The Journolist excerpts are more than a smoking gun. They are a crime scene. The gun is smoking alright, but there before our very eyes , also lies the corpse of feigned objectivity, dead from a self-inflicted wound. It’s heart may still be beating, but it’s fading fast. The guilty party’s attempts at pre-emptive damage control reek of desperation. Their protestations that comments were taken out of context are laughable, because that’s what mainstream journalists do! They take quotes out of context.
The mainstream media are masters of hyping the incriminating quote, the dramatic soundbite over the measured one that closer approaches the truth. How rich is it, that the barrel of the gun they’ve used to damage or destroy so many political lives, so many opposing points of view, has been turned inward? Forgive my schadenfreude. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Karma is a bitch. What goes around comes around.
I’ve tried from months in my Daily Caller pieces to demonstrate the extent of liberal bias in newsrooms across the country. I could do it a million times more with anecdotal observations — here are a few I’ve not mentioned in previous pieces:
- The million dollar anchorman who openly and prominently displayed a ” Bush lied, people died” sign in his office
- The longtime respected newsman who screamed a joyful, “Yeah!” when the OJ verdict was read
- My news director boss who openly vented his distaste before an assembled group of reporters at having to attend a dinner with conservative business leaders
- Another news director boss who required all reporters to produce glowing puff pieces on a far-left Washington special interest group.
- The overheard, “Yuck!” or sneer from any number of colleagues whenever Sarah Palin, Dick Cheney, George Bush or other conservatives appear on some monitor in the newsroom, studio or make-up room.
All those anecdotes are disturbing, but they pale in comparison to the Journolist entries because that’s straight from the horse’s mouth — or better yet — horse’s ass. These are the words of journalists and academics who, in the safety of their self-selected clubhouse, simply ignored a maxim of any newsroom, or for that matter any office in the internet age — never write what can be blown up on a three by five foot poster for a jury to see. They did it, and the jury in the court of public opinion is leering.
And now, because of this very public crime, look for the bias of mainstream media to go back into the shadows. They’ll be careful to hide such ostentatious displays of their favoritism. But it’ll be there. Errors of commission will simply turn into errors of omission. As the mid-term elections approach in November, watch the infrequency with which the mainstream media reports these following issues and contrast them with how often they were reported during the Bush Administration. In my own newsroom, the contrast is already profound.
During the Bush Administration we reported presidential poll numbers probably every week. In almost two years of the Obama presidency, I can recall perhaps two or three presidential popularity polls on our newscast.
During the Bush years, progress — or lack there-of — in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars was reported on an almost daily basis. Today, mention of the war is seldom made. Death tolls from the wars were also commonly reported, then. Today, much less so. Hate crimes were a common story during the Bush years. Fake-hate crimes were never reported, in my recollection, if they reflected poorly on a liberal cause. They were commonly reported if they reflected poorly on a conservative cause. For example, the case of a McCain campaign worker who falsely claimed to have been beaten and who scrawled a backwards “B” on her face, was given wide coverage. The case of a radical transgendered gay rights activist who smashed windows at a Colorado Democratic Party headquarters was not.
Death threats or posters at protests that suggested or portrayed the death of the president were, in my memory, never reported during the Bush years, despite being commonplace at anti-war protests. They are routinely reported now in the Obama presidency. Similarly, posters that portray the president as Hitler (Bushitler for example) were never reported then, nor were posters that portrayed the president with simian features. They are routinely reported now.
Compare and contrast the mainstream media’s coverage of presidential golf, vacations, parties, appointments, first ladies, the follow-up coverage of legislation and rule-making, and of foreign policy. You’ll see absurd, blatant differences that betray the bias. You’ll also see that something is beginning to stink. It’s the corpse of the mainstream media — decomposing on the front page of The Daily Caller.