Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic drew this conclusion about the Tea Party candidates winning some Republican primaries over the establishment candidates:
The media is going to help the Democratic Party’s national messaging, which is that the GOP is a party full of Christine O’Donnells, a party that wants to take away your Social Security and your right to masturbate. Well, maybe not that last part, but then again, the implicit message of the party is that the GOP is about to elect a slate of hard social rightists to Congress.
When someone as widely-quoted as Ambinder is not even trying to hide the fact that the media is biased against Republicans, I think it’s time to stop pretending that the MSM is full of objective reporters writing unbiased articles.
If they’re still wondering why people are abandoning them in droves, simply send them a copy of this post. What do we really want? Honest, unbiased reporting with no hidden agenda. Failing that, we’ll take Fox News, which at least doesn’t have a liberal bias, and is, in many cases, the only network reporting objectively. Not that I think it’s truly “fair and balanced.” It leans right. Duh. But Fox is only one network. All the rest lean left. And they’re not even bothering to hide it anymore.
The media is not supposed to be the shill for the Democratic party. Someone might want to inform Marc Ambinder of that.
Instalanche! Thanks Glenn. Also, thanks to Soccer Dad, who gave me the link to Armbinder. He’s got much more to say on politics and Israel.
Linked by Small Dead Animals: Thanks, Kate!
Linked by Mark Steyn and Jim Hoft: Thanks, gents!
Remember when “dissent was the greatest form of patriotism.†I guess that only apples when Republicans are in control. The msm is really trying to commit journalism suicide by their unbalanced attitude towards this coming election, more and more people are tuning them out, cancelling subscriptions, or, stop viewing their biased news, and the advertisers will take note of what is happening
TO: Meryl Yourish
RE: Talk About….
…..slow learners.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[There is no such thing as an “independent press”. — John Swinton, Editor in Chief, New York Times, 1953.]
P.S. Ya see? He knew about it half a century ago. I figured it out after reading his comment over a decade ago.
I feel like the JournOlist scandal put to rest the last attempts to claim that the media wasn’t heavily biased towards the Left. They don’t even bother denying it anymore.
BTW, wasn’t Ambinder on JournOList? And isn’t it likely he’s on whatever Ezra created to replace it?
At this point anything the MSM says about the Tea Party is gaining the Tea Party more volunteers and money and enthusiasm. Socialism is never more ugly than when it actually takes power. This is the end of the hard left in their cross-dressing as a mainstream political party. They are now a 10 percent cult of angry useful idiots and fellow travelers.
“I think it’s time to stop pretending that the MSM is full of objective reporters writing unbiased articles.”
It’s *been* time.
I’ve been arguing with the left about media bias for almost twenty years. I stopped after the election of 2008.
After the slavish way the media treated Obama during his campaign, the leftwards bias of the media became beyond reasonable disagreement, as far as I’m concerned. It takes a willful blindness not to see it.
I no longer argue with (usually left-leaning) media defenders about media bias. If they can’t see it with the evidence of the last two years, they’re going to remain willfully blind, and there’s nothing I could possibly do or say to change their minds.
During the runup to the election of President Obama I predicted that the American media establishment would look back on coverage of that campaign as an aberration. I thought the media would return to objective reporting after the campaign, and in fact would turn press coverage of the campaign into a case study in how newspapers and TV networks should NOT act. Two years later I admit I was wrong: the press is every bit as complicit and does not appear poised to change. Alas, the media make themselves ever more irrelevant in opinion-forming in the US as increasing numbers of Americans get their news from blogs and alternative sources. As an institution they are doomed, and would have been even if Obama had turned out to be a wise and gifted leader. That he is not only hastens the demise of American mass media journalism. F
Ambinder spoke too soon. The NY Times just associated the Tea Party movement with the anti-masturbation theme. Here’s the opening paragraph in today’s op-ed, which if flat out factually wrong (i.e., a tactic of speaking against masturbation was never taken by “a few Tea Party candidates so far” (or at least the writer doesn’t cite her evidence for such an extraordinary claim):
REPUBLICANS AND THE TEA PARTY
Enlist, but Avoid Speeches on the Constitution
By KATE ZERNIKE
Published: September 18, 2010
So you’re a Republican candidate and you want to take advantage of the Tea Party energy that jolted once-sleepy primaries. But you aren’t sure whether that means you have to take a stand against masturbation or urge your supporters to gather their bayonets — tactics that seem to have worked for a few Tea Party candidates so far.
Lamestream media … national socialist media … the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party … they are all colorful but appropriate designations for what is more politely called “the mainstream media.”
Any honest person reading the UCLA/Glenclose December 2005 analysis, “A Measure of Media Bias” (Google it) can only conclude there is indeed a strong leftward tilt of the lamestream media. The idea that journalists bring no bias to their reporting is absolutely comical – or it would be comical if it wasn’t so deadly to our constitutional republic and the institutions of liberty. Though it may be unconscious in most cases, America’s journalistic worldview bias is still there and its significant enough to make another national socialist like Joseph Goebbels applaud.
The evidences are much too clear and too numerous to merely be sloughed off as “anecdotal”, liberals comprise over 85% of the news corps and they overwhelming make personal donations to the Democratic Party. As CYA, some more enterprising journalists have taken up the refrain that they are political “Independents”, but when you get right down to what they actually believe, they’re nothing more than liberal Democrat wolves in sheep’s clothing.
I call what they do “jaundiced journalism” and it’s pure poison in a constitutional republican where truth must not be perpetually colored by an institution that is supposed to be fair and unbaised. I don’t kid myself that during America’s founding period the various news periodicals were more fair and less biased, they weren’t. What they didn’t do was blind themselves to their own tilt and lie about being objective or some kind of Oracle of Delphi weren’t they weren’t. That’s the problem with the NYT, WaPo, CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS, MSNBC, et al, they even lie to themselves about their own easily documented leftist tilt and unfortunately some gullible Americans have bought into this left-wing Big Lie.
And that’s the headscratcher, these same American news consumers that don’t see the left-ward tilt of the old legacy media can then so easily rant about Fox News (otherwise known to them as Faux News) being “right-wing” when according to the UCLA analysis its hard-core news division is just right of center. Clearly a case where some liberal Americans have moved so far to the left that anyone or any news organization close to being a “centrist” appears to be far right-wing. Obviously these Americans live in an echo chamber built by the national socialist media and that’s why this state of affairs is so dangerous to objective truth.
Chuck, I think I’m insulted. :-)
asdf,
Yes, I was wondering what the scandal with Journolist was. Didn’t everyone know that their efforts were coordinated|?
Because they were secretly nasty?
David
Personally I think the whole idea of “objective” media is a product of the early days of television. Everyone involved recognized the power that the few available stations had, and they knew of the inevitability of government intervention if it was clear that the early television news shows were biased.
But outside of that time, it has always been the case that the news has been incredibly biased. But they used to wear their biases more proudly. Look up the history of the “Union” part of the Manchester Union-Leader to get the flavor.
It doesn’t bother me that so many news outlets are biased. Franky, I expect that. What bothers me is that so many leftist news organizations falsely claim the mantle of objectivity, and worse, often get away with it.
Huh. This doesn’t come as any particular surprise to me. There was an article or perhaps a poll by Rasmussen recently which showed that some 88% of “journalists” describe themselves as Democrats. That’s NOT just reporters but editors and producers as well.
Sorry I don’t have a link but age has taken it’s toll on my memory! Besides, I was so NOT surprised by that result I didn’t bother to bookmark it.
“There is no such thing as an ‘independent press’. — John Swinton, Editor in Chief, New York Times, 1953”
Swinton died in 1901 and was never “Editor in Chief” of the NYT, although he did write editorials for them. Variations on that quote have been attributed to him, but there is no good reference for it.
The media seems very excited about the Comedy Channel Rally. CNN hypes it every hour.
TO: Meryl Yourish
RE: Insulted???!?!
Don’t be. You’re in good company. I’ve been saying such to such ‘slow boats’ as the Blogvader and VodkaBoy for the last two years. If they can take it. I’m confident you can too.
Keep up the good work….
…..we’re all excited.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[]In the battle between you and World, back the World.]
If it means I no longer have to pay into it, please Please PLEASE take away my Social Security!
TO: Meryl Yourish
RE: About that ‘Independent Press’ Business…..
….YOU!!!! And others like you ARE the ‘independent press’!
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[A popular Government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, and possibly both. — President James Madison]
P.S. REMEMBER….
….Swinton made his comment BEFORE the rise of the internet and independent bloggers.
You mean witches don’t masturbate? Who knew?
It Is The Season Of The Witch.
The message is getting confused.
I figured it out after reading his comment over a decade ago.
I figured it out over 40 years ago when I started fighting Drug Prohibition.
I’m an independent who votes Republican. Except when they get irrevocably stupid. i.e. Alan Keyes, Illinois, ’04.
TO: David & asdf
RE: Well
Look for a pattern of ‘behavior’. But they were doing this sort of ‘think’ BEFORE journolist. It’s just that journolist allowed them to get their story straight, so they could more effectively ‘brain-wash’ the useful fools they preach to via the so-called ‘mainstream media’.
I say this in confidence because I don’t WATCH television anymore. Gave up on it in the late 90s.
And whenever I DO happen to see it, I’m continually apauled by the rank propaganda being presented as ‘truth’ on it. Especially in the so called ‘news’.
Anyone with more than two synapses to rub together would recognize it for what it is. But I guess it’s like that old business about boiling a ‘frog’. And it’s been going on for DECADES. But getting away from it and thinking for yourself allows you to recognize it like a dash of cold water in the face when you see it.
Something that those still ‘addicted’ to the properly named ‘boob tube’ can’t quite understand.
And I say that last bit because you can see it in their eyes when you tell them they need to ‘Kill their television.’ They just DON’T GET IT. And I suspect they never will. Even when it is blatantly TOO LATE>
That’s a ‘euphemism’. I prefer ‘evil’.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Evil has many tools. But a lie is the handle that fits them all.]
TO: All
RE: While I’m On It
I’m suddenly reminded of a truism that really didn’t sink in until THIS THREAD.
Where you sit determines what you ‘see’.
Case in point….
……I don’t ‘sit’ in front of the television to get my news. Nor do I ‘sit’ at the breakfast table, reading the local paper, to get it. I sit at my computer and ‘surf’ the web for ‘news’. And, I tell you, I get a LOT MORE and BETTER news here than most everyone else I know, in a personal manner.
And I’m confident that anyone who does the same realizes the same.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[NEVER trust a ‘source’ of information that has been discredited. Lives depend on it. — Army Intell Officer axiom]
Why haven’t we heard anymore about those morning phone conferences between Rahm and Stephanopolis, et al.?
Chuck, I know that I’ve been bringing the Israeli side of the news to my bloggers since about 2002, maybe even before that (I started blogging in 2001). You’d be amazed—or maybe you wouldn’t—about how many people toe the Palestinian/anti-Israel media line. Probably not. I’m pretty sure I remember seeing you around here years ago. I think it’s time I got back to political blogging as well as Israel blogging.
This is why we need to make sure the message this fall is about smaller government, not social issues.
The meaning of communications is the RESULT you are getting. The Lame Stream Media has been communicating a left wing pro-Democrat Party message FOREVER. 85% of these clowns vote Democrat according to their own polls.
The RESULT they are getting is that the American People recognize they are neither reporting the news fairly, nor are they reasonably even-handed in their editorials. Therefore, they are being IGNORED and they are DISAPPEARING as they go bankrupt and lose viewers, and readers. Adios, Lame Stream Media!
I do not want nor do I expect a media free of bias or that is actually balanced. I simply want them to stop pretending that they are.
TO: Meryl Yourish
RE: It’s the ‘Latter’
….it’s the latter.
Lest we digress into deep discussions about the nature of reality vis-a-vis G-d…..let’s discuss the topic at hand.
As I’ve commented on other web-sites—some of which I’m now considered persona non grata, there’s a clear reason for the hatred expressed about Israel. However, unless you’re an ‘honest-to-G-d’ Hebrew or Christian, the reason will ‘escape’….for one reason or another. Three guesses….first two don’t count.
And the so-called ‘Main Stream Media’ are part and parcel of the ‘mess'[age] being fouled up beyond all recognition (FUBAR),
There’s a ‘difference’??!??!?!??!!!!
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Those who do not understand the relationship between politics and morality shall never understand either.]
P.S. Such is the road the ruin paved…..
“I do not want nor do I expect a media free of bias or that is actually balanced. I simply want them to stop pretending that they are.”
Very succinct. Actually, Ambinder — who I neither like nor respect — appears to have stopped pretending.
The media is going to help the Democratic Party’s national messaging, which is that the GOP is a party full of Christine O’Donnells
I say let them with all their tiny mean spirited hearts, with heads full empty mentalities.
Proclaim it for everyone to hear. I mean it worked so effectively against her did’nt it. It made people more aware. that was good? No! My bad!
After 08 is anyone in America still under a delusion, that think the MSM is unbiased?
Knowing how much the Saudis own American media can we trust it anymore for even mundane matters, let alone REAL news, not ET fluff?
JMO
Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. —Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Norvell (June 11, 1807)
The fat Russian agent was cornering all the foreign refugees in turn and explaining plausibly that this whole affair was an Anarchist plot. I watched him with some interest, for it was the first time that I had seen a person whose profession was telling lies—unless one counts journalists. —Orwell, “Homage to Catalonia” (1938)
Knoll’s Law of Media Accuracy: Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true except for the rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge. —Erwin Knoll, editor, “The Progressive”
“What do we really want?” Nothing from the MSM. Just let them fade away. We can get anything we need from the internet.
We do have some power. We can stop buying their product. We can expose their bias. Eventually we will win – they will change or go out of business.
You do realize that Fox and the other Murdoch properties are not the most mainstream of media . Do you expect us to believe that they hate Republicans?
That should be :
You do realize that Fox and the other Murdoch properties are NOW the most mainstream of media . Do you expect us to believe that they hate Republicans?
They jumped the shark when they got Obama elected.
The frog is going to hop out of the pot.
What do you mean ‘is going to’? I infer you mean that this is some sort of change?
So, you willingly, openly admit that Fox News leans to the Right, yet condemn the other networks for leaning to the Left?
If you want more Right-leaning networks, why don’t Republicans just buy them? Isn’t that how capitalism works?
Wouldn’t you agree with the statement that if more people wanted more Right-leaning networks, then those networks would exist. Either that or all Republicans are satisfied with Fox. Perhaps there are so many Left-leaning networks, because there are actually more differences in what Democrats believe.
I don’t mind biased media. It keeps conversation going, if nothing else.
I just wish there was a real source that was actually un-biased, in *EITHER* direction.
Charlotte, the bulk of Fox’s rightward lean is in the opinion shows. The bulk of ALL OF THE REST of the news shows leftward lean is in the news. ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS all lean left, and all claim the title of objectivity. They are not. They need to stop lying about being objective when they clearly are liberal, left-wing news outlets. When upwards of 85% of journalists vote for the Democratic candidate for president, it’s time to stop pretending that they can report the news objectively.
TO: Charlotte
RE: Fox ‘Leans Right’?
The only perspective that causes one to think that Fox ‘leans right’ is that of the ‘Left’.
If one wants to compare the likes of ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS against Fox. Yes. Fox IS to the ‘Right’. By a country-mile….and then some.
I watched some television in the run up to the 2008 fiasco we call an ‘election’. ABC, CBS, NBC were all singing the same tune. And manifesting the same behavior.
Case in Point #1….
…..They’d try to show the ‘lies’ in political advertising. They’d show one minor ‘mistake’ for a Democrat candidate. They’d show a number of what they called ‘outrageous lies’ for Rrepublican ones.
Case in Point #2….
….Where there’d be good coverage of Democrat candidates. There’d be ‘discrediting’ coverage of Republican ones.
Fox, on the other hand, would show good and bad of both parties candidates.
If the Left wants to call this ‘leaning to the right’….I’m not surprised. It’s the typical sort of lying expected of these ‘progressives’.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Liberals aren’t. Progressives won’t.]
TO: Meryl Yourish
RE: Time to Stop ‘Pretending’?
They’ve never been unbiases. Even Thomas Jefferson said….
The most truthful thing in the newspapers is the advertising.
But it IS time that:
[1] The press stops lying about being unbiases.
[2] The vaunted American public education system starts teaching children how to discern the truth from the lies in ANYTHING.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Education, n., Replacing an empty mind with an open one.]
P.S. Or so it used to be. Today, it’s a ‘closed’ one.