The left has been consumed in recent days with the phone hacking scandal in England that ended The News of the World. The only reason this is even a story in the United States is because Rupert Murdoch owned News of the World. Liberals didn’t bat an eye when CBS ran with a story that came from manufactured evidence during Rathergate. What about the ABC’s hit piece of Food Lion or NBC ‘s faked crash-test footage? Really, the list goes on and on, not to mention the continuous stream of shenanigans in the public sector.
The tabloid press in Britain and in Europe generally is terrible. My experience following European press has come from following soccer transfer speculation every Summer. It’s gotten to the point that I just ignore it. The number of fake stories is maddening. The fact that Murdoch owns News of the World is meaningless. Charlie Cooke has a good take on the mindset of liberals who are fascinated by this story. Here’s a video from the publicity stunt outside of Murdoch’s home in New York:
Other than wishful thinking, this story has nothing to do with the American press or FOX News. Also, just a few months ago some liberals were praising Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. Whatever happended to hacking to “speak truth to power.” Apparently illegal activity is okay under the right circumstances and directed at the proper targets. Liberals are also comfortable with illegal leaks as long as they’re damaging to republicans and if they’re published by the New York Times.
Leave it to the left to become obsessed over a non-story.
Let the Distancing Begin: One of the complaints about Texas Governor Rick Perry is that he’s too close to Bush. Conveniently enough the New York Times and CBS is running a story that discusses a rift between the two camps. Well, isn’t that special? Hmm… maybe there’s something to all that Bilderberg stuff.
We Don’t Need No Stinking Empirical Facts: The brilliant Thomas Sowell has a great article up at Townhall entitled “Politics Versus Reality.” Sowell discusses the ever increasing problem or uninformed political discourse. How do you debate an opponent that wishes to remain willfully ignorant?
The same preference for talking points, and the same lack of interest in digging into the facts about realities, prevails today in discussions of whether to have a government-controlled medical system.
Since there are various countries, such as Canada and Britain, that have the kind of government-controlled medical systems that some Americans advocate, you might think that there would be great interest in the quality of medical care in these countries.
The data are readily available as to how many weeks or months people have to wait to see a primary care physician in such countries, and how many additional weeks or months they have to wait after they are referred to a surgeon or other specialist. There are data on how often their governments allow patients to receive the latest pharmaceutical drugs, as compared to how often Americans use such advanced medications.
But supporters of government medical care show virtually no interest in such realities. Their big talking point is that the life expectancy in the United States is not as long as in those other countries. End of discussion, as far as they are concerned.
When it comes to health care liberals are brain-dead. Their arguments are tired cliches. It’s almost impossible to break through the misinformation. Heath care as an entitlement is a religion and the libertarian position is the infidel.
Casey Anthony: I haven’t kept up with this story and I can’t even muster up a reason why anyone should care. Apparently a jury of her peers acquitted her. That’s all I need to know. Now FOX News can get back to covering something that’s actually important.
Government Intervention: The shocking conclusion from CNN is that the housing market won’t recover until it hits bottom. Of course it won’t reach bottom as long as the Federal Government keeps intervening in the market.
Tasty at the ballpark, but downright disgusting when packaged as news.
There are various ways to describe the traditional media in America. By traditional, I mean the media that dominated American newsgathering and dissemination for most of its history, first with the metropolitan daily papers, then radio and finally weekly newsmagazines and the big three television networks: ABC, NBC and CBS.
To some degree, the first all-news cable network, CNN, was and is part of this traditional media mix. But it was the forerunner of the New Media, which has successfully fragmented the monopolistic hold traditional media had on reporting news.
The most common term used to describe traditional media is Mainstream. This misses the mark, however, because it is increasingly irrelevant and no longer in the mainstream of American life. Conservatives derisively refer to it as the Lamestream Media, the Dinosaur Media and the Drive-By Media, among others. Liberals, on the other hand, tend to hang onto Mainstream. I suppose it’s comforting to hearken back to a day when news was controlled by the elite few whose opinions were developed in the vacuum of academia, Manhattan, Chicago and Los Angeles.
The left pulled together every ounce of its faux outrage when it learned that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. contributed $1 million to the Republican Governors Association. I wonder how they feel about the fact that 88 percent of 2008 contributions by TV network execs, writers and reporters went to Obama and Democrats?
The Democratic total of $1,020,816 was given by 1,160 employees of the three major broadcast television networks, with an average contribution of $880.
By contrast, only 193 of the employees contributed to Republican candidates and campaign committees, for a total of $142,863. The average Republican contribution was $744.
This is hardly a shocking revelation to anyone who pays attention to the news on any network beside FOX. Most journalists lean left and despite their best efforts to remain objective their coverage tilts left. That’s why the Washington Post is so desperate for a race riot or anything they can cover that’s damaging to conservatives. I wonder how much these agents of change give to charity in comparison? Hmmm…
The level of press the mainstream media has devoted to Obama is unprecedented. The lovefest began on day one and it’s never stopped.
The nonpartisan research group Center for Media and Public Affairs along with California’s Chapman University released a study that found the nightly newscasts devoted 27 hours, 44 minutes to Pres. Obama’s presidency in his first 50 days. That compares to 7 hours, 42 minutes for Pres. George W. Bush and 15 hours, 2 minutes for Pres. Bill Clinton during the first 50 days of their first terms.
Not only has Obama gotten more coverage, but that coverage has been more positive than his predecessors.
On the ABC, CBS, and NBC evening newscasts, 58% of all evaluations of the president and his policies have been favorable, while 42% were unfavorable. That compares with 33% positive in the comparable period of Bush’s tenure and 44% positive for Pres. Clinton.
Wow, the press loves Obama even more than Clinton. The first 50 days of the Bush administration occurred in rather peaceful times. The economy was entering a small economic recession, but nothing close to what we’re facing today. That being said it would make logical sense that Obama would face harsher criticism during these perilous times than Bush received. Well, the press is basically an arm of the White House, except for Fox.
The first half hour of Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier,” which the study says most closely resembles the network evening newscasts, devoted 10 hours 24 minutes to the Obama administration, nearly as much airtime as CBS gave him.
But Fox News stands apart from its competitors here – only 13% of comments* were considered favorable. On ABC, 57% of the comments were favorable, compared to 58% for CBS and 61% for NBC.
Fox is definitely less friendly to Obama. Basically the idea of “objective journalism” is over. Each network is slowly but surely moving towards a niche audience. Fox was the answer to market dominated by liberal news coverage. Now that Fox has exploited this market MSNBC has tailored their news to liberals. That leaves CNN, ABC, and CBS in the lurch. They were already tilted to the left. What do they do now?
Recent Comments