Unbiased media: oxymoron of the era
Outlets serve as mouthpieces for the left and the right
Where can you go to get accurate, timely, unbiased information about what’s happening in America and the world? Where can you find news reported in depth and in context, without spin? Nowhere. An educated populace and a free press are essential for the preservation of a free society, Thomas Jefferson said. “If a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was & never will be,” he said. “Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that be limited without danger of losing it.”
Liberty is on life support chiefly because (most of) those responsible for the education of our children are not teaching them what they need to know to be good citizens, and because so many in the news media are lap dogs, not watchdogs.
They’re not getting the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth from ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, national newspapers such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, Americans realize. The news media are intentionally biased, said 70 percent of respondents to a survey conducted last year by USA Today and the Newseum Institute, a 15 percent increase over the year before.
In a survey conducted this spring by the Media Insight Project, just 6 percent had “a lot” of confidence in the news media, 52 percent had “only some confidence,” 41 percent had “hardly any.”
Many journalists abuse trust by pushing agendas. They strive to shape public opinion rather than to inform it. The vast majority of presstitutes shill for Democrats and leftwing causes. But some of the most egregious offenses recently have been committed by the “conservative” news media — Fox News, talk radio and Breitbart news.
Media bias “is the crisis of democracy,” said Democratic pollster Pat Caddell.
Most deplorable is the outright lie. After the police shooting of Sylville Smith triggered rioting in Milwaukee, CNN edited from the remarks of his sister her call to burn down the suburbs so they could say Sherrelle Smith was “calling for peace.”
Most obvious is the double standard. President George W. Bush was heavily criticized for not going immediately to inspect the flooding in Louisiana from Hurricane Katrina. But President Barack Obama has largely been given a pass for not interrupting his vacation to inspect the flooding in Louisiana from this month’s torrential rains.
When a Republican politician does something bad, his or her party affiliation typically is in the lead. When a Democrat does something bad, party affiliation usually isn’t mentioned until deeper in the story, sometimes isn’t mentioned at all.
When a Republican does something bad, that’s the story. But when a Democrat does something bad, the story is the Republican reaction. “Republicans pounce.” Media bias shows up most often “in what they are omitting, the facts that they will not tell the American people,” Mr. Caddell said.
News media bias is chiefly why voters have such an ugly choice in November. Donald Trump got the equivalent of $2.8 billion in media coverage during the primaries — far more than all other GOP candidates combined, nearly all of it uncritical.
Since he won the nomination, coverage of Mr. Trump in the “mainstream” media has been nothing but critical. Hillary Clinton’s arguably greater sins have drawn less attention.
Conservatives don’t trust “news” the “mainstream” media provide, but the so-called “conservative” media are more deeply in the tank for Mr. Trump than the “mainstream” media are for Ms. Clinton. When the news media are biased, the public is misinformed and more sharply polarized. Both are inimical to democracy.
Ideally, there should be a newscast both Democrats and Republicans could trust the information presented is accurate, balanced, timely and in context. No one who has an agenda other than the truth has any business being in journalism.