Meet the Bloggers: Henry Rollins and Paul Waldman Spurn the Media's Love for McCain

The corporate press has been in bed with John McCain for years.  What's more, whenever the GOP smells the slightest whiff of objectivity from the media, they immediately cry foul.  That was the discussion of this week's Meet the Bloggers, in which punk rock icon, actor, and spoken word artist Henry Rollins filled in admirably for Cenk Uygur, who was at the Republican National Convention.  Rollins led a charged, insightful conversation with bloggers Jonathan Kim (FOX Attacks!), Liliana Segura (AlterNet.org) and Paul Waldman (Media Matters) about the ridiculous bias we've seen from FOX News and the mainstream media throughout this election.

Waldman, who co-authored Free Ride: John McCain and the Media with David Brock, talked about all the ways in which the McCain campaign and the GOP have manipulated the media.  If you need any proof, just watch the heated exchange between CNN's Campbell Brown and McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds featured in this segment.  As Rollins and Waldman pointed out, Bounds jumped down Brown's throat when she asked him to name one instance of real foreign policy experience from McCain's VP pick Sarah Palin.  Once Bounds exhausted his talking points, he went on the defensive, accusing Brown of belittling Palin.  But as Waldman concluded, Brown was simply doing her job, something not enough journalists are doing these days.   

Of course, the worst perpetrators of media bias are the folks at FOX News.  What sparked the idea for yesterday's show was Brave New Films' latest video, FOX Attacks Obama Just Like Kerry, which documents all the ways in which FOX has been reusing the same smears and distortions of John Kerry from 2004 to malign Barack Obama.  Jonathan Kim, who runs our FOX Attacks! blog and created this latest video, talked with Rollins about the "FOX effect." 

According to Kim, FOX specializes in balancing the truth with lies, giving equal time, let's say, to a real scientist who tells the truth about global warming as they do to a quack without any real expertise who calls global warming a myth.  This is FOX's notion of "fair and balanced," but in reality it's quite dangerous because FOX marginalizes the expert's claim while legitimizing the quack's opinion. 

Make no mistake, FOX is willing to do whatever it takes to advance their conservative agenda.  They will lie, smear, and distort to their hearts' content.  They'll even contradict themselves, as The Daily Show illustrated this week when they ran clips of Bill O'Reilly, Karl Rove, Sean Hannity, and Dick Morris going against their own previous statements just so they could gush over Palin. 

But what's even more dangerous is for the rest of the corporate press to take their cues from FOX.  That's why Meet the Bloggers dedicated this entire show to this issue, and why we must continue to hold the media accountable for their refusal to cover this election objectively. 

Meet the Bloggers airs live every Friday at 1pm ET/10 am PT.  And if you missed any previous shows, you can always catch them here.

Comments

[HUGGINGTONJACK]

Mc Cain Palin = 4 More Wars!

STOP BLOGGING START FIGHTING..

OFFENSE IS A BETTER STRATEGY THAN DEFENSE

FRANK RICH : STOP WRITING ABOUT THE GAME PLAYS AND START CALLING THE GAME PLAYS

ONCE MORE ONTO THE BREACH DEAR FRIENDS, ONCE MORE¦OR CLOSE THE WALL UP WITH OUR ENGLISH DEAD!

ONWARD AND UPWARD!

[littlepuffycloud]

I wish Henry would re-release his video of 'Liar' and dedicate it to John and Sarah Bush.

[Shaddup]

Media is the biggest issue of this century, and its a story none of these conglomerates are going to cover. They will continue to push the con message, and the fluff, until this country cannot come back. Remember, fascism is rarely stopped from within.

[TrooAmerican]

Nice Job Henry. You Rock bigtime!

[AtTheMoon]

Rollins is way scary live in concert.

[StephenJK]

I have a different take.

He's way EFFECTIVE.

[lvdragonlady]

The ultimate question?
Does America have any 'true' journalists anymore?

[Mattjoe]

"Alaskan Independence Party, a political party in Alaska that has the motto "Alaska First, Alaska Always" and wishes to secede from the United States"

Hey listen Arianna and the rest of you, if Huffpost or any of the left cannot bring to light or not do all it can to force the discussion of Palin"s involvement in AIP within the Obama campaign, then we"ll know all the protest is feigned. Even from the left.

And we all know had sad and useless false protest is, don"t we.

[ManwithaParachute]

The MSM media will not take anyone seriously as long as you can't impact their revenue.

Most of the talking heads, reporter, and the few remaining journalist are living in fear of reprisals. Television and radio are already in lock step and the the freedom of the internet is in a a state of erosion.

Soon it will be propaganda all the time and everywhere.

[Sportswoman]

Great piece. This is why I am unhappy with Jeff Zucker and NBC for caving into the CCR wing of the Rep Party for yanking Chris and Keith from the anchor coverage. (" Experiment?" Who else draws whatthey do on MSNBC?) They defend Fox to the death. Go on VanSusteren's blog--angry, racist white women making statements about Michelle Obama that I won't repeat herein. It's appaling, and yet, as many times as it is complained about from a perpective of just plain human decency, they ignore it. NBC should go right at Fox and not cave. Jeff Zucker has grown way too complacent from his Kentucky Fried Theatre and Airplane days.

[JTaverner]

Nice to see one of my heroes, Henry Rollins, take the radical right and McCain's insecure campaign to task

THE END OF SILENCE '08

[theuniversalhost]

Yes!!! I've long hoped that Rollins would turn his gaze onto politics...

[AtTheMoon]

They should show a clip of Henry screaming YOU'RE A LIAR

[StephenJK]

Henry Rollins is a phenomonally hardcore person, with hardcore intellect and a soft spot for whats right and a vengeful disdain for whats wrong. More people should cozy up with some Rollins lit and familiarize themselves with the Black Flag front man. He's an amazing person with the ability to see things from many perspectives and understand which is right and which is EFFed.

[MaryT63]

We have a bias media towards the conservatives' point of view. All the talking points come from the RNC. These are the questions they asked Obama all the time - when have you gone against your party line, why can't you admit the surge is working, why are you proposing to raise taxes, why don't you appeal to those Hillary voters, why are the polls so close when it obviously a democratic year, why aren't you wearing your flag pin, why did you stay in that church. Both network and cable talking heads ask the same questions.
Since the conservatives control our communications system, it is going to be hard to get another message out there. They said, if you control what the people hear, then you control the people.
Thanks for trying to break thru this echo chamber. We need you...

[LORISNJ]

It appears to me that the "media" has forgotten that political campaigns need media coverage more than the media needs to have the candidates themselves spin their stories. Investigate, get on camera interviews with those closest to the campaign [as close as you can get] and tell the truth about what is known and what is theory.

No coverage of cheesy stump speeches or reporting of conference calls with the campaign unless they agree to interviews with Palin. They do not hold the cards and why would the powerful media accept terms that makes the media simply recorders and not reporters.

Use the power you have and stop giving it away to those that do not deserve it.