Archive for the ‘Biased Media’ Category
By Warner Todd Huston
In an article that is ostensibly supposed to be about the many Iowa homeschoolers that are supporting Mike Huckabee, the Washington Post pins the reason to the fact that homeschooling parents must hate Mormons! This has easily become the MSM’s favorite theme as they try to divide and anger portions of the GOP primary voting base against each other. In this MSM meme, anyone who votes against Romney or questions the relative Christian merits of the Mormon faith is a bigot who hates Mormons and won’t vote for Romney merely because he is one. They are also unanimous in pinning support for Huckabee to an anti-Mormon sentiment. The MSM is doing their level best to start a religious war on the right.
In the Post’s article, religion is the central theme of pro-Huckabee homeschool advocates. Here the Post reveals the efforts of a homeschooling Mother named Julie Roe (bet they chose her for her familiar name: Roe) who has stumped for Huckabee by making homemade buttons and making numerous phone calls.
Julie Roe, an early believer in Mike Huckabee, worked with what she had… With no buttons, no yard signs and no glossy literature from his nearly invisible Iowa campaign, she took a pair of scissors and cut out a photograph of the former Arkansas governor. She pasted it on a piece of paper, scribbled down some of his positions, made copies and launched the Huckabee for President campaign in rural Hardin County.
So, why Huckabee? (My emphasis added throughout).
Huckabee’s name is no longer a mystery to Iowa’s Republican voters, in large part because of an extensive network of home-schoolers like Roe who have helped lift his underfunded campaign from obscurity to the front of a crowded field. Opinion polls show that his haphazard approach is trumping the studied strategy of Mitt Romney, who invested millions only to be shunned by many religious conservatives such as Roe, who see the former Baptist preacher from Hope, Ark., as their champion.
But, even the Post contradicts this religious basis only a few paragraphs later.
WASHINGTON, January 9, 2008 — Accuracy in Media editor Cliff Kincaid said today that he was not surprised by the poor performance of the polls and the press in predicting the outcome in the Democratic New Hampshire primary. The media in general have been terrible at analyzing political races and predicting outcomes, he said.
"The conservative media were out of touch with Republican voters in Iowa and missed the real reasons for the Mike Huckabee phenomenon," Kincaid noted. "They have also been mystified, even horrified, by the conservative limited-government appeal that lies at the heart of the Ron Paul revolution. So it is not surprising that the liberal media would miss the story of what was happening on the Democratic Party side. The results demonstrate that the American people have decided to have their say in the process, despite what the media say and write."
The AIM editor said that the conservative media, including most of talk radio, many bloggers, and Fox News, have clearly lost their influence with the grassroots and are at risk of becoming marginalized or irrelevant as the presidential process goes forward. "From their perspective," Kincaid said, "the more moderate candidates, McCain and Huckabee, are doing the best, and the most conservative candidate, Romney, who should have won Iowa and New Hampshire, is barely hanging on. If Romney, who was endorsed by the conservative National Review, continues to lose, many in the conservative media may have to throw up their hands in despair."
In terms of the liberal media, Kincaid said they are divided in their loyalties to Clinton and Obama but will eventually settle for a Clinton-Obama ticket. "Then the liberal media will do what they do best � attack Republicans," he said. The question becomes, on the Republican side, whether conservative media will rally around McCain if he is the nominee. "It's doubtful," the AIM editor said. "They may go AWOL."
Accuracy in Media is a citizens' media watchdog organization whose mission is to promote fairness, balance, and accuracy in news reporting. Founded in 1969, AIM is the oldest non-profit press watchdog group in America. For more information, please visit www.aim.org.
By Bob Parks
Every year, people come out with their "New Year’s Resolutions"; their wish lists of things they hope to either accomplish or see accomplished during the coming year.
As we all know, many of these wishes, or "pledges", are broken within days, so I don’t hold much optimism that these will hold, but there’s nothing wrong with hoping….
The End Of Campaign 2008
Because of the "early" start, many of us are already sick of this campaign season. There are political ads flooding our markets with presidential candidates making promises they know they can’t keep, as they don’t know what the political make up of the Congress will be.
Yet, they’re all over our television sets making promises (and threats), and in the coming months, we’ll "meet" their wives, husbands, and homely kids. They’ll tell us how great we are as Americans, and how much better everything will be if we just trust them with our vote.
Let’s not forget, as we go down this road every four years.
Presidents, outside of during a time of war, have very little to do with our day-to-day lives. The president doesn’t hire all of us. The president doesn’t feed us or pay our rents or mortgages. The president doesn’t heat our homes.
Usually, it’s the Congress that forces us to do things we don’t want to do, and thanks us by taking money directly from our paychecks before we even see them.
But here’s something to watch for.
In the coming months, your local congressional candidates will attempt to show us all their softer sides. However, have you noticed how down right arrogant and mean they can get when while on committees to testifying citizens? These candidates are acting for us now. Too bad they think so little of us they have to "act" in order to get elected.
Hire More Male News Directors
While there’s nothing wrong with having what could be a glut of females at the helm of many news broadcasts, there are many "takes" on news items that are getting real old, especially when "the children" are constantly interjected into the stories.
When a bridge collapses, how will it affect the children? When an assassination occurs overseas, how will it affect the children? When a new bill is introduced on Capitol Hill, how will it affect the children? When Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House, she surrounded herself with children, and it became apparent that all legislation would have them in mind.
Now while there’s nothing wrong with children (that is, until you have some of your own), some of us are getting tired of hearing about the effect some news item will have on "the children". Some of us just want to get the news. Whether or not it will affect the children or not will be up to people who have them.
Maybe if we place less public emphasis on them, they won’t act as if it’s all about them. If a news director or anchor is pregnant, that doesn’t mean we’ll all see a story through the prism of "How will it affect my child."
Just a suggestion.
Less Public Advertisements of ED
Ever notice how you can find more commercials, during primetime, about male member enhancement? Besides the fact that Elvis is probably rolling over in his grave due to the misuse of the song "Viva Las Vegas, I’m growing tired of all the ads during sporting events and early evening viewing for things that make you get bigger.
Seeing imagery of horny old people is kind of gross.
By Warner Todd Huston
On December 22nd a 69 year-old pro-life activist who was standing atop his automobile and protesting in front of the Hillcrest Abortion Clinic in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania was physically attacked by an abortion supporter and thrown to the ground with enough force to knock him unconscious. Doctors even worried for a time that the elderly man might perish from the attack. And here, nearly 7 days out from this attack, there aren’t any accounts of the attack in the MSM. As I searched for the story myself, I found two and only two Internet hits for it. Why the silence from the MSM? Can you imagine the MSM swarm that would have occurred if it had been a pro-lifer that attacked an abortion supporter? The cacophony would have been deafening if a pro-lifer had been the one to get violent.
The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property issued the first story to hit the net a few days ago. Also, a Catholic PRWire and media advisory from Catholic Online was released on the 28th. But the MSM has remained silent on the matter.
Here is the account from the TFP:
When Mr. Snell tried to counsel the woman, his words were cut short when the man became furious, jumped the fence and, in the words of Mr. McTernan, "leaped on the vehicle with Ed and catapulted him off of the vehicle and onto the ground." Mr. Snell hit his back and head on the pavement and was knocked unconscious.
His medical report outlines the extent of his injuries: "multiple trauma, right subarachnoid hemorrhage (bleeding in the area between the brain and the tissues that cover the brain), compression fractures of four vertebrae (T3, T4, T5 and T10), right scapula fracture and fracture of the fourth and fifth ribs." Before doctors were able to stop the bleeding in his head, they even feared Mr. Snell would die.
An elderly man almost dies from an attack by an abortion supporter and the MSM is mum.
By Warner Todd Huston
Last Sunday, from the pen of editorial page editor of the Seattle Times James Vesely, we got a pretty good indication of why the new media of the Internet is so swiftly taking over the traditional role of the old, dead tree media. One word describes it; arrogance. It is an arrogance of the assumed supremacy of the old media and the air of entitlement that it holds dear. It is the presumption that what they write is "truth," that newspapers are the arbiters of that truth, and that journalists are "democracy" personified and that without them we are naught but a "banana republic." And it is the sneering, discountenance with which they look upon the reading public as the great unwashed that has finally caught up with them. However, some are beginning to notice it and unless the dead tree media realizes this truth staring them in the face, they truly are a doomed industry.
Mr. Vesely wrongly imagines that Americans are not abandoning his beloved, old media in favor of the Internet because of the failed content of the old media. Vesely imagines that people are not "willingly turning from fiber to cyber" as a "replacement of … the methodology of reporting and editing" of the old media. Vesely thinks people are only turning to the Internet because it is faster and more "modern." He imagines that newspapers are "carefully edited" and that they speak truth and, that being true, people can’t possibly be turning away from his fellows because of content.
Here is is deluding himself. People are leaving the dead tree media in droves because they simply do not trust them anymore, their "methodology" has become corrupt and self-serving as well as ideologically homogenized all across the industry offering few avenues for differing opinion.
So, why are newspapers in decline? Amazingly, Vesley seems to imagine that the only reason newspapers are declining in circulation is because they are delivered by "a 13-year-old on a bicycle working after school." He thinks the method of delivery is the only reason the old media is in decline.
But what about that Internet, doohickey, anyway? What does Vesely think of it? It turns out he feels it is all just "opinions" that would "befuddle the finest espionage organization" to figure out. Vesely imagines that the Internet is nothing but "rumor."
Foremost, a decent newspaper is the enemy of rumor and a citizen of its place. Blogs are not the enemy of rumor, nor is talk radio or cable television. Rumor is not the substitute for truth, and it takes journalism to sift for truth.
Talk about clueless.
By Warner Todd Huston
The fields of DNA and gene manipulation research are incredibly exciting for the good that it can offer mankind. Imagine a day when the results of such research can assist mankind to treat previously untreatable diseases, maybe even prevent them? Wouldn’t it be tremendous to be able to alter the DNA of an unborn fetus to prevent its developing spina bifida or Down’s syndrome? Wouldn’t it be a Godsend if we could manipulate our genes in order to shut off the cancer cells that ravage us or rebuild broken spinal chords? Who would stand against such worthwhile gains in health, medicine and science? Of course, no caring human could oppose such work.
But that same work has its dark side and this is a subject that medical science is doing its level best to pretend does not exist. That dark side is not getting its due in the debate of the future of mankind through science. Unfortunately, it is not merely something to scoff at as unlikely because, for all our scientific knowledge, we are still, after all, men. Evil, selfishness, hatred and ignorance will remain with us whether we are free of cancer or know our full DNA sequence or not and those innate flaws inherent in man has, can and will corrupt the good that his science can do. The potential for evil is there no matter how wondrous that science can be.
The New York Times recently published a story about this very topic. Naturally, to further their own agenda, they only discussed a small portion of the potential evil that could result in the misuse of DNA research and left an awful lot of the debate unaddressed. In a story by Amy Harmon, the Times worried only abut racial prejudices being revived by DNA research ("In DNA Era, Worries About Revival of Prejudice") as that research begins to decode the small differences that accounts for skin color or other things that denote racial groups. From physical characteristics to propensity for race specific disease, DNA research is beginning to map these differences giving hope that, at least in the case of disease, those differences might lead to treatments and prevention. But, the Times worries that this research might also revive discrimination based on those differences. "The notion that race is more than skin deep," the Times reports, "could undermine principles of equal treatment and opportunity that have relied on the presumption that we are all fundamentally equal."
by Nancy Salvato
If there is one thing for certain in this world, it is when Jack Nicholson plays the male protagonist in a film, his performance will be outstanding. As McMurphy, in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, his impression on me is as compelling today –as it was over 30 years ago when I first watched him bring to consciousness the minds of assorted inmates staying on Nurse Ratched’s ward of the mental institution. The message I took away while watching McMurphy undermine Nurse Ratched’s authority over her unit -until she has him lobotomized, stands the test of time. Power hungry people will resort to any means necessary to maintain control. Although Nurse Ratched’s actions were extreme, her display taught me just how vulnerable people are if they are labeled mentally unstable or forfeit the responsibility of making decisions on their own behalf. Those placed in their charge are not necessarily looking out for them.
Inherent in writing and exposing one’s own ideas about terrorism (or the war against radical Islamism), the border threat, or political correctness, is the likelihood of being branded a right wing nut. Being labeled as such isn’t personally offensive (I’ve begun to grow my Alligator Skin) but there is the danger that being branded as such could chip away at my credibility, which is the whole idea behind such mudslinging. This is why it’s so important to be able to back up an argument with facts. This is extremely difficult in the face of a movement doing everything it can to shut down ideas which run counter to their own.
For example, let’s look at the Fairness Doctrine. In an editorial titled the Unfairness Doctrine, the editors of the National Review Online point out that even though Fairness Doctrine was not passed into law this time around, other forms of legislation could equally serve to stifle free speech. The liberal think tank "Center for American Progress," founded and run by former Clinton White House chief of staff John Podesta, has proposed there be new national and local limits on the number of radio stations one company can own, a de facto quota system to ensure that more women and minorities own radio stations, and that the government should require commercial owners who fail to abide by enforceable public interest obligations to pay a fee to support public broadcasting.
by Daniel Clark
You can tell that things are looking up in Iraq, because President Bush's enemies are having to delve deeper into the mothballs to come up with reasons to criticize him. One example of this is an Aug. 9th Houston Chronicle story by Julie Mason, in which she revives the fatuous argument that Bush spends too much time on vacation.
Citing numbers that had been compiled by a CBS reporter, Mason writes that Bush is only a couple weeks away from breaking Ronald Reagan's record for vacation days taken by a president. This assumes, ridiculously, that the President of the United States is no longer on duty when he leaves the White House. In reality, there is seldom any particular reason that the president must stay in Washington when Congress is out of session. It stands to reason, then, that Republican presidents would leave town more often, rather than remain in the midst of a hostile Washington press corps.
From the way that liberals talk about Bush's "vacations," you'd think that when he moved operations to his Crawford ranch, his work went undone. One imagines him returning to his desk to find one of those pink "While You Were Out" slips, saying something like, "Putin called. Said it was urgent, but you know how he is. Told him you'd gone fishing."
The headline of Mason's story dubs Bush "the vacation president," but the truth be known, President Clinton was more on vacation in the Oval Office than Bush has ever been in Crawford. For all we know, one of Clinton's many sordid trysts might have even involved a snorkel.
It was Clinton who said that the one thing he'd miss most about being president would be the White House movie theater. Any other president would have said something about the privilege of serving the American people, or maybe the dedication of his staff and secret servicemen, but leave it to Bill Clinton to take that question as an opportunity to audition for MTV's Cribs.
Washington, DC – The so-called "media reform" movement, which wants to check and dilute the power of conservative media, especially talk radio, includes members of communist groups openly dedicated to America's destruction, Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid discloses in a new column. Kincaid identifies them as members of the Communist Party USA, which was funded by the old Soviet Union, as well as the Revolutionary Communist Party, a group that follows the teachings of history's greatest mass murderer, Mao Tse-tung.
The Kincaid column is a follow-up to his exclusive report on the "National Conference on Media Reform," held in Memphis, Tennessee. The column, "The Communist-influenced 'Media Reform' Movement," and his January 15 special report, "The Plan to Silence Conservatives," are available at http://www.aim.org/.
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by Bob Parks
Those of you who’ve read my work over the years know I don’t trust what we loosely refer to as the "mainstream media." As we’re talking about human beings, we’re talking about people who have opinions on various issues. The problem is that those in that media have the power to shape an issue to suit an agenda based on those personal opinions. The discipline should be that personal opinions have no place in traditional news reporting.
Then again, reality is another thing.
A few years ago, USA Today came out with a piece that posed an interesting hypothetical: When is it okay to lie? Surely it would be okay to lie to avoid hurting people’s feelings. Tell your woman her outfit looks okay when you’d rather the outfit revealed more. Tell your kid the scribble that’s supposed to be your portrait looks great, and so on. It seemed like a genuine thought piece.
However, being the overly suspicious person I am, the events of the following weeks threw up some red flags.
The Clinton—Lewinsky scandal broke and people then said they understood why Bill lied under oath. He was sparing his wife the embarrassment. He was sparing the nation the embarrassment. The only fallacy with the reasoning was that Bill was supposedly thinking of someone other than himself.