Monday, August 07, 2006

MAINSTREAM MEDIA – Biased or Intellectually Lazy?

I don’t think anyone can claim with a straight face that the mainstream media is unbiased, but there are actually some moonbats who think the media is biased toward the RIGHT! I spent some time observing the media over the weekend, involuntarily, and some more time pondering the puzzle that resulted.

As I constantly complain, my cable company won’t remove CNN from behind my on-screen solitaire game. So unless I want to use the “mute” button (which on my bedroom TV is somewhat difficult), I listen to their coverage.

I have labeled Larry King CNN’s “sycophant-in-chief” because no matter who is on his program, but especially when his guest is an attractive woman, he is wholly uncritical and never challenges anything that is said, no matter how outrageously false it may be. As anyone who knows me can attest, I have grown to dislike O’Reilly, but give the man credit, at least he does challenge an outrageous liar on the air.

Recently however, I have occasionally been somewhat startled to hear a hint of balanced coverage from CNN in their Middle East coverage. Anderson Cooper, with a habit of being entirely too subjective at the best of times, has actually backed off from that from time to time. And many of the “embedded” reporters have been similarly almost even-handed.

The New York Times is quickly getting to the point where they will be printing more retractions than news stories. This used to be a great newspaper and when I was in college (The Ohio State University, School of Journalism, Class of ’63 – yeah, I’m THAT old) it was held up as an example of what a newspaper should be. Wonder if they still do that? I hope not. It IS still an example – of how far the “paper of record” has fallen from its once lofty standards. My view is that the NYT is a hopeless case, absent a thorough change in management.

Reuters has been caught using “photo-shopped” photographs and has had to apologize. Where were their fact checkers? Where were the editors who are supposed to keep this from happening? Was this laziness? Left-wing bias? Probably both. Reuters has never struck me as the soul of unbiased journalism. It is, after all, a European news service and neither the U.S. nor Israel is all that popular with the European nations. Both nations are entirely too energetic and dynamic to suit those desiccated fossils!

Fox News Channel has consistently been the least biased of the news channels. But there are times when even they display a remarkable lack of balance. And Alan Colmes would be beyond annoying even if he WERE a conservative. I’m always surprised the liberals are willing to claim him!

I do know that the media in general has nearly always downplayed the incessant attacks on Israel, not just recently but for many, many years. Was this caused by fatigue or was it anti-Semitic? Who knows? I don’t feel comfortable assigning motive to other human beings, but I know that the appearance of cheerleading for our enemies or Israel’s enemies is nearly unending. The disconnect seems to be total. Those who are most at risk (East and West Coast and Washington, D.C.) seem to be of the opinion that if we just understand these jidhadist scum, they’ll stop trying to kill us. Is that driven by fear? Denial? Anti-Semitism? All of the foregoing? Probably so.

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