The Main Stream Media Can't Do Their Job Wearing Blinders

The only difference between the massacre in Tucson and previous acts of terrorism is that for the most part we now have a lazy, spineless, good-for-nothing corporate media. The main stream media, to a certain extent, has become synonymous with the right-wing media and is just as dedicated to brainwashing the public. Unlike Fox News they haven’t quite become the propaganda arm of the Republican Party but they’re uncomfortably close. . . . Misdirected Anger Redirected

Conservatives are always complaining about media bias. For once they’re right in theory but wrong in assuming that it tilts to the left. The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism compared the amount of coverage for the top ten candidates in the 2010 mid-term election. Only two Democrats received enough coverage to even make the cut.

Media bias includes misleading headlines, what gets covered, what’s neglected, word choices, how stories are framed, what sources are used, time limits on programming, where stories are placed, and how many column inches they get assigned.

EXAMPLES OF CONSERVATIVE MEDIA BIAS OVER THE LAST TWO YEARS

AOL’s Relegence team, which tracks more than 30,000 news sites on the Web, analyzed coverage of comparable liberals and conservatives over a 12 months period ending in early December 2010. They found that there were about 62,000 stories in which Sarah Palin figured prominently, almost three times the number that featured Joe Biden, the man who actually won the vice presidency.

Friend BJ of DemWit informed me she sent an email to CNN asking: “Did you realize that over the last year the “Ticker” headline under “Latest News” has concerned Sarah Palin about 90 percent of the time?” CNN hasn’t bothered to respond.

One of the most glaring examples of the MSM manipulating the news by ignoring it was the One Nation Working Together rally, held just weeks after Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor event. Just the amount of free pre-publicity for this Tea Party dog and pony show should make the most aggressive event organizer envious. While grossly exaggerating the size of the crowd at being in the hundreds of thousands, the MSM overlooked the fact that thousands of participants had their transportation, food and hotel tabs picked up by Fox News and big-money Tea Party supporters.

Meanwhile, the TV and cable media, including MSNBC, mostly ignored the tens of thousands attendees at the One Nation rally.

Politicususa further states:

According to a 2009 story in Digital Journal, “A group by the name of Media Tenor conducted a study for FAIR, studying ABC, CBS and NBC nightly news programs. Results of the study made last year showed that 92 percent of all U.S. sources interviewed on matters of race and politics were white, 85 percent were male and, where party affiliation was identifiable, 75 percent were Republican. Media Tenor found specifically one third of the US public is portrayed negatively, and these are immigrants, blacks and other minorities.

For the past two years, the MSM has focused attention almost exclusively on Sarah Palin and The Tea Party. They never bothered to fact-check, much less dispute, myths such as how the passage of Health Care would mean death panels for granny and a government takeover of HC, the biggest lie of 2010 according to PolitiFact. Obviously the media was more interested in covering the slug-fests and shout-outs at town hall meetings organized by Democrats.

The MSM seem to be fixated on Palin’s tweets but rarely, if ever, question her lack of knowledge of international affairs, history or the Constitution. They shamelessly promoted her first book as if it were The Great All-American Novel. While the book contains plenty of fiction, it is hardly worth all the hoopla it received.

MEDIA BIAS SINCE THE TUCSON TRAGEDY

Echoing the right, the MSM refuses to recognize the connection between words and their consequences, or even that there have been calls for violence, implicit or explicit. They refuse to acknowledge that while Jared Lee Loughner is indeed mentally unstable, it doesn’t preclude him from being influenced by political hate speech. They consistently overlook the fact that he had collected documents on Gabrille Giffords for years and that a former girlfriend has described how “things about politics and the government would set him off” (starting at about 1.45).

Paul Krugman describes a report from the Department of Homeland Security in 2009 that warned “right-wing extremism was on the rise, with a growing potential for violence.” Near the end of his column Krugman comments, “the purveyors of hate have been treated with respect, even deference, by the G.O.P. establishment.” True, but I would include the main stream media in the equation.

And the media has about split a gasket defending the indefensible - Sarah Palin’s statements since the tragedy. Today a guest on NPR’s Talk of the Nation said the comments about Palin were “libelous.”

Krugman gets it, but not his colleagues. They are too busy tripping all over themselves in a self-deluded notion to prove that they are being fair and balanced, but their balance is false and based on false premises.

“DEMOCRATS DO IT TOO.”

Not by elected officials or other public figures. Not by so-called talk-show propagandists such as Beck & Co.

. . . It’s hard to imagine a Democratic member of Congress urging constituents to be “armed and dangerous” without being ostracized; but Representative Michele Bachmann, who did just that, is a rising star in the G.O.P.

And there’s a huge contrast in the media. Listen to Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann, and you’ll hear a lot of caustic remarks and mockery aimed at Republicans. But you won’t hear jokes about shooting government officials or beheading a journalist at The Washington Post. Listen to Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly, and you will.

GUNS AND GUN IMAGERY

I didn’t bookmark it, but I heard Tom Brokaw on Morning Joe say during a discussion about guns used in campaign ads that the “Democrats do it too.” When asked who done it, Brokaw named Joe Manchin (D-WVA). Yes he did but, as I’m sure Brokaw knows, Manchin is a DINO – maybe even a closeted Republican - and the ad, sponsored by the National Rifle Association, is or should be reprehensible to most Democrats. In fact the DNC objected to it and Democratic colleagues distanced themselves from it.

I’ve spent literally hours researching guns and gun metaphors in speech and political campaign ads. There may have been some way back when but I couldn’t find any, at least not on the Internet, by a candidate from any political party until the last couple of years.

Joe Manchin and Jim Piccillo (FL) are two Democrats who have engaged in such reprehensible ads.

Amongst the Republicans we have: Robert Lowry (FL); Dean Allen (SC); Pamela Gorman (AZ); Jesse Kelly (AZ); Stephen Broden (TX); Dale Peterson (AL); Rick Barber (AL); Richard Behney (AL); Sharon Angle (NV); Michele Bachmann (MN); Gregg Harper (MS).

To claim that Democrats “do it too” is to imply that they actively participate in these kinds of ads on at least a semi-regular basis, which is misleading at best and erroneous at worst.

ABUSE, VITRIOL AND BAD MANNERS

The main stream media and right-wing bloggers love to chant: “the extremes on the left do it too.”

I submit the same challenges to the MSM that I have offered up to bloggers on the right:

-- Name a liberal, leftist or progressive person or organization named on an authoritative non-partisan hate group list.
-- Name a liberal, leftist or progressive who has advocated physically harming another person.
-- Name a liberal, leftist or progressive who has physically or verbally abused another just because of a difference of opinion.
-- Name a liberal who has written or commented with vicious and derogatory language when a member of the opposition died – such as in the cases of Edward Kennedy and Robert Byrd.
-- Lastly, provide examples of liberals spewing hate and racism against a person simply because of the color of their skin.

Right-wing bloggers never rise to the challenge and the main stream media is too lazy or deliberately fails to provide any documented evidence.

When Joe Wilson yelled “You lie” during President Obama’s Health Care speech to Congress in 2009, he not only violated House protocol, he sent a message across the nation – at least to conservatives – that it was acceptable to use bad manners and act like goons. A rude comment on his part has steamrolled into an avalanche of hate, racism, violence and just plain old-fashioned vitriol.

I would like to know of one liberal, leftist, progressive or Democrat who has resorted to the kind of rhetoric or abusive behavior featured below. The MSM hasn't covered much of it, so maybe that's why they have a problem substantiating that the "democrats do it too."

TEA PARTY AND MSM DENY CONSERVATIVES ARE MOTIVATED BY RACISM, BUT:

“Tea Party Focuses on Obama and Hate Not Health Care” says otherwise in text and images.

Review of racial slurs used against Obama during his first year. Most are Republican public officials but there are a few comments made by Democrats as well.

An “Obama chimp” email is sent by a Tennessee CEO.

DEATH TO THE PRESIDENT

Right-wing bumper stickers and Internet sites quote Psalm 109:8, “Let his days be few; and let another take his office.” Another verse follows: “Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.” I pulled this from Liberal Values but it originated with The Christian Science Monitor.


JOHN Q. PUBLIC ANGER

Tea Partier Out of Control. Thank God this man didn’t have a weapon.

Political Road Rage right here in Tennessee.

A handicapped man is shouted at, mocked, and ridiculed as the anti-health care protesters standing over him dismissively throw money at his face. The man doing most of the kicking later apologized and I feel he was sincere but the incident points out how heated rhetoric can generate mob rule.

Sharon Angle supporter, a man, punches woman at debate.

Woman stomped in the head at Rand Paul rally.

JOHN Q. CANDIDATE ANGER

Gov. Chris Christie in California beats up on a voter at a Meg Whitman town hall meeting. From Hello Mr. President.

N.Y. gubernatorial candidate Carl Palodino threatens reporter, “I’ll take you out.”

- - - - -

Krugman began his article:

When you heard the terrible news from Arizona, were you completely surprised? Or were you, at some level, expecting something like this atrocity to happen?

Put me in the latter category. I’ve had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach ever since the final stages of the 2008 campaign. I remembered the upsurge in political hatred after Bill Clinton’s election in 1992 — an upsurge that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing. And you could see, just by watching the crowds at McCain-Palin rallies, that it was ready to happen again.

Krugman said that conservatives denounced the Homeland Security report mentioned above.

But there has, in fact, been a rising tide of threats and vandalism aimed at elected officials, including both Judge John Roll, who was killed Saturday, and Representative Gabrielle Giffords. One of these days, someone was bound to take it to the next level. And now someone has.

What Krugman doesn't say is that the mainstream media has not met the challenge to present facts in as fair and balanced and informative a format as possible. This is not to say that Democrats haven't crossed the line with angry rhetoric or unacceptable campaign ads from time to time, but if one were to stack plates with each plate representing an incident involving guns or gun imagery, the advocacy of violence, hate speech, racism or physical assault, the stack on the right would very quickly crash from it's on weight.  If the media even bothers to cover it, most likely they will ignore the small stack on the left and report that the Democrats are cracking too..