Bang the Drum Slowly

Good day. I working on very little sleep here, so I've already laid blame for the moment you get done reading this and say,"What was that?"

...Ok. I honestly can't believe I'm returning to this subject, I have truly believed each time I address it, that would be it. Like here. As you are aware, I find the mainstream media increasingly biased and partisan. It becomes more apparent that they have chosen a side, but more importantly, they can't keep their opinion out of their reporting. Actually, I wish that was the case. Now they have taken to shaping the news and changing their standard operating procedure based on which candidate is talking and rely on it...remember this? And now we have this masterpiece.

In a nutshell, "...ABCNEWS Political Director Mark Halperin admonishes ABC staff: During coverage of Democrat Kerry and Republican Bush not to "reflexively and artificially hold both sides 'equally' accountable." So, I guess everyone else has been right, and I've been wrong. The media does treat ideological opposites equal in spirit, just not in a "reflexively and artificially" viewed reality. Are you serious? Once again, the fact that a high ranking member of a major news organization would have these sort of feelings is not the surprise. His willingness to write it down and boldness in distributing it is. It brings me back to the pervasive world view describe in
Bias by Bernard Goldberg. Basically, the point-of-view is so ingrained that most members of the media don't ever stop to realize that there is a differing opinion. It's not necessarily willful, although in this case it think the manifestation is "quite grave", but essentially a myopic ignorance. A belief that there's no need to represent or consider an opposing view because the thought of there existing a human who might hold that view is as foreign as espousing the health benefits of cream gravy. (And no, I don't know any either, but I'll never quit looking.)

Of course, I also believe that those who choose not the regard this as a problem, also have a problem. I believe that a pillar to keeping us free, to protecting democracy and ensuring that this country continues to employ a respectable government is the sharing of information, especially the practices of federal entities. But when these activities, or the motives for these activities are painted by the media in a certain light, without respect paid to other possibilities...when the press makes the decision what is right or wrong and then reports a story in an attempt to support it's belief or to gain backers; that degrades liberty...my ability to make the proper choice at the polls. If the information has been filtered to the point that the truth is as unbelievable as the lie is believably, we've got a problem. But really it doesn't even need to get to that point. If we can't trust the media to report the news, and not someone's version of the news, then we can't trust anything they report

Well, the seed is taking root. Isolated incidents don't happened once a week. These events are not the fruit of accident or misunderstanding. They are fundamentally wrong for they fly in the face of what the art of journalism should be. Political "journalists" are no longer viewed as purveyors of truth but something a half-rung above the movie critic...except the critic can't effect the outcome of the movie.