Mainstream Media Hypocrisy - The New Normal

          On a number of occasions, over the years, I have pointed to the rank hypocrisy and bias of the media when it comes to how they cover politically related news.  This phenomenon is nothing particularly new, but it has steadily grown worse over time.  Back during the Vietnam/Watergate era the media began taking a noticeable turn toward the left in their reporting.  In part this was due to an overall mistrust of government, best understood by feelings of betrayal by the Nixon administration and an increasing weariness about the Vietnam War lingering on and on.  Slowly over time it became worse and worse.  Throughout the 1970s and 1980s the media tended to be somewhat left of center in their reporting but examples of gross negligence were fairly sporadic, albeit slowly growing to the point of being quite noticeable to most folks by the time the 1980s drew to a close.  By the 1992 election cycle, most everyone was able to detect fairly strong and noticeable bias in the media’s reporting, especially when it came to the Presidential election cycle that year in which Bill Clinton ultimately was victorious.                                                                      

           Over the years, I have written several weblogs in regards to media bias, which is now literally off the charts, and has long-since ceased to even resemble fairness.  Over the last 15 years or so it has reached to the point of unmistakable corruption.  It would be comical to observe these media antics if it were not having such a detrimental effect on our nation and the direction it is going.  It has been pointed out that it is absolutely necessary for in a democracy there to be a fair and honest press.  In many totalitarian regimes of the past and present, all news/information was/is skewed in favor of the one in power.  Below is a recent article by Bernard Goldberg, former CBS news correspondent and author of the ground-breaking book Bias, and the follow-up companion book Arrogance which I have highly recommended everyone obtain and read at times in the past.  Goldberg’s recent column is provided below as he comments concerning one recent, and  particularly nasty, situation where the media pounces on one story while other times, they look the other way on other, much bigger, stories.  Goldberg writes on January 10, 2014:                                                                           

It’s good to know that President Obama’s most loyal followers – the so-called mainstream media – have their priorities straight.  As reported by the (conservative) Media Research Center:

“In less than 24 hours, the big three networks have devoted 17 times more coverage to a traffic scandal involving Chris Christie than they’ve allowed in the last six months to Barack Obama’s Internal Revenue Service controversy. Since the story broke on Wednesday that aides to the New Jersey governor punished a local mayor’s lack of endorsement with a massive traffic jam, ABC, CBS and NBC have responded with 34 minutes and 28 seconds of coverage. Since July 1, these same networks managed a scant two minutes and eight seconds for the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups.”

This makes sense, right?  All the IRS did was target political opponents of President Obama.  A top aide to Governor Christie, on the other hand, caused a traffic jam.  Sure it was a massive traffic jam.  And sure the aide was both petty and stupid.  She put the evidence in emails.  But as the Wall Street Journal put it, “ … compared to using the IRS against political opponents during an election campaign, closing traffic lanes for four days is jaywalking.”

But this hasn’t stopped an epidemic of supposed “analysis” speculating about whether Chris Christie is a dead man walking, with some on the left suggesting that no matter what he knew or didn’t know, he was the one who created a culture of corruption which gave his aides the green light to pull their stupid stunt.

This is front page of the New York Daily News:  

 

 

 

But that’s only a tabloid.  What did the venerable New York Times, the Bible of American liberalism (but mostly the primer for the swells on the Upper West Side of Manhattan) have to say about Bridge-gate?

The Times concluded its post-news conference editorial with this:  “At this point, the governor has zero credibility. His office has abused its power, and only a full and conclusive investigation can restore public trust in his administration.”  Zero credibility?  Wow, that would be good news for Hillary Clinton who might have to run against Christie.  But I’m sure that’s not what the Times meant.  Right?

Anyway, it sounds like a federal investigation is in order.  And it may be. It took about 10 seconds for Team Obama to leak a tidbit to the media that the United States attorney is investigating the traffic jam as a criminal matter.  Good to know that Eric Holder would never do anything political.  He’s the Attorney General, after all.

A college pal who lives in New Jersey kept it pithy and got it right.  He emailed me this:

“The contrast with Obama is striking.  Christie fired the senior person on his staff this morning.  Has Obama fired anyone?  Has he accepted responsibility for anything at all?  Of course not.  Everything, everything is someone else’s fault.  We are continuously told that ‘we’re looking into it’ on any issue.  Nothing happens on Benghazi, on the IRS scandal, on Obamacare, etc., etc., ad infinitum.”

As President Obama might say:  Period!

          The double-standard is well beneath the integrity of the journalistic profession.  But no change seems to be in sight.  It is very difficult to hold the media accountable for its bias.  While some simply look the other way, most people still value honesty and integrity, two character qualities that are increasingly in short supply these days.  Scripture teaches us to be honest in all our dealing – do not cheat, steal, bear false witness, and certainly to let our yes be yes and our no be no.”  “Double-standards” are really no standards at all.  There are a few individual reporters and a few news outlets that are still holding to strict journalistic standards but they are fewer and fewer.

          What then can we do?  1) Get your news from more than 1 source (3 or 4 is best) and compare the way the same stories are reported by each news outlet.  2) Listen/watch for key words that indicate or expose biased reporting.  3) Pay particular attention to what is made to be a major news story at one outlet but hardly gets a mention at another outlet.  Ask the question of “Why?”   Why is this seemingly “important” or why is this seemingly “unimportant?”

          Believers and citizens should not be easily fooled.  We are to trust God and His Word, but most everything else is of man’s contrivance and should not be trusted very far.  Become better informed.  Don’t accept news merely at face value.  We all need to know why we believe what we believe.  We have long since passed the day we can simply accept, at face value, what the media reports.  We have got to learn the skill of analysis.  We need to approach “news” like the Bereans of the Book of Acts who searched the Scripture to see if the things spoken were true. (Acts 17:11)

In Christ,

Dr. Allen Raynor, Pastor