|
|
| |
| Fri, Sep. 5, 2008 |  |
 |
|
||
| | That liberal media bias
Sunday, Dec 28, 2003 By David Sanders It is a fact of life that is as sure as a morning sunrise: There exists a liberal media bias in the mainstream media. This isn't a column lamenting the liberal domination of the nation's major media outlets; instead, I have come to celebrate it. It is important to point out that conservatives have made much progress in getting their point of view across in the media. It is easy to point to the success of Fox News and other program changes on 24-hour news channels, even the editors at the New York Times had the good judgment to hire David Brooks as a columnist. Revisiting media bias in 2003, the Media Research Center honors the press' uncontrollable tendencies with the "16th Annual Awards for the Year's Worst Reporting." The MRC and its panel of 46 talk-show hosts, magazine editors, columnists, editorial writers and media observers cite egregious and oftentimes unimaginative reporting from those who bring us the news. This year's events in Iraq afforded many in the mainstream media ana opportunity to show their true colors. Winning the "Pompous Peter Award for Jennings' Arrogant Condescension" was none other than Peter Jennings of ABC's "World News Tonight" for this closing statement last January: "This week we were surprised to see several hundred artists and writers walking through the streets of Baghdad to say thank you to Saddam Hussein. He had just increased their monthly financial support. Cynical, you could argue at this particular time, but the state has always supported the arts, and some of the most creative people in the Arab world have always been Iraqis. And whatever they think about Saddam Hussein in the privacy of their homes, on this occasion they were praising his defense of the homeland in the face of American threats." Taking home the "Romanticizing the Rabble Award for Glorifying Protesters" was former-KATV and current MSNBC reporter David Shuster for this closing statement from a February 2003 report: "The size of the demonstrators, at least here, at least in Europe, seems to underscore, Chris, that there are now perhaps two world superpowers. There's the United States and then there are those millions of people who took to the streets opposing U.S. policy." The "Media Suck Up Award" went to Barbara Walters for her June 2003 "Living History" special promoting Sen. Hillary Clinton's new book. Walters: "You became First Lady like no other First Lady before you. You had your own interests, you got involved in public policy. No First Lady had done that without being severely criticized. Did you realize what you were getting into? ... I don't think people realize how strong your faith is." The always-reliable Lesley Stahl of CBS News took home the "What Liberal Media? Award," with this interview with Cal Thomas: Stahl: "Today you have broadcast journalists who are avowedly conservative ... The voices that are being heard in broadcast media today, are far more - the ones who are being heard - are far more likely to be on the right and avowedly so, and therefore, more - almost stridently so, than what you're talking about." Thomas: "Can you name a conservative journalist at CBS News?" Stahl: "I don't know of anybody's political bias at CBS News ... We try very hard to get any opinion that we have out of our stories, and most of our stories are balanced." ABC's Carol Simpson was a runner-up for the "Fruitless Plains of Poverty Award" after this exchange with medical editor Tim Johnson on World News Tonight Sunday, lauding the idea of universal health care: Simpson: "Even though the U.S. spends twice as much per person as any other developed country on health care, the U.S. is the only developed country that fails to provide universal coverage for all its citizens ..." Johnson: "We have a country that wants to believe it is the best in everything, but until all of us embrace the idea that health care should be a right, not a privilege, our system cannot be glibly described as, quote, 'the best in the world.'" Despite ratings shifts, those who sit atop their New York City high-rises force-feeding viewers their perspective of the news believe themselves to be paragons of virtue guided only by the pursuit of accuracy and fairness, immune from any tendency toward bias, or so they think. ------ David Sanders writes twice weekly for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is DavidJSanders@aol.com. |
