Bob Rusbasan
January 26, 1999
I often find listening to or reading the mainstream media frustrating. Part of the problem is, of course, their left-wing bias. That there is such a bias can no longer be seriously disputed, since surveys have shown that the media overwhelmingly votes Democratic when the public has given Republicans a slight edge in recent years.
Even more than that, what I find truly offensive is that the media big shots make little effort to hide that they believe they are smarter than "us", that they have everything figured out, and that we should heed what they say. They sneer at the word "objectivity", calling it an outmoded concept. In a particularly outrageous example of this hubris, a few years ago the publisher of Time magazine stated that environmental issues were too important for them to even attempt objectivity, that they were justified in writing pure advocacy articles. In other words, they had figured out what was true and what was not, they knew what had to be done to save the environment, so they were going to use their magazine to encourage the appropriate action. Anyone that disagreed with them was presumed wrong, and their opinion would simply not be presented in the magazine.
I was driving around today, and I heard the following example of the media's amazing intelligence on the radio (lightly paraphrased):
ABC News Correspondent: Senate Majority Leader Richard Gephardt is opposed to calling witnesses, saying that would unnecessarily prolong the trial.
Gephardt (on tape): If the Senate Democrats have to choose between expediency and fairness, we will of course choose fairness.
Isn't that lovely? The reporter was obviously reading from a script, and the soundbite tapes were certainly all cued up and ready to go. At least several people had to have known the entire content of this short presentation, and apparently not one of them caught the blatant error. Gephardt is here clearly saying that the Senate Democrats will not sacrifice fairness for speed. That in no way corroborates the newsperson's statement. Perhaps Gephardt feels that speeding up the trial by not calling witnesses will not entail a loss of fairness, perhaps not. From the taped segment, we have no way of knowing.
At least this was probably a simple mistake. Far worse are the blatant misrepresentations, the uncritical repetition of White House slogans, and the sudden surge of phony "objectivity" and "withholding of judgment" when it suits the media's interests. For an example of the last item, shortly after the Lewinsky scandal broke, Time magazine reported that one of the options Clinton was considering to "handle" the matter was a full confession. Now, this was a bombshell! Surely the President would not have been considering a confession if he were innocent. Yet Time continued to take no stance on whether he was guilty or not, and their coverage remained "objective".
But where was that "objectivity" in the coverage of Republicans when they took the House of Representatives in 1994? Time magazine ran a cover of a green, cartoon Newt Gingrich. The caption was, "The Gingrich who stole Christmas". Inside were the typical accusations of greed, meanspiritedness, hatred of the poor, unfair bashing of single mothers, speaking in code words, and so on. There was no serious attempt to present the Gingrich's side.
The "code words" accusation illustrates arrogance of the media. Here is how it works: Newt Gingrich criticizes the federal welfare system, saying that it creates disincentives for work, thus creating a permanent underclass characterized by many social ills such as crime. Time magazine decides that Gingrich is appealing to the good ol' intolerant Christian white boys. You see, Gingrich knows they hate black people, and he wants their votes. Since he cannot criticize black people directly, he criticizes welfare recipients. Well, not exactly. That might still be too obvious, so he actually criticizes the welfare system itself. He refers to disincentives for work (laziness), a permanent underclass (ghettos), and social ills such as crime. His target audience reads between the lines and understands that he is saying that we should take food money away from the lazy, shiftless, criminal black people living in the ghettos, and they run to the voting booth to put him and other Republican into office. Never does Time magazine consider that Gingrich may actually mean exactly what he is saying. They, in their infinite wisdom, have figured it all out, and they are passing their wisdom on to us.
Outrageous? Well, perhaps Time and most of the rest of the mainstream media have simply decided that the Democrat vs. Republican debate is too important for mere objectivity...
Copyright © 1999 Bob Rusbasan. All rights reserved.