Please be sure to check out the bi-monthly editorial cartoons at www.worldmag.com/articles/15514
Note :In last fall’s election, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press asked registered voters: “Who do most reporters want to see win?,” Seventy percent answered Obama. (Just 9 percent thought it favored John McCain.) Of these, 62 percent of Democrats and independents said the media favored Mr. Obama. In other words, people were not expecting the media to be unbiased in the election!
In the recent book by television news reporter, media analyst, and author, Bernard Goldberg, we read the incredible story of the media’s bias for our now President Obama. In its exhaustive analysis of coverage of Barack Obama by ABC, CBS, and NBS evening news coverage, the Media Research Center, among many findings, reported that: (1) Out of the 81 total reports about him from his 2004 Democratic Party Convention speech until the start of his campaign in early 2007, there was not a single negative story about him. (p. 171) “The networks minimized Obama’s liberal ideology, only referring to him as a ‘liberal’ 14 times in four years. In contrast, reporters found twice as many occasions (29) to refer to Obama as either a “rock star,” rising star,” or “superstar” during the same period. ..The early celebrity coverage helped make Obama a nationally-known figure with a near-perfect media image. The protectiveness that reporters showed during the early primaries made it difficult for his rivals to effectively criticize him. And when it came to controversies such as the [Rev. Jeremiah] Wright affair, network reporters acted more as defenders than as journalists in an adversarial relationship. If the media did not actually win the Democratic nomination [and the election] for Barrack Obama, they surely made it a whole lot easier.” (p. 172-3)
Former Democratic Party pollster (for Senator George McGovern in 1972 in his Presidential campaign) and now political analyst, says: “There is one institution in America which has no checks and balances … And that is the press. And there was a reason for that. It wasn’t that the Founding Fathers loved the press. It was because the press was supposed to protect the country. That’s why Jefferson said, ‘I would much rather have newspapers without a government than a government without newspapers.’ But [when the media] leaves the ramparts and become a partisan outsider for one party or the other or one candidate or the other; essentially [deciding] who should be president and who should not be president; what truth people should know and what truth they should not know; then what they become, what they constitute, is a threat to democracy.” “The fundamental job of journalists is to look out for us – the American people! If nobody cares what the press says [knowing that have an institutional bias], journalists will be watchdogs in name only. They may bark from time to time, but nobody will listen. And their weakness will make it easy for a corrupt [or wrong-headed and dangerous] government to get away with murder. That is the danger we face when the mainstream media go on a noble mission to make history.” [emphasis mine] Writes Mr. Goldberg: “..just as judicial activists exploit their position on the bench to make law, so media activists exploit their position to shame the news. Instead of chronicling the news, they decide to influence it; instead of reporting on a presidential election, in 2008 they tried to determine its outcome.” (p. 166-7)
In chapter 18 of his book, Mr. Goldberg lists ten questions he would have asked Mr. Obama had he been able to interview him during the campaign. I think that these questions should still be asked of our President by an unbiased media:
1) How do you define “post-partisan politics”—because it seems to me that what you really mean is “folks on the right, come over to the left?
2) Name two or three conservative ideas you find useful and would be central
to your “post-partisan” political philosophy.
3) Is it fair to say is [Rev.] Jeremiah Wright’s sermons had not been made
public you would still be worshipping at his church? [Rev. Wright has
declared that America brought 9/11 on itself and that the government
created AIDS to eradicate black people.]
4) What did your wife really mean when she said, referring to your candidacy,
that it was the first time she was proud to be an American?
5) Some people believe that the reason so many young black people are behind the eight-ball in this country is not because of old-fashioned racism, but because of dysfunctional behavior: fifteen-year-old girls having babies, teenagers dropping out of high school for example. You spoke forcefully and eloquently … about this kind of behavior. But then you dropped the subject. As someone who enjoys tremendous support in the black community, you might have had some positive impact on the lives of these kids if you had made it a recurring theme in your campaign. Why didn’t you?
6) Regardless of your age at the time of Bill Ayers’ bombings [ Mr. Ayers is a former member of the Weather Underground, a left-wing terrorist group that planted bombs in the Capitol and the Pentagon in the 1970’s.], why did you have anything—anything—to do with a man like Ayers, …who [also] said his only regret was that he didn’t do more to stop the war in Vietnam?
7) According to news reports, you have a half brother living in a hut in Kenya? Is that true? Have you ever sent him money? If not, why not—since you’ve professed compassion for the poor?
8) You won’t release your college records. That makes me wonder why not. Was it something you wrote while in college that you don’t want voters to know about? Was it your grades? [Could he have been a poor student, than even the unjustly ridiculed President Bush?] I’m puzzled, help me out.
9) How willing are you to disappoint liberals?
10) As you know, some critics have suggested the media went easy on you. Agree or disagree? What do you say to those who believe that journalists wanted to help shape history by dong what they could to get the first African-American elected president of the United States? [p. 143-5]
Some final statistics from the book to consider:- Looking at how journalists voted the past 40 years:
- In 1968, 86% voted for the Democrat, Hubert Humphrey
- In 1972, 81% voted for Democrat George McGovern
- In 1980, twice as many journalists voted for Jimmy Carter than Ronald Reagan.
- In 1984, 58% of journalists supported Walter Mondale who lost to Ronald Reagan in a landslide.
- In 1988, White House correspondents from major newspapers, networks, magazines, and news services voted for Democrat Michael Dukakis by 12 to 1 over George H.W. Bush.
- In 1992, Washington bureau chiefs and congressional correspondents supported Bill Clinton over President Bush 89% to 9 percent..
- In 2004, campaign journalist based outside of Washington, D.C., supported John Kerry over President Bush by a 3 to one ratio. Those inside the Washington, D.C. area voted for Kerry 12 to 1.
- In 2008, a study in Investor’s Business Daily put the campaign donation ratio of journalists at more than 11-to 1 in favor of Democrats.
- In 1981, 65 percent of journalists across the country identified themselves as liberals, 17 percent as conservatives.
- In a 1996 study of journalists based in Washington, 61% said they were liberals, 9 % said they were conservatives.
- In 2007 the Pew Research Center found self-identified liberal journalists outnumbered conservatives 4 to 1.
If you wonder if the media still shows bias in favor of President Obama, all you need to do is to watch a newscast by ABC, NBC, and especially CBS, any evening or read almost any major newspaper (online) any day. And in case you missed here, here are a few news stories you might not have heard about:
Item #1 – The President goes to a fast food restaurant near the White House to buy hamburgers for the correspondents who report from there. The symbolism: He’s just a nice guy who, like most Americans, eats hamburgers.
Item #2 –The President takes his wife out on a date for dinner and to see a show in New York City. He does pay for the dinner and theatre tickets; the taxpayers paid for the $74,000 it costs to fly him round trip in a military jet. The media made little mention of ths.
Item #3 - The First Lady plants a vegetable garden on the grounds of the White House. The symbolism: She identifies with Americans who are struggling in this economy.
Item #4 –The First Lady and her daughters recently flew to Paris to meet her husband (stopping over on his way back from speaking in Egypt), to go sight seeing and buy some designer clothes (which she almost always wears). We aren’t told what their transportation costs the American taxpayers.
Iten”#5 – While the First Lady was still the wife of the U.S. Senator, her salary as an administrator at a Chicago hospital increased from well over $100,000, to over $300,000 just after her husband’s efforts got that same hospital a million dollar assistance from the American taxpayers. Just a “coincidence” the media largely failed to report.
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