If you have to ask that question in 2008, you are really not paying attention. Really. Because if you are paying attention, the degree that the media is either completely in the tank for one candidate (Yes, "the one"), or incompetent, or both is nauseatingly blatant.
If you only read the mainstream sources of media, then you probably have a hard time picking up on liberal bias when it's staring right at you. It's like the fish that doesn't know he's wet.
So, let me give you a little one-day-survey of just a few of the clear examples of media bias that I encountered in just one hour today:
1.Slanting the story:
Most often, it starts with the headline of a story - which sets your expectation of the article to come. An editor has a choice of words to describe a story and can set the tone. Let's look at this headline in my local newspaper tonight, picked up off of the AP wire by AP writer Glen Johnson:
"McCain returns to NH trying to stave off loss"
Really? That's what he's doing? Maybe, just maybe, he's trying to win!
It set a different tone if you are trying to "stave off loss" as opposed to trying to win. And if you just glance at the headline in passing, you get a negative vibe on McCain's chances. If you plunge into the article you will find out that McCain won New Hampshire in the primaries. Maybe he can win it in the general election. Maybe not. But I can assure you that he's there to win again.
To put it simply, the inherent liberal bias of the headline writer affects the reader's intake of that story.
2. Slanting the coverage:
The most common form of liberal bias is choosing what to cover, and - as Bernie Goldberg always says - more importantly in what they choose to not cover. In this election season, the massive liberal bias means that they are heavily covering any perceived mistakes by McCain/Palin, and ignoring the many mistakes of Obama/Biden.
Let's take this headline on Yahoo News on the internet today:
"Is Palin dragging down the ticket?"
Yeah, no bias in that headline.
The writer breathlessly covers the two reasons the Palin is a giant mistake:
1. Her supposed gaffes - like the Couric interview.
Are you kidding me? Are you following the major gaffes of Obama and Biden this week. (Of course you are not, because the MSM is not covering them!) Obama telling Joe the Plumber that he thinks we should "share the wealth around". Biden telling donors behind closed doors that he gaurantees that if we elect Obama that the world will test him in a major international crisis, a generated crisis, and that it might not be evident that Obama's response will be the right one. Yikes! Those two trump anything that Sarah Palin has ever said.
2. The major "scoop" that broke this week that the RNC spent $150,000 so far in hair and clothing expenses for Palin. This story was all over the MSM today. The radio reporter solemly intoned that "careful scrutiny of the Obama campaign's records reveal no similar expenditures.
Are you kidding me? This is a story?
No Obama isn't spending $150K on clothing. But he has spent $800,000 on voter fraud with the group Acorn - a group now under investigation for fraudulent registrations in 13 states. A group Obama used to work for and with.
$150k on clothing from Palin. $800k on voter fraud with Obama.
Which is the more important story? Which story got covered today?
3. The bias of partisan ignorance:
This, from nationally syndicated liberal columnist Cynthia Tucker - again in my local newspaper tonight:
Headline: "Acorn hubbub latest in GOP fearmongering"
"If Mikey Mouse shows up at the polls in a couple of weeks, John McCain might have cause for the alarm he showed over alleged boter fraud during Wednesday's debate"...
"But it's quite unlikely that Mickey or Minne or Goofy will be among the voters lined up on Nov. 4, so McCain's hysterical outburst over a group of activists....needs to be understood for what it is: a distraction. The Republican nominee is once again using fear as a tactic to try to win votes."
Passionately partisan. But dead wrong.
Here's what Ms. Tucker is missing in her liberally biased rant against the hysterical John McCain - the voters that ACORN helped to fraudently register do not have to show up at the polls on Nov 4 with ID for "Mickey Mouse". They have already voted!
What she neglects to mention is that the whole controversy in Ohio, for instance, is that Ohio allows same day registration and voting. What that means is that ACORN bused people around to different counties and registered them and had them vote numerous times, not matter what name they used. Those votes are separated from the registered voter when they are dumped in the box. They have voted, fraudently, and the votes are not retrievable! And they've done it on a massive scale on the order of 200,000 suspect votes in that state alone.
But, for pointing that out John McCain is hysterically fearmongering. No chance that the opposite is true in partisan Tucker's world, that Obama's team is rigging the election. Not a hint of that in her column.
My question: if I know about the same day voting problem, how is it that a nationally syndicated columnist doesn't know it's a problem? Biased incompetence would be the right answer.
Liberal bias in the media. It exists every year, every day.
But much, much, much more in this crazy election year of 2008.
The Year of Media Bias.
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