Obamanomics

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Media's Presidential Bias and Decline

Media's Presidential Bias and Decline

Columnist Michael Malone Looks at Slanted Election Coverage and the Reasons Why

Column By MICHAEL S. MALONE

Oct. 24, 2008 —

The traditional media are playing a very, very dangerous game -- with their readers, with the Constitution and with their own fates.

The sheer bias in the print and television coverage of this election campaign is not just bewildering, but appalling. And over the last few months I've found myself slowly moving from shaking my head at the obvious one-sided reporting, to actually shouting at the screen of my television and my laptop computer.

But worst of all, for the last couple weeks, I've begun -- for the first time in my adult life -- to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living. A few days ago, when asked by a new acquaintance what I did for a living, I replied that I was "a writer," because I couldn't bring myself to admit to a stranger that I'm a journalist.

You need to understand how painful this is for me. I am one of those people who truly bleeds ink when I'm cut. I am a fourth-generation newspaperman. As family history tells it, my great-grandfather was a newspaper editor in Abilene, Kan., during the last of the cowboy days, then moved to Oregon to help start the Oregon Journal (now the Oregonian).

My hard-living -- and when I knew her, scary -- grandmother was one of the first women reporters for the Los Angeles Times. And my father, though profoundly dyslexic, followed a long career in intelligence to finish his life (thanks to word processors and spellcheckers) as a very successful freelance writer. I've spent 30 years in every part of journalism, from beat reporter to magazine editor. And my oldest son, following in the family business, so to speak, earned his first national byline before he earned his drivers license.

So, when I say I'm deeply ashamed right now to be called a "journalist," you can imagine just how deep that cuts into my soul.

Now, of course, there's always been bias in the media. Human beings are biased, so the work they do, including reporting, is inevitably colored. Hell, I can show you 10 different ways to color variations of the word "said" -- muttered, shouted, announced, reluctantly replied, responded, etc. -- to influence the way a reader will apprehend exactly the same quote. We all learn that in Reporting 101, or at least in the first few weeks working in a newsroom.

But what we are also supposed to learn during that same apprenticeship is to recognize the dangerous power of that technique, and many others, and develop built-in alarms against them.

But even more important, we are also supposed to be taught that even though there is no such thing as pure, Platonic objectivity in reporting, we are to spend our careers struggling to approach that ideal as closely as possible.

That means constantly challenging our own prejudices, systematically presenting opposing views and never, ever burying stories that contradict our own world views or challenge people or institutions we admire. If we can't achieve Olympian detachment, than at least we can recognize human frailty -- especially in ourselves.

Reporting Bias

For many years, spotting bias in reporting was a little parlor game of mine, watching TV news or reading a newspaper article and spotting how the reporter had inserted, often unconsciously, his or her own preconceptions. But I always wrote it off as bad judgment and lack of professionalism, rather than bad faith and conscious advocacy.

Sure, being a child of the '60s I saw a lot of subjective "New" Journalism, and did a fair amount of it myself, but that kind of writing, like columns and editorials, was supposed to be segregated from "real" reporting, and, at least in mainstream media, usually was. The same was true for the emerging blogosphere, which by its very nature was opinionated and biased.

But my complacent faith in my peers first began to be shaken when some of the most admired journalists in the country were exposed as plagiarists, or worse, accused of making up stories from whole cloth.

I'd spent my entire professional career scrupulously pounding out endless dreary footnotes and double-checking sources to make sure that I never got accused of lying or stealing someone else's work -- not out of any native honesty, but out of fear: I'd always been told to fake or steal a story was a firing offense & indeed, it meant being blackballed out of the profession.

And yet, few of those worthies ever seemed to get fired for their crimes -- and if they did they were soon rehired into even more prestigious jobs. It seemed as if there were two sets of rules: one for us workaday journalists toiling out in the sticks, and another for folks who'd managed, through talent or deceit, to make it to the national level.

Meanwhile, I watched with disbelief as the nation's leading newspapers, many of whom I'd written for in the past, slowly let opinion pieces creep into the news section, and from there onto the front page. Personal opinions and comments that, had they appeared in my stories in 1979, would have gotten my butt kicked by the nearest copy editor, were now standard operating procedure at the New York Times, the Washington Post, and soon after in almost every small town paper in the U.S.

But what really shattered my faith -- and I know the day and place where it happened -- was the war in Lebanon three summers ago. The hotel I was staying at in Windhoek, Namibia, only carried CNN, a network I'd already learned to approach with skepticism. But this was CNN International, which is even worse.

I sat there, first with my jaw hanging down, then actually shouting at the TV, as one field reporter after another reported the carnage of the Israeli attacks on Beirut, with almost no corresponding coverage of the Hezbollah missiles raining down on northern Israel. The reporting was so utterly and shamelessly biased that I sat there for hours watching, assuming that eventually CNNi would get around to telling the rest of the story & but it never happened.

The Presidential Campaign

But nothing, nothing I've seen has matched the media bias on display in the current presidential campaign.

Republicans are justifiably foaming at the mouth over the sheer one-sidedness of the press coverage of the two candidates and their running mates. But in the last few days, even Democrats, who have been gloating over the pass -- no, make that shameless support -- they've gotten from the press, are starting to get uncomfortable as they realize that no one wins in the long run when we don't have a free and fair press.

I was one of the first people in the traditional media to call for the firing of Dan Rather -- not because of his phony story, but because he refused to admit his mistake -- but, bless him, even Gunga Dan thinks the media is one-sided in this election.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those people who think the media has been too hard on, say, Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin, by rushing reportorial SWAT teams to her home state of Alaska to rifle through her garbage. This is the big leagues, and if she wants to suit up and take the field, then Gov. Palin better be ready to play.

The few instances where I think the press has gone too far -- such as the Times reporter talking to prospective first lady Cindy McCain's daughter's MySpace friends -- can easily be solved with a few newsroom smackdowns and temporary repostings to the Omaha bureau.

No, what I object to (and I think most other Americans do as well) is the lack of equivalent hardball coverage of the other side -- or worse, actively serving as attack dogs for the presidential ticket of Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Joe Biden, D-Del.

If the current polls are correct, we are about to elect as president of the United States a man who is essentially a cipher, who has left almost no paper trail, seems to have few friends (that at least will talk) and has entire years missing out of his biography.

That isn't Sen. Obama's fault: His job is to put his best face forward. No, it is the traditional media's fault, for it alone (unlike the alternative media) has had the resources to cover this story properly, and has systematically refused to do so.

Why, for example to quote the lawyer for Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., haven't we seen an interview with Sen. Obama's grad school drug dealer -- when we know all about Mrs. McCain's addiction? Are Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko that hard to interview? All those phony voter registrations that hard to scrutinize? And why are Sen. Biden's endless gaffes almost always covered up, or rationalized, by the traditional media?

Joe the Plumber

The absolute nadir (though I hate to commit to that, as we still have two weeks before the election) came with Joe the Plumber.

Middle America, even when they didn't agree with Joe, looked on in horror as the press took apart the private life of an average person who had the temerity to ask a tough question of a presidential candidate. So much for the standing up for the little man. So much for speaking truth to power. So much for comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, and all of those other catchphrases we journalists used to believe we lived by.

I learned a long time ago that when people or institutions begin to behave in a matter that seems to be entirely against their own interests, it's because we don't understand what their motives really are. It would seem that by so exposing their biases and betting everything on one candidate over another, the traditional media is trying to commit suicide -- especially when, given our currently volatile world and economy, the chances of a successful Obama presidency, indeed any presidency, is probably less than 50/50.

Furthermore, I also happen to believe that most reporters, whatever their political bias, are human torpedoes & and, had they been unleashed, would have raced in and roughed up the Obama campaign as much as they did McCain's. That's what reporters do. I was proud to have been one, and I'm still drawn to a good story, any good story, like a shark to blood in the water.

So why weren't those legions of hungry reporters set loose on the Obama campaign? Who are the real villains in this story of mainstream media betrayal?

The editors. The men and women you don't see; the people who not only decide what goes in the paper, but what doesn't; the managers who give the reporters their assignments and lay out the editorial pages. They are the real culprits.

Bad Editors

Why? I think I know, because had my life taken a different path, I could have been one: Picture yourself in your 50s in a job where you've spent 30 years working your way to the top, to the cockpit of power & only to discover that you're presiding over a dying industry. The Internet and alternative media are stealing your readers, your advertisers and your top young talent. Many of your peers shrewdly took golden parachutes and disappeared. Your job doesn't have anywhere near the power and influence it did when your started your climb. The Newspaper Guild is too weak to protect you any more, and there is a very good chance you'll lose your job before you cross that finish line, 10 years hence, of retirement and a pension.

In other words, you are facing career catastrophe -- and desperate times call for desperate measures. Even if you have to risk everything on a single Hail Mary play. Even if you have to compromise the principles that got you here. After all, newspapers and network news are doomed anyway -- all that counts is keeping them on life support until you can retire.

And then the opportunity presents itself -- an attractive young candidate whose politics likely matches yours, but more important, he offers the prospect of a transformed Washington with the power to fix everything that has gone wrong in your career.

With luck, this monolithic, single-party government will crush the alternative media via a revived fairness doctrine, re-invigorate unions by getting rid of secret votes, and just maybe be beholden to people like you in the traditional media for getting it there.

And besides, you tell yourself, it's all for the good of the country &

This is the opinion of the columnist and in no way reflects the opinion of ABC News.

Michael S. Malone is one of the nation's best-known technology writers. He has covered Silicon Valley and high-tech for more than 25 years, beginning with the San Jose Mercury News as the nation's first daily high-tech reporter. His articles and editorials have appeared in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, the Economist and Fortune, and for two years he was a columnist for The New York Times. He was editor of Forbes ASAP, the world's largest-circulation business-tech magazine, at the height of the dot-com boom. Malone is the author or co-author of a dozen books, notably the best-selling "Virtual Corporation." Malone has also hosted three public television interview series, and most recently co-produced the celebrated PBS miniseries on social entrepreneurs, "The New Heroes." He has been the ABCNews.com "Silicon Insider" columnist since 2000.

Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

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Commentary

Mr. Malone, an honest journalist, (gee, that's almost a contradiction in terms) has correctly assessed the situation. Maybe he and Bernard Goldberg could get together and actually create an honest and informative publication of some sort.

Let the word go forth to the executive suites of media organizations across the land - keep on with this infernal bilge that you allow your lackeys to spew forth on a constant basis and you will witness an even further erosion of your circulation and / or viewership. Smaller numbers of readers/ viewers means you can't charge advertisers as much i..e decreased revenues. Decreased revenues mean smaller paychecks or maybe even NO paychecks.

This message should also be heeded by the executives of the firms that advertise in the various media. The American public can always decide that they are not going to support your firms and buy other products. Lower sales = lower profits = smaller paychecks

.In summary, message to all members of "management" whether you are CEO, CFO, VP of News, Managing Editor, Assignment Editor, etc. - if you keep on the current path you will be stabbing yourselves in your wallets.

Benz Speaks aka "The Idiotorial"

Benz Speaks aka "The Idiotorial"

If you think that what you get from the various "news media" is the "truth", the "whole truth" and "nothing but the truth."You are sadly mistaken. The "news" that you get is modified, distorted, hidden or eliminated by the various "news" outlets as dictated by owners, major advertisers or government entities as needed. Three examples come readily to mind. One has to do with the non-coverage of Prince Harry in Afghanistan. The other two have to do with people that have recently spoken out on the controversial topic of UFOs. One of these was a resident scholar at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. The other was a reporter at a small newspaper in Texas. I could go on and on, but why should I. I think you get the picture.

Crossing The Rubicon: Breaking The Fake News Trance

by Neil Kramer

The phrase ‘Crossing the Rubicon’ is a metaphor for proceeding past a point of no return. It originates from 49 BC when Julius Caesar directed his legions south across the river Rubicon (a traditional barrier between the Roman province of ‘Cisalpine Gaul’ and Italy proper) towards ancient Rome in defiance of the Roman Senate. Upon crossing the river, Caesar is reported to have shouted "Alea iacta est" ... the die is cast!

In terms of the awakening process, Crossing the Rubicon is a key revelatory stage when you realize, beyond any doubt, that the government is NOT your friend. The stark recognition that you have been living in a false paradigm created by someone else begins to sink in. It is here, at this bleak philosophical crossroads, where most people experience such a disturbing degree of

cognitive dissonance, that they instinctively turn back. Too much to process and the implications are huge. So even knowing that there is a greater truth on the horizon, they choose instead to return to the Control System, to the Village, with all its securities and comfortable certainties.

“You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? [Takes a bite of steak]. Ignorance is bliss.”

Abandon Self-Limitation All Ye Who Enter Here

Journalist Nick Davies has arrived at the shores of the Rubicon. He’s currently causing quite a stir in UK media circles. His article in the Independent sums things up nicely -

How the spooks took over the news. Essentially reflections from his book Flat Earth News, Davies illustrates how “shadowy intelligence agencies are pumping out black propaganda to manipulate public opinion – and the media simply swallow it wholesale.” It’s really energizing to observe how this information can land slap bang in the middle of the mainstream outlets. Without doubt, it reaches people and helps to consolidate awareness of how easily the news is skewed towards a pre-determined message. Even more interestingly, Davies also suggests who the perpetrators are and why they’re doing it. Sure, he’s selling a book – but his information is credible (according to my research), and after listening to a recent interview with him, you can tell it is also heartfelt.

In the Guardian, Davies describes how

Our media have become mass producers of distortion and he evidences this with clear, unambiguous examples. He convincingly delivers the message that “the mass media generally are no longer a reliable source of information.” That is, for those who need any more convincing. Regardless, he is pretty much a lone voice taking an admirable and revolutionary stance against hordes of supercilious hacks.

Davies is careful to characterize the problem as a structural thing; it’s not really about attacking individual journalists. He points to the momentous change of press ownership as the pivotal event responsible for mutating quality news into fake news. Switching from the historic patriarchal proprietors to the mega corporations, like News International owned by Rupert Murdoch’s

News Corp. We know that the raison d’être of the corporations is to make money. Quality and truth are quite irrelevant. So over a short period, Davies believes that the instinctive logic of commercialism gradually replaced the objective logic of journalism. The consequences were devastating for the integrity of impartial news reporting. The corporate ownership of news has now all but destroyed the principle of truth telling by grossly politicizing the news agenda and drastically reducing the actual time available for journalists to do their jobs. This tends to propagate churnalism (bad journalism; journalists that churn out rewrites of press releases) and hence bias. And we’re not talking about the gutter press here. We’re talking ‘quality’ newspapers.

Davies has unearthed some incredibly damning information. “I commissioned research from specialists at Cardiff University, who surveyed more than 2000 UK news stories from the four quality dailies (Times, Telegraph, Guardian, Independent) and the Daily Mail. They found two striking things. First, when they tried to trace the origins of their "facts", they discovered that only 12% of the stories were wholly composed of material researched by reporters. With 8% of the stories, they just couldn't be sure. The remaining 80%, they found, were wholly, mainly or partially constructed from second-hand material, provided by news agencies and by the public relations industry. Second, when they looked for evidence that these "facts" had been thoroughly checked, they found this was happening in only 12% of the stories. The implication of those two findings is truly alarming. Where once journalists were active gatherers of news, now they have generally become mere passive processors of unchecked, second-hand material, much of it contrived by PR to serve some political or commercial interest. Not journalists, but churnalists. An industry whose primary task is to filter out falsehood has become so vulnerable to manipulation that it is now involved in the mass production of falsehood, distortion and propaganda.”

The news is horseshit. This can no longer be construed as unconventional, activist opinion anymore – it is plain, well evidenced, undeniable fact. We must seriously discipline ourselves (and those we care about) to stop being suckered by what we see on BBC & CNN, and by what we read in The Times or The Post. A far better alternative is to seek out one’s own news. Believe nothing unless you have done your own research. Use the Internet. Practice being a prudent and discerning researcher; employ equal measures of intuition and critical judgement at every turn. And remember, the Internet was not even widely available before 1994. There were no other easily accessible alternative news sources. You got your news from the TV and the paper or you got nothing. You could haul your ass down to a decent public library and spend a few days trawling through archive newspapers and microfilm. But rather unlikely. So now the Internet is here… use it.

The Matrix: It Just Works

Nick Davies has figured out that the media is a propaganda machine and there never was a golden age of independent, equitable journalism. However, Davies appears unaware (as most people are) of the sheer penetration of the Control System. For example, he states that [after 911] “For the first time in human history, there is a concerted strategy to manipulate global perception.”

To students of the esoteric and the transcendent, it is elementary lesson #1 that the Control System’s containment techniques have been in place from the very beginning. Thousands of years of deception and suppression. Though that is rather a mind-bending stretch for those without a basic grounding in the hidden history of mankind. You have to digest the works of a few dozen alternate historians and arcane researchers (employing the proper research techniques of course) to begin to understand that the real strands of history are revealed through esoteric symbols and the traditions of ancient mystery schools. The official history books and encyclopaedias give only a very limited, surface level of data. You have to dig deeper.

Even though Davies is eloquently and accurately proclaiming media collusion in a government/spook sponsored programme of mass deception – the public sort of don’t care. And that is the genius of the Control System: its ability to channel apathy. It is not enough to demonstrate that our governments are corrupt. Most people already know that. Sometimes Joe public might initially be shocked at the squalid details of exactly how crooked our governments are - but it’s still not going to shift the train tracks from the habitual circular layout. Work food tv sleep… work food tv sleep. I foresee a time when it will be proven beyond reasonable doubt that 911 was the work of a cabal of CIA, MI6 & Mossad agents conspiring with senior figures in the US government. Nothing to do with Arab terrorists. And guess what? No one will care. A few politicians and military personnel will go to jail. Enough time passes and people don’t care. They forget. They’re watching American Idol and 24. Everyone knows something is fishy about 911 but what to do about it. Who gives a damn that we’re still illegally occupying Iraq? And what are we doing in Afghanistan exactly? Did the American military lie about Iranian gunboats harassing warships in the Strait Of Hormuz? Whatever, let's watch Prison Break.

Ever since the days of Nixon and the egregious Kissinger, anyone who has kept an eye on politics has been aware that conspiracy and corruption are standard government practices. Assassinations and espionage are the staple diet of operational agencies like MI6 and CIA. Any

ridiculous claims to the contrary do not stand up for long. Amidst the tiresome Princess Diana courtroom charade (she was executed end of story), Ian Burnett QC, for the coroner, asked former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove the following question: "During the whole of your time in SIS (MI6), from 1966 to 2004, were you ever aware of the service assassinating anyone?" Dearlove replied: “No, I was not.”

You’ve got to laugh.

Michael Moore’s 2004 film Fahrenheit 9/11 is a classic example of the limited utility of pursuing documentary based exposés. He turns the spotlight on the US and military administration’s apparent ineptness and secrecy in handling the 911 event, but fails to explore the idea that 911 was nothing to do with 19 Arab hijackers. That would be crossing the Rubicon into unknown territory. He won’t do that. Moore does succeed, however, in highlighting corporate corruption, illegal invasions and political favouritism. But even the casual viewer intuitively knows that. Whist Moore’s analysis of government responses and dodgy deals resonates well throughout the film, the effect does not last. The viewer leaves the theatre and still goes to McDonalds, still votes Democrat, still thinks Football is important and still believes that CNN are broadcasting news.
No intelligent researcher who has taken the time to systematically analyze the events of 911 can come away thinking it was just another political and administrative fuck up. No chance. 911 was a breathtakingly audacious mega ritual. And it worked. Professionally executed, meticulously planned and successful in achieving its objectives of broadcasting fear and rushing through totalitarian legislation (masquerading as The Patriot Act). The parallels that some researchers draw between the corrupt governments of the US/UK and the Nazis are perfectly reasonable. Watch how they become even more closely aligned over the next few years.

So Moore’s predicament is quite explicable to me. Without a spiritual solution, there is NO solution. And I don’t think he can offer a way out. He can dish the dirt, but he can’t propose a meaningful resolution to the practical problems of living inside a dictatorship. Notions of lobbying congress, demonstrations in the streets, leafleting, boycotting stuff, even taking up arms – all utterly pointless. You’re playing their game with their rules and they will always win.
Jump off the moving train. Take the spiritual path.

Changing Beliefs, Raising Frequencies

As I have said before, if human consciousness allows itself to be manipulated through fear-based and trauma-based systems (entrenched in our media, entertainment and news broadcasts) then the Control System can implant a reality of its own that keeps us self-limiting and passive. We are just cabling for their network.

Breaking the trance and going through the cognitive dissonance is hard. But once through the other side, the profound insight and enhanced awareness are deeply liberating and a source of immense internal power. All the messed up, gloomy socio-political problems like immigration, crime, health, housing, war, economy, education – they all begin to make sense. They aren’t a mess because the government is inept, they are a mess by design. To keep the wheels turning and the workers working. Keep em busy. A life’s work to own a house. A decent pension right at the end if you’re lucky. Madness. Inhumanity. Once you have the ‘coordinates’ (the magic codes that make sense of all the surface weirdness), everything begins to slot into place. The mist of confusion evaporates. You can see. And the Control System coordinates are horribly uncomplicated: 99% of the planet lives in a consumer plantation designed to provide physical and spiritual slave labour to an elite few. A Control System exists to maintain and protect the system. The best metaphor for it can be found by watching

The Matrix.

Imagination is our holographic engine. It makes the world. Literally. If our imagination is running someone else’s program, we are living in someone else’s dream. It is time to take control and observe how manipulated scientific and religious dogma has misled us about how our world actually functions. Time is not linear. We are not hopeless wanderers in a cold lifeless universe. We do not cease to exist when the body (the bio-suit) is finished. Life is a progression of many lives, many consciousnesses and many worlds. This is one of them. You are one story; one piece of cosmic consciousness. Indestructible. We are designed to interact with the universe by articulating and encoding it with our wisdom, love, intent and creativity. These are things of galactic significance. Not nice-to-haves.

Do not let someone else’s belief system restrict your imagination. No religion, no government, no teacher can guide you better than you can guide yourself. The very act of comprehending the nature of our creative consciousness undermines the Control System by raising the frequency of consciousness out of the manipulation field and into inspired independence. I believe, as others have for millennia, that the outer world is a direct reflection of our own private inner consciousness. When a critical mass of people understand that the game is not a good game anymore, that there is a better way of living and evolving, then the awesome synchronous power of the universe begins to paint a new world into being.

Further Notes

Listen to an interview with Nick Davies. There are a number of items on this Guardian podcast, but after a bit of interviewer babble, Davies is first up.

David Icke on ‘repeaters’. Very relevant to this article.

Operation Paperclip describes how the Americans brought Nazis into some of their leading organizations (like NASA) following WWII.

http://thecleaver.blogspot.com/2008/02/crossing-rubicon-waking-from-fake-news.html

Nick Kramer lives in Manchester, England

koan@inbox.com