Whose Side Are You On, Anyway?
It has long been alleged by conservatives that there is a liberal bias to the media. It has also been alleged by liberals -although with much less to support the allegations- that there is a conservative bias to the media. In an effort to determine in which direction the scales of bias tilt, let’s examine some of the documentary evidence in support of the argument of liberal bias. Below are just a few of the more recent, notable examples.
Bernie Goldberg who was a CBS insider for many years wrote “Bias”, which was a stunning look at how the media distorted the news.
The New York Times, The Gray Lady, heretofore renamed the “Old Bag”, has long ran stories that expose tactics used to fight our enemies, such as wiretapping of phone calls to and from overseas destinations and the monitoring of financial transactions, also to or from overseas. One would have to be a fool, not to understand that certain Middle-Eastern countries where terrorists originate from were the targets of these measures; yet The Times, under the guise of protecting your civil liberties alerted our enemies and gave them further insight as to our capabilities.
In January, The Washington Post obtained and then published information that was highly prejudicial to the cases of 8 US Marines facing imminent Article 32 Hearings. Information that could only have been leaked by the investigative team.
In February, Alan Colmes committed a monumental on-air goof that compounded the problems of the very same Marines by stating they had confessed and been convicted. He later gave a terse apology for making a mistake that didn’t go nearly far enough in correcting the record.
In March, CBS’ 60 Minutes ran a totally slanted hit piece on Marine Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich. In the 30 minute segment devoted to Wuterich -facing murder charges along with Lance Corporal Justin Sharratt and two other Marines, there were three commercial interruptions in the first 20 minutes with a fourth commercial break coming at the conclusion of Wuterich’s interview. In hostile territory, Wuterich kept his cool when repeatedly grilled by CBS’ Scott Pelley regarding what his responsibilities were. In contrast, Simon Cowell of American Idol fame was allowed to blather on about his own gargantuan ego uninterrupted for 20 minutes before the first break during his segment.
In all coverage of the Iraq war, there is ample evidence to suggest a liberal bias. Constant coverage of suicide bombings, pools of blood, wailing women, men screaming for revenge and Muqtada al Sadr calling for attacks on US forces -from Iran- while there is virtually no mention of any progress being made on the ground.
But by far, the biggest -and most blatant- example of media bias comes in the recent coverage of Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ April 4th interview with syndicated radio talk-show host Laura Ingraham. In the interview, Gates was quoted as saying “So far, so good” with respect to military operations in Iraq, even though all forces aren’t even in place yet.
Yet despite exhaustive searches on my part of hundreds of search engine results, the only reference to the “so far, so good” comment that I could find came in a Defense Department Article written by Jim Garamone, an American Forces Press Service writer and a few blogs. The vast majority of news coverage of Ingraham’s interview of Gates was an AP or Reuters wire service article that focused on “ethnic cleansing” if the US left Iraq. This demonstrates a fundamental problem with news coverage in the US. The vast majority of newspapers rely on AP or Reuters wire services for their news coverage of national or international events. This means that with the publication of slanted news articles, the entire country gets subjected to a constant daily stream of biased information masquerading as news.
One has to wonder exactly how much this slanted news coverage of the war has affected public opinion or the opinions of lawmakers who are considering a full-scale retreat. The articles linked here represent but one tiny slice of the news coverage of the Iraq war. And if the slanted coverage of the war by the mainstream media has affected the vote of even one lawmaker considering an Iraq withdrawal, one must also ask of them: “Whose side are you on, anyway?”
