civil War, a decade previous. Stuff that made the Israelis look bad somehow just wasn’t newsworthy, even if it would have been reported in an instant if done by others.
The shoe hurts when it’s on the other foot, doesn’t it?
Hate to burst all your “liberal bias” bubbles but ABC is giving McCain free air time tonight instead of airing Obama’s PAID FOR 1/2 hour presentation.
http://tv.yahoo.com/listings?starttime=1225317600&provider=199
In your zeal to attack those who rightly point out what lapdogs the media have been for the Bush administration while those individuals have destroyed our constitution, our country, our economy and our educational system, you fail to see the big picture:
Conservative individuals, corporations and defense contractors have a hammerlock on the media and have since Reagan’s days.
Your hostile attacks at anyone who points this out is evidence of your own biases.
It’s money, not bias. Obama is outspending McCain. Editorial approval comes along as a bonus.
It’s like any computer or photo magazine. The editorial content follows the advertising. If Nikon takes out ads in a photo magazine, there is also editorial content about the Nikon camera. And so on.
We all know the MSM is hurting financially. This is the result.
marbelex, points for chutzpah. I mean, claiming the media is in the tank for…wait for it…George W. Bush is an astounding statement, especially since you’re so vehement about denying–in the face of all contrary and manifest evidence–obvious mainstream press support of Barack Obama–you know, ‘lightworker’ and all-around beneficient savior. For one thing, ‘corporations’ are more likely to favor the socialistic environment fostered by an Obama Administration, as has been pointed out a number of times on this comment board alone. For another, are you writing straight-faced when you claim the other groups you mentioned–’conservative individuals’ and ‘defense contractors’ actually have any sway over the press whatsoever? Where is the alternate universe you live in? I think I’d like it there.
Some have argued that the media will pay a price for the way this election cycle has been covered.Those who believe that must have missed the memo, “No one pays a price any longer”. No matter how grievous the offense, a Mea Culpa with the words “I take full responsibility…” and all sins are forgiven and forgotten with no penance required. After the election, a few media people (they’ve lost the right to be called journalists) will have pangs of guilt for selling this Elmer Gantry to America. Unfortunately, it will be to late to assuage their guilt or to save America from the carnage that’s coming. Shame on them for their lies by omission and shame on us for letting it happen.
The writer amazes me. All he has to do is turn on AM radio, turn on Fox News, look in any major newpaper in the country and read George Will, Cal Thomas, Kathleen Parker, etc. etc. etc. and you can get the conservative viewpoint. I suggest that the more intellectual newpapers in the country lean left is because they actually want to see the US be the best it can be and not controlled by the mindless “We are the greatest country in the world” idiots that control the right. Maybe one of the reasons they were not as critical of Clinton was a) he was doing a pretty good job, b) they didn’t feel that an extra-maritial blow-job should be brought up before the supreme court, c) the rest of the world was impressed by his intelligence and understanding of global politics and d) his ability to build consensus. MSM was super kind to Bush, even during the first year of the war, and then the lack of planning, no WMD’s, no major link, torture, decline of America’s image around the world, national debt, started to take its toll. And as far as going after Palin and not Biden…Biden’s career has been an open book for 30 years. Palin’s is 20 months old and it ain’t pretty. Note that many conservatives that support having our best and brightest govern our country have left the McCain over his selection of Palin. MSM has indeed reported that Obama has rubbed elbows with despicable characters, so has McCain, so has Palin. And MSM has been pretty soft on McCain’s wife if you ask me…just like another drug addict on the far right… Gee, let’s go interview the guy that sold Obama weed. Now that’s a story we all need to read about. How about McCain’s embellishment of his naval career…not a pretty picture. Yet the right Swift boat Kerry and made fun of his two purple hearts. The right (and the far left) care about the truth only when it furthers their self interest. So quit you whinning and give us information…not some vacuous rant about the liberal media that will get you lots of speaking dates and a book contract.
I guess the MSM liberal bias accusation will end when Fox, Limbaugh, Hannity, Wall Street Journal, Murdock, Sowell, National Review, etc. control all media. See you on Fox news Mr. malone.
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! Now that the “News Media” has sunk to the level of the many “liberal” college professors, school teachers. and school adminstrators who for years have poured out their biased and warped version of EVERYTHING, which is exactly why so many young people hate their country. I recently had to drop a class because a short political discussion led to the professor SCREAMING “Sarah Palin is a MORON!” at the top of his lungs, and ordering me out of his class – promising to give me an “F” when I tried to point out that she doesn’t meet the classic definition of moron – ie: very low IQ.This election has taught me that these people, including some I formerly considered friends, are intolerant, small-minded, and mean. Liberal? They don’t meet THAT classic definition either.
OK! stop whining on the media bias. Do something to PUNISH them. Turn off your television when their news come on the screen. Cancell your subscription. Pick your choices. Mine will include ABC, CBS, NBC – the free channels I can get since I don’t have cable. Hit them with your cutoff viewership. Charles Ginbson’s, Katie Couric’s and Brian Willians’s depend on their ratings (viwership). Show them and their bosses that America is not stupid. American intelligence is shown in the recent Ramussen poll on media bias.
Turn off your television. Cancel your subscriptions.
Stupid article. Really. Just a few months ago, Obama supporters were complaining about media bias against him, when he was being scrutinized and McCain was being given a pass. But now we see that Obama was being vetted, and he passed quite well. Palin was also scrutinized, and she failed the vetting. That’s the way it works.
The article is padded with irrelevancies and personal anecdotes, but when it comes time to put up the goods, the list of this supposed incidents of bias is short.
Was this reporter embarrassed to be called a journalist during the multi-year free ride Bush enjoyed from 9/11, when the media promoted the WMD story and gave a pass to the Patriot Act? Probably not.
The MSM elected Obomba……..
God help us.
What a joke. Absolutely nobody used to like McCain–except the media. That’s because he’s no good on anything, good for nothing whatsoever! So they gave in to the more mediagenetic candidate.
Had the Republicans selected Ron Paul, we could have had three tv-debates where the wooden O’Bama would have been shown up for the vacuous entity he is. Now we’ll get Bush Part 4:
more big government,
more bail outs,
more warmongering,
more taxation,
more hand outs,
more deficit spending
etc.
And all you neocons deserve it, good & hard.
WcW said Bush got a “FREE RIDE”. The word delusional comes to mind. Like him, accept him or, hate him the last thing on Earth Bush got was a “FREE RIDE”
The more I think about this article, the more I think the author is either dimwitted or dishonest.
Case in point — how about the way the media treated the gung-ho Marine, Republican arms inspector Scott Ritter, when he was saying there were definitely NO WMDs in the months before the invasion of Iraq? He was ignored, and when not ignored, mocked and smeared. He was even mocked by other Republicans. He didn’t go along with the war hype, and so he was cut down.
That single case in point nullifies this author’s silly argument.