As we have observed throughout the last several years, the notion of fairness in journalism has been guided by a miscalculated rule that in order to report good news about a liberal or a liberal success, news reporting has to be counterbalanced either with unearned praise for conservatives or trumped up and parroted negative news about the aforementioned liberal or liberal success. Oh, and the reverse doesn't apply. That's the rule.
And so now that Senator Obama's Berlin address is in the can, get ready for the backlash from the very serious corporate media. Get ready for profuse around-the-clock praise of Senator McCain and/or unfair, invented criticism of Senator Obama. Because reporting the news, however accurate, about Senator Obama's successful trip to the Middle East and Europe isn't news. It's obviously biased reporting against the McCain campaign.
That's all we've heard from the McBush Republicans this week: griping about the press coverage of Senator Obama's trip, as if such an epic event isn't newsworthy. Although I'm sure the McBush camp would've been thrilled about such wall-to-wall coverage if Reverend Wright had been spazzing out on the wing of the Obama campaign jet, ripping it to shreds Twilight Zone style -- Rezko and Ayers running around in turbans spray-painting "clinging to guns" on the side of General Petraeus' helicopter.
And it appears as if the McCain campaign's Gripe Surge is working:
HANNITY: Scott Rasmussen has a poll, 49 percent of Americans think the media is trying to help Barack Obama win. Only 14 percent think they're trying to help you win.MCCAIN: The American people are very wise.
When the press aired the Wright videos around the clock for approximately six weeks while continuing to refer to Senator Obama as "Osama bin Laden," they've clearly been employing some kind of magic or trickery -- some kind of scary reverse psychology. You know, to help Senator Obama. Thankfully the American people were "wise" to it.
The McCain campaign even turned their griping into a web video this week to prove that the corporate media loves Senator Obama more than they love Senator McCain. Setting aside the idea of a web video from the campaign of a man who is just now learning how to "get online," it's staggeringly desperate and ridiculous of them to produce such a thing. Reason the first: because the content of the video, apart from Chris Matthews "leg thrill" remark, is mostly just reporters saying things like, Is the media in love with Obama? which, of course, doesn't prove a damn thing one way or the other. And, reason the second: because this other web video exists:
But several days of crotchety griping from both far-right talk radio and the McCain campaign has begun to show results. Here's how.
On Tuesday's edition of Morning Joe, Mika Brzeznski, Andrea Mitchell and Very Serious Mark Halperin (who publicly encouraged Senator McCain to convince people that Senator Obama is a terrorist) agreed that after three days of reporting the actual news that Senator Obama's overseas visit was successful, they should deliberately attempt to "trip him up" -- to "hold him accountable." Oh yeah? For what? We're gonna hold him accountable for not screwing the pooch on this trip -- the rat bastard! We're very serious! Barack's a Muslim terrorist [Halperin only]!
Then CBS News, showing its obvious penchant for wanting Senator Obama to win, edited out Senator McCain's laughable error with regards to the Anbar Awakening -- another in an on-going syllabus of McCain ignorance, which further proves that he's really not the Mighty Old Man of Awesome Foreign Policy Experience and Balls. Suggesting that there's such a thing as an Iraq/Pakistan border in a Today Show interview on Monday didn't help either.
But as the rule goes, the only way the corporate press (Olbermann, Maddow and the like excluded) can make a beef about these things would be to find a similar gaffe or mistake by Senator Obama and report on that first. And since nothing recent exists... Pass! Next!
And today, the word of the day in the corporate press is... "presumptuous." Used in a sentence: Senator Obama is being presumptuous during his trip -- acting all presidential and dignified. How dare he be presidential while running for, you know, president. Presumptuous. During the live CNN web feed of the Berlin address, an anchor used it to describe the event. Joe Klein used it in a blog post today. Of course Joe attributed it to racist voters rather than very serious reporters -- racist because it's presumably a synonym for 'uppity' and we can't accuse the press of such awfulness. And Candy Crowley used it in her post-address analysis on CNN. That's a lot of coincidences. "Presumptuous" must really be a popular word. Odd that it's being used so often by people who want Senator Obama to win.
AP: "In a speech that risked being seen as presumptuous..."
TIME Magazine: "capable to become the Commander in Chief of a superpower -- without seeming presumptuous..."
The National Journal: "He is well aware voters here at home might see that as presumptuous..."
Washington Post: "Whether by the end of this week he will be seen as presumptuous or overly cocky..."
Chicago Tribune: "That means walking the fine line between looking presidential and appearing arrogant and presumptuous..."
Boston Globe: "plus the growing sense in some quarters that the presumptive Democratic nominee is getting a little presumptuous..."
Can you feel the wanting-Obama-to-win love radiating off your computer screen? No?
The reality is that positive coverage of any Democrat is limited and temporary for fear of networks and newspapers either being accused of liberal bias or being tossed out of the very serious barbeque loop. Regardless of whether the Democrat, in this case Senator Obama, is having a good day, it's somehow unethical to report on such good news for too long without deliberately concocting an antidote to appease the far-right. So rather than standing up as the only industry explicitly named in the Constitution and defending the very basic idea of journalistic integrity, the corporate media is all too quick to capitulate to these specious Republican attacks -- that is, when they're not tossing their ethics aside and taking bribes in the form of barbeque and McBusch beer from a candidate whom they're supposed to be covering objectively.
Obama and the Democrats are painting themselves as agents of big change. As major beneficiaries of the status quo, MSM will do all they can to keep that change from happening. It's that simple.
The tricks will continue to range from near-subliminally subtle misspeaking and ostensible tongue-slips, to sins of omission, to spreading outright lies and smears clothed as news. And, it will not only focus on candidates, but on policy issues.
Just last week I happened to catch Sean Hannity say on his syndicated radio show that the reason we went to war with Osama bin Laden was because he wasn't cooperating with international WMD inspectors and he was aiding terrorists, what's [the left find] so difficult about that? And, within the next five minutes, nobody corrected his serious "misspeak", certainly not the listener who called in to praise Hannity as a "great American", not his producer whose job it is to catch such errors lest they spread misinformation to the public (a public which polls show is already is quite confused about factual information regarding the Middle East and our military and diplomatic misadventures there), and most certainly not Hannity himself, an experienced and glib broadcasting pro who should be making very few errors of this type.
Expect MSM to pull every trick in the book, and then some.
I am sorry John had to experience what he did, but he is just one of many who experienced the same thing. He is no more of a hero than the people I described above and, in fact, were it not for family connections (sound familiar?), we probably wouldn't know any different. I think the people in this country need to put this little fact in perspective. Oh, and I am sure our troops would be delighted to collect all the money McCain has been collecting all these years. Shame on him.
If Daddy wasn't an admiral McCain would not have gotten one plane to crash, much less five, nor would he have had a prayer of getting into the USNA...
So I went to the FEC's website (http://www.fec.gov/finance/disclosure/advindsea.shtml)
and entered NBC as a search term for 'employer/occupation' and 7/1/2007 to 6/31/2008 as a date range. What did I find? For all of NBC there is a total of $39,350 donated to Obama and $8400 to McCain, a ratio of 4.7 to 1. During the same time interval Obama raised twice as much as McCain so it would appear that NBC employees are pitching in twice the usual amount in Obama's favor.
How is it that NBC can contribute more money to McCain than to Republican's overall?
The IBD article seems to equate all of NBC with 'journalism' yet only one employee out of 298 listed 'journalist' as his job description. The top executives did not donate to presidential campaigns but instead gave money to GEPAC which in turn supported a large number of small campaigns for both Republicans and Democrats.
It appears that, despite their business leanings, the IBD does some pretty lousy accounting.
I thought not...
Welcome to the crap Hillary Clinton supporters lived with for months in the primary. While people like you and your friends were cheering on the sexism of MSNBC, the rudeness of the press to Senator Clinton, you called us whiners, complainers and laughed. You accused the Clintons of being racist, of Senator Clinton picking on those poor boys of MSM, and her supporters of being a bunch of whiny old women.
But we warned you....we said the press would turn on Obama as soon as the guys rid themselves of the "b*tch" they hated. They don't really like Obama either but he is a guy, albeit not one of the "white boys club". But hey, you reap what you sow. It's always been bad for liberals, democrats....but instead of uniting against the press before, when the MSM was mocking Kucinich, trashing Edwards and insulting anything Clinton, the Obama folks decided they were better than the rest of us and the "MSM" would see that.
Have fun. This blog alone has such deep right wing roots (arianna is no liberal).....and yet you embraced it because as long as it trashed Hillary you were happy.
Unfortunately, it's like driving a nail into a bowl of whipped cream.
that Sen. Obama trip was a hugh sucess they are saying
OH DID THIS TRIP HURT SEN OBAMA he was looking too presidential !! He did his job too well ? Sen. Obama is Dam if he do and Dam if he don't .
they have had him under a microscope and everywhere they look Sen. Obama shines...... this makes the Media and John McCain looks RACIST!!!!!!!!! Both MSM and John McCain is talking out the sides of their NECK!!!!! Come on American Sen. Obama made us all proud looking at other countries cheer for Ameircan waving the American Flag instead of burning it!!! it' something to be proud of WE ARE PROUD OF THIS COUNTRY AGAIN AND SEN. OBAMA WE ARE PROUD OF YOU!!!!!!