How "media bias" saved America

[babylonsister]

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/How_media_bias_saved_America.html

How "media bias" saved America
Will Bunch

snip//

Not really. My own unscientific perception, from reading a ton of coverage, is that McCain's lead in negative articles is because a) he's run a much more negative campaign, with harsher attacks, especially after Sarah Palin, with her know-nothing rallies, joined the varsity team and b) he's losing, which is the ultimate negative, including the flood of disgruntled GOP aides leaking bad stuff to the media. The result is something that should be obvious yet seems counter-intuitive to a lot of people: Given the state of this race and the way that McCain and Palin conducted their campaign, what really would have been bias for the media to would have been to write the same number of negative and positive stories about both McCain and Obama.


That, also, would have been business as usual – creating false equivalencies, “on-one-hand, on-the-other-hand” journalism that bends over backwards to gather evidence that both campaigns were equally bad, even if the truth is that one hand is carrying a lot more mud and filth than the other. That’s the way it’s been done in the sacred temples of what we call “objective journalism,” even in the run-up to the war in Iraq when so many bogus pronouncements went unchallenged.

snip//

And it may well have been a turning point in the election. In the days that followed, the McCain team toned down some of its commercials, and many rank-and-file voters seemed to see through the sleaziest tactics. The Lee Atwater/Karl Rove strategies that decided our elections in 1988 and were adapted to 2000 and 2004, with disastrous consequences all the way from Sadr City to the Lower 9th Ward to Wall Street, were finally pushed back – maybe too late for America, but maybe just in time.

It was living proof of my personal belief that the greatest role for journalists is not to make sure that every story has 50 percent of one side and 50 percent of the other side – but that the vital function for reporters is to preserve democracy and the freedom of the press, because without those freedoms a valid media would cease to exist. Yes, they’re voicing outrage today inside the sacred sanctuary of the Temple of Objective Journalism , where the celebrants nervously fingered their rosaries rather than confront the Constitutional bonfire that was building outside.

But for eight years now, there’s been an out-of-control fire raging outside of that temple – a fire that was built upon the USA Patriot Act and Guantanamo and rendition and torture and signing statements and 16 words in a State of the Union Address. Ultimately, saving the last fabric of democracy is more important than worrying about what contrived commandments of journalism were stepped on while the blaze was finally extinguished.

I myself would call it truth-telling, and honest journalism, but now we have some who want to call it “media bias.” That’s fine with me, but understand this.

“Media bias” may have just saved America .

[krumpli]

1. Sure. Media bias gave us Bush. We were saved.

You betcha we were saved.

2000 was the most important election in our recent history. This one is just the direct result of that screw up.

[babylonsister]

2. Ummm, no.

The Supreme Court gave us Bush.

[sam sarrha]

4. Supreme court justices appointed by his father appointed that piece of shit

[sam sarrha]

3. it was rigged to falsely accuse the liberals. they count a low poll report as negative media toward

McSame... so if a ReThuglican Corporate Whore talking head reports McSame down 10 points to Obama, it becomes irrefutable proof of an insidious Liberal Media Conspiracy ...:argh:

smells like KKKarl Rove to me.