The Mainstream Media - Part Three

The declining standards of the mainstream media were significant in the loss of consumers and the loss of prestige by large liberal news organizations. Readership fell at most large city newspapers. The viewing audiences at the three major television network news shows shrunk. More and more news consumers were finding and preferring alternative news sources. Journalists were ranked in some polls below used car salesmen for credibility and honesty.

In comparison FOXNEWS, a young cable news network, saw tremendous growth in viewers while CNN and MSNBC lost viewers or saw much slower growth. Internet news sites grow at a rapid pace as does the Blogoshere, world-wide-web sites where anyone could start a Blog to offer opinion, commentary, news analysis, and review and critique news presented by other sources. Bloggers were instrumental in debunking the CBS News story about President Bush’s Texas ANG service. Within hours after the story ran bloggers had determined the documents used in the story were forged because the type and font used in the documents were not available when the documents were allegedly created in the 1970s.

One obvious problem with modern liberal journalism was the need by liberal journalists to interject themselves into the story. No longer were journalists content to report the news, but now insisted on making themselves part of the story for personal or political reasons to massage their egos, to push a political agenda, or to become a celebrity or pundit.

Anyone who wanted could track the state of modern journalism at several internet sites. The
Media Research Center has been tracking the liberal mainstream media for years at www.mediaresearchcenter.org. Other sites also provided case studies and analysis of the performance of the mainstream media.

Bernard Goldberg’s book, Bias, presented a compelling case for what many conservatives had said for years. Goldberg, a long time CBS News reporter, a liberal who said he had never voted for a Republican, had warned his peers about the unfair and biased journalism he saw first hand. Despite his concern expressed over the years to his peers, to news executives, to producers, and to others in the business, no one listened so he decided to write an editorial on the subject. It ran in the Wall Street Journal in 1996 and created a firestorm within the news business. Goldberg was vilified and considered a traitor for revealing the truth about the liberal mainstream media (CBS). The liberals in the media could investigate anyone in the nation, business leaders, politicians, schools, athletes and publish and broadcast whatever they wanted. Yet if anyone dared to question how THEY did their work, then, baby, it was war!

Goldberg’s book became a best seller and remained on that list for many weeks – proof of the power of his message about bias in the mainstream media. Conservatives were correct about the liberal media bias years before honest Bernard Goldberg told the truth. [1]

Frequently, the media engaged in media feeding frenzys. These occurred as journalists rushed to out-perform their competitors in covering news stories. There was a feeding frenzy in 2004 over President Bush’s Texas Air National Guard service despite nothing new to report. The “story” had been covered when Bush ran for governor of Texas, when he ran for re-election as governor, and in 2000 when Bush ran for president. Despite the past coverage the liberal media tried to find a new angle to the old story not unlike an old dog digging up a favorite bone to chew. CBS News even went so far as to use faked and forged documents in an attempt to derail Bush’s re-election chances. Thanks to the new media, bloggers and talk radio, CBS failed in its blatant partisan effort to shape the election of 2004.

In February of 2006 the mainstream media performed another feeding frenzy for all to see. While hunting quail in south Texas Vice President Chaney accidentally shot one of his hunting companions. Fortunately, the wounds were not serious and the man was out of the hospital in a few days. A local media outlet in Corpus Cristi was notified the next day. The accident had occurred late in the day on a Saturday. The White House press corps (David Gregory of NBC, to be exact) went beserk at the next daily briefing; not that Cheney had shot a companion, but because the White House press corps had not been notified first. Members of the press corps railed and ranted at the briefing, yelling and making wild accusations against the White House. The frenzy continued for days with little or no coverage of important news. During this period the leader of Iran made wild and crazy charges against the United States, railed against Israel, and vowed to continue nuclear research despite a United Nations warning to stop.

Again, the liberal mainstream media performed badly in covering the Katrina hurricane story of August 2005. The media predicted thousands of deaths when the levees broke in New Orleans. The local and state officials in Louisiana failed their people. The city of New Orleans was not evacuated when warned. The mayor and the governor of the state (both Democrats) failed to follow their own emergency plans. When the levees breached thousands of people were stranded and had to be rescued- all because local and state officials failed in their duties. And the media blamed President Bush for all of it. Months later the media was still insisting it was all Bush’s fault despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. It was a great disservice to the American people to distort news for cheap partisan gain. The media’s performance in the Katrina hurricane coverage would make a great case study in media bias, laziness, dishonesty, misinformation, and other tricks the media used to spin the story.

The mainstream media is too liberal, too biased, too lazy, too partisan, and too intolerant. It is devoid of diversity, devoted to protecting itself, too much “Inside the Beltway” with a clannish attitude about the rest of the country. It is as if the Red States do not exist and liberals who dominate the media know nothing about Red States and know few people from Red States. Most liberal journalists know very little about most of America. Anything not on the extreme West Coast or not in New York City, Washington, or Boston is considered foreign to the folks who make up the mainstream media. They are out of touch with working America, isolated and insulated in large cities on the east and west coast and only associate with like-minded liberals. Yet they pretend to represent working Americans.




[1] I suggest anyone interested in Goldberg’s experiences with the pervasive bias at CBS NEWS read this wook.