Media's Presidential Bias and Decline

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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 comprehend 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.


http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Story?id=6099188&page=1

All true and all easy to see if one has their eyes open. I found these few sentences quite telling:

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?
 
Yeah, there is a liberal bias. But the fact that so many know of Bill Ayers, Tony Rezko, and Rev. Wright kinda disproves the underlying premise of the article (plus the fact that I didn't even hear about Cindy McCain having an addiction). Or maybe that it isn't as heavy handed as some people think. And this (From the article) is pretty shocking...

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.

If the U.S. media is beholden to anyone, it's the Israeli lobby. And I love how he nonchalantly throws in "Obamas drug dealer." There is something to discuss in terms of media bias, but this guy did a hack job.

My main concern with the media is the close relationship they share with those in power, they are far from being independent. Perhaps they are this way because it grants them more access, but at the expense of what? The truth?

They take what the government (White House, Pentagon etc) at face value. The media just wants to report and analyze (with clear bias) instead of investigate and then report.
 
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?

Because dwelling on the past is just as stupid as lambasting a politician's wife for her own private affairs. The news media is fucked both ways - what's the point in rifling through a politician's garbage, physically and metaphorically, in a misguided attempt to equalize the playing field?

And the reason why they went after Sarah Palin so much is because she bought most of the news media's reportings hook, line, and sinker - "palling around with terrorists!" Golly gee, she sure takes in a lot of media! :roll:

Oh, and why are you posting this 6-month old article? Ran out of false accusations to lambast Obama about?
 
Oh, and why are you posting this 6-month old article? Ran out of false accusations to lambast Obama about?

It's less about Obama and more about modern journalism in general. When you consider that six months is nothing.
 
It's not the media, not the evil corporations and not the bad reporters, it's always the people who elect are to blame for stupid decisions.

When are we going to realise that presidential election (or any other) is a job interview, and up to certain point it should not matter if a candidate smoked pot in junior high, isn't married or god forbid cheated on his wife. That's a 100% Soviet communist party way of appointing, all that they cared about was blind loyalty, marreid status and a perfect "record", therefore the country ended up with an Germany-sent idiot, a tyran, a farmer, three zombie corpses and a tractor driver, who closed the deal back in 91.

And what did US folk had to elect from: a 47y/o well educated, mildly experienced, healthy black guy with a nice family and a loudmouth veteran senator VP, versus the 73 year old tortured war veteran, experienced, but sadly too old to handle existing problems and a bimbo from Alaska who can't name a newspaper...

Here in Moscow, Russia, we would kill to have this problem on presidential election day, all we get is that same ex-KGB guy and his friends, one of which spent all 45 minutes of his campain in two TV appearances, one in some orphanage and other in a house cooking omlet for a poor(ish) family, he didn't even participate in a single debate. (Surprisingly, however, so far he does a good job)

Media here in Russia is 100% controlled by state, either directly or via private owners, therefore media is reporting whatever was approved. In US i assume media is somewhat independent, so it's reporting whatever gets bigger ratings, which is why you get Joe the plubmer, Sarah Palin, and so on. Just as we are doing here, people in US have to stop relying on money makers for their information and research, and put some brains into it.
 
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I agree with him, primarily because opinionated shit like this --> http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25273360-1242,00.html is treated like unbiased, objective news in Australia. There was a similar story a few days ago where the journalists put in a little snide comment about the UK press, but I can't find it anymore.
 
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^Well, British news is as biased as any country outside of the third-world; the BBC is the only relatively impartial news organisation in existence here. But we have got both biases; you need only look at the daily fail to see ultra-right bullshit and our own government to see ultra-leftys.

On the article: I agree with firecat, having watched the US media I can see a leftist bias sometimes, particularly on global warming, but making out like there is some sort of conspiracy is going much too far. I have been most concerned about the report-then-investigate method for some time now, not so much about a supposed conspiracy or mob psychology in the media.
 
This is exactly why I approve of an electoral college who (I hope at least to some extent) act like a court judge and know what irrelevant superficial crap to dismiss and what to honestly consider when voting for a new president as opposed to the general public who treat elections like a season of American Idol or Flavor of Love. Unfortunately we can't screen out the people who vote based not even on one issue they feel strongly about but because the daily show made the other guy look stupid or because all they see are ad hominem attacks toward a particular candidate on TV and internet blogs.
 
Irrelevant and superfluous, though, are subjective. While I couldn't care less about drug usage in the distant past, someone else might think it's very important to know.
 
I agree with him, primarily because opinionated shit like this --> http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25273360-1242,00.html is treated like unbiased, objective news in Australia. There was a similar story a few days ago where the journalists put in a little snide comment about the UK press, but I can't find it anymore.

Is that an actual, well-respected Australian newspaper, or a shitty tabloid that isn't worth the effort I need to wipe my ass with? (The Daily Mail, New York Post, and the shit I see at the grocery store.)

I've written better stuff than that in high school, FFS. Hell, even at my hokey-ass college paper full of freshman writers we would have edited the fuck out of that bullshit.

Buncha penal colony bastids, y'all are. :p
 
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In the US system of media corporateness the only thing I am surprised about is that there is only one right wing channel and all the others appear to be mildly left in out look - you would have thought that the balance would be the other way.

Having said that the Fox network at least to European eyes is so stupid and obviously dangerous (it seems to try to take great delight in inflaming people and playing to their weaknesses) as to be completely incredible.

There is a gap in the market in the US for a news station with a 'right of centre' viewpoint but with intelligent analysis and critism, because from what I saw when over there the people need this badly.

btw Bill Riley - what a dickhead! Ask someone a question and within about 5 seconds start shouting the guest down. ... Someone is going to lay one on him and punch his lights out and lay that buffoon out one day.
 
I'm not sure a right-of-center news outlet would really get much play in the US. Most right-aligned people are Christian conservatives, and Fox News has a tendency to attract them past right-of-center to crazy-fringe-right-wing.
 
Oh no, correlation does not equal causation. ;)

However, miseryfundamentalism loves company. I've never met a Christian fundie Bible-belter that was anything but a hard-right-winger. And very often, if you aren't a crazy fundamentalist (regardless of religion), you'll realize just how crazy Fox News is.
 
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News.com.au is actually a collection of a variety of papers, all of which are pretty shit. What they do have going for them is that they update their RSS feed very timely and I use it to get headlines at work
 
Is that an actual, well-respected Australian newspaper, or a shitty tabloid that isn't worth the effort I need to wipe my ass with? (The Daily Mail, New York Post, and the shit I see at the grocery store.)

I've written better stuff than that in high school, FFS. Hell, even at my hokey-ass college paper full of freshman writers we would have edited the fuck out of that bullshit.

Buncha penal colony bastids, y'all are. :p

It's well-respected, but that doesn't mean it's good. Personally, I think that all Australian news is absolutely shie and I only use it when i have to.

and thanks :D
 
I think the reason why the media is more left-leaning could be because those attracted to journalism etc. are just that way to begin with, or in the course of their study/work they just become that way.

But hey, pay me enough and I'll go on Fox news are start praising GWB and the Iraq war.
 
You would not start bawling and shouting down someone after about 5 seconds of their answer though no matter how much you think that you may disagree with them.

I have no problem with anyone being right wing (short of actually being a Nazi of course) but lack of politeness is something that should not be tolerated - it just shows how you treat people and therefore I suppose how you'd like to be treated.

That guy in Fox News reminded me of "School Bully" actually. I bet his 14th birthday part was a riot of friends and fun. ... Not!
 
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I think the reason why the media is more left-leaning could be because those attracted to journalism etc. are just that way to begin with, or in the course of their study/work they just become that way.
That's all it is. There is no vast overreaching conspiracy here. Journalists are normally liberal to start with, then they go to school with other liberals and wind up working with a bunch of college-educated liberals.

As for this article and media bias, where to start?

Well the guy's right, there is media bias, especially at a few big papers and all the cable news networks. It's generally to the left, but it can go both ways. The news cycle itself is based on covering new events; it is by its very nature progressive.

A lot of problems (with fact checking, especially) can be traced back to the fact that papers and networks are now forced to turn out news faster than ever before. With the growth of the internet as a generally accessible news source, and the 24 hour news networks, editors are forced to push stuff out so they don't get scooped.

The same thing is happening with books even. It used to take 9 months to a year to get something published, now they can take a book from copy to print in weeks. It's insane.

As for the election coverage, this always kills me. During the primaries especially, McCain was getting way more free, positive news mentions than any Democrat. Yep, even that inexperienced senator from Illinois. He was open and candid, journalists love that.

Once the campaigning started in earnest though, McCain started burning a lot of bridges to the media. All that free exposure dried up when he quit doing interviews, quit letting reporters travel with him, and generally stopped being himself and started being an asshole. That is what murdered him.

It's also what led to Sarah Palin getting destroyed. I don't agree with how far that went, but the McCain campaign did all the wrong things and kept it going.

So, basically, media is inherently biased, Obama had stupid amounts of money (and took advantage of the internet) and McCain's advisers should be shot. That's it.
 
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In the US system of media corporateness the only thing I am surprised about is that there is only one right wing channel and all the others appear to be mildly left in out look - you would have thought that the balance would be the other way.

Having said that the Fox network at least to European eyes is so stupid and obviously dangerous (it seems to try to take great delight in inflaming people and playing to their weaknesses) as to be completely incredible.

There is a gap in the market in the US for a news station with a 'right of centre' viewpoint but with intelligent analysis and critism, because from what I saw when over there the people need this badly.

btw Bill Riley - what a dickhead! Ask someone a question and within about 5 seconds start shouting the guest down. ... Someone is going to lay one on him and punch his lights out and lay that buffoon out one day.

The programs you speak of are opinion shows, not news. The O'Reilly Factor is O'Reilly's opinion on various news reports. You can't compare it to news reporting because that is what it is not. The news bit of Fox News is actually quite accurate in its reporting.
 
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