"The traditional media is playing a very, very dangerous game. With its readers, with the Constitution, and with its own fate.
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 nothing, nothing I’ve seen [in my career] 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."
Saturday, October 25, 2008
The Press has Destroyed Our Right to a Free and Fair Press
The mainstream media has been so biased in this election, that most journalists no longer deserve the title. So says ABC News journalist Michael Malone in a great blog post:
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Again the strawman claim of media-bias; yet, the press is an industry and thus can be influenced by market forces.
ReplyDeleteSo, while Fox News brags about "record ratings," consistently, while the "fairness doctrine" is decried as anti-free-market (the repeal of which resulted in the dominance of right-wing talk radio), you complain about "media bias?"
[The last stats I saw Fox had more viewers than all other cable news networks total]
If media bias exists, and is to be avoided, aren't you asking for some external remedy against market forces and the first amendment (in non-public resource areas) to correct the bias like "fairness doctrine?"
Should Fox's line-up of Beck, O'Reilly, Hannity, Van Sustrin(sp) be changed?
Should talk radio be changed?
Further, the more interesting observation people have made is the fact the largest newspapers actually exist in Urban areas. Demographically, fivethirtyeight.com is great for non-partisan voter demo data, urban areas are more liberal.
Given free-market influenced press, shouldn't the natural outcome be a press that serves the ideological make-up of its primarily readership?
I hope you have changed your mind on this after some reflection and that this was sour grapes.