The Bernoulli Effect

Since McCarthy, media has been skewed liberal and it does not appear that this trend is going to change easily. Look at how much liberals hate and cite one cable news channel. Out of all the media outlets, you hear liberals pine on and on about Fox News. Even if this one cable channel WAS skewed conservative, why is that such a problem for liberals? They pretty much own all the other news channels lock, stock and barrel.

However, when liberals are harping about the devastating effects of this one cable channel, if you mention certain inequities in the presentation of news by other networks you get your ass handed to you! Since I’m used to the liberal spat, I’ll reiterate a few of the more egregious faults of the MSM in the 2004 election:

1) Dan Rather: less than two months prior to the election, Rather leads CBS Evening News with an obviously falsified document that was accusatory to the President’s military record. Compound that with the fact that contact had been made between CBS Evening News and the Kerry campaign, and I’d call that a pretty clear-cut advantage in the media.

In my opinion, this was an attempt by the Kerry campaign to combat the (easily discarded by liberals) claims from the Swift Boat Veterans that Kerry was, in fact, a total douchebag. Without the help of the AP, Boston Globe or CBS News, this group was causing quite the ruckus for Mr. Heinz-Kerry (he ought to just take the Heinz name - I mean he’s spending the old man’s money). It seems that “questions” of Bush’s service made its way to ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC as a rebuttal to the claims of the Swift Boat Veterans. I’d call that a pretty clear-cut advantage in the media.

While a very small group of Veterans (who have campaigned with Kerry for over two decades) claim him to be a military dynamo, over 250 Veterans including men Kerry served with as well as Kerry’s superior officers launched a public challenge to the candidate’s version of Vietnam. Why is it that you never hear it that way on the news? From media stories, you’d think that Veterans against Kerry are a small partisan group and Veterans for Kerry are a vast group of everyday people. This is not the case at all, and I’d call that a pretty clear-cut advantage in the media.

2) The Economy: democrats in concert with the media pounded about the economy over and over again. I couldn’t even begin to estimate how many times I heard Kerry state with conviction that Bush was the first President to lose jobs since Herbert Hoover. Now that the election is over, we find out that this is blatantly false. I heard that this “fact” from Kerry was false only one day on the news. During the campaign, I heard the Herbert Hoover bullshit every day for more than a month. I’d call that a pretty clear-cut advantage in the media. Hell, after everything I’ve covered so far (a fraction of what I could write about), I’d call this collusion.

3) RNC Convention Coverage: the main media outlets left their enthusiasm at the DNC convention along with their statements of DNC speakers being like “rock-stars”. Less than 24 prior to the RNC, Tom Brokaw warned his viewers that Republicans mostly have “hard right” positions, and that their use of three “middle of the road” speakers was “the political equivalent of a popular con game in [New York] - three-card Monte.” He went on to say “that’s a game in which the dealer almost always wins.” Yeah, pretty objective on Brokaw’s part, eh? The next night, equally objective Dan Rather asks his viewers “will voters buy it?”

But liberals bitch about one cable news channel?

4) Hard Statistics: The Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) at George Mason University conducts studies of media bias. The major findings:

John Kerry's positive evaluations (58%) versus negative evaluations (42%) post-labor day is the best press any general election candidate has received. Conversely, Bush's evaluations were 36% positive versus 64% negative.

In the month of October, Kerry's evaluations were 77% positive compared to Bush's 34% positive.

Furthermore, this is nothing new! In the past seven elections, democrats received "significantly better" press in four and roughly even press in two. Only one election (1988) fared better for the Republicans.

Also notable is the worst press ever which was for Ronald Reagan in his 1984 re-election bid with 91% negative! Until the 2004 election, Mondale was the best press record holder with 56% positive.

What do I extrapolate from this? It seems that when a solid and effective Republican campaigns for re-election, the press becomes the propaganda outlet for democrats.

Yet still, liberals cry foul when anyone claims the media is biased.

Great summation...I remember some conservative, maybe Rich Lowry, talking about the conservative tilt of Fox News and the blogs (which at that time still were somewhat conservative on balance). He said, "OK, fine. If a liberal wants to trade me Fox News, the blogs, and talk radio--in exchange for the NYT, LA Times, Washington Post, CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS, Time Magazine and Newsweek--you better believe I'll take that trade!"