One of my uncles, who was a great man with a great sense of humor, used to refer to the newspaper in my hometown as The Daily Disappointment. In order to keep from offending me, he suspended use of this term, at least in my presence, while I was serving as a reporter for the local newspaper. It didn’t take long after I had left the newspaper, however, before he was again referring to The Daily Disappointment.
I am not sure why my uncle was disappointed when he read the local newspaper. There really wasn’t much to it. It was small in size, usually about eight pages, including the classified advertisements. Although most editions contained some world and national news supplied by the Associated Press, the emphasis was on news involving the local community. Most of the local news was upbeat and positive with headlines like “Jones Receives Eagle Scout Award” and “Hoops Team Beats Mt. Sterling.”
Journalism was my major in college. I was taught to observe the difference between news and opinion. Articles on the news pages were supposed to be objective and unbiased. Opinions were reserved for the editorial pages.
Today, when I read newspapers or watch the news on television, I am frequently reminded of my uncle’s reference to The Daily Disappointment. I am deeply disappointed with today’s journalists. It seems to me that many, if not most, of today’s journalists, especially those who report on politics, are activists who are more interested in promoting their own point of view than they are in providing objective news and analysis.
Every journalist, of course, has his or her own opinions about matters of public policy. As a result, it would be extremely difficult for any reporter to be completely objective and unbiased. Unfortunately, many journalists seem to have abandoned objectivity as a goal.
The best way to demonstrate media bias is to quote members of the media and let their own words speak for themselves. The Media Research Center does just that. It is an organization that monitors the national news media for the purpose of demonstrating just how biased the media is. I think the Media Research Center does an excellent job of compiling examples of media bias. My primary complaint about the organization is that it only reveals examples of liberal bias. It is a conservative organization focused solely on demonstrating liberal bias. The Media Research Center also does not do a good job of drawing a distinction between reporters and commentators.
Several weeks ago, the Media Research Center released the winners of its 21st Annual Awards for the Year’s Worst Reporting. The annual awards are designed to identify the most outrageous or humorous news media quotes during the previous year. Some of my favorite quotes from those identified by the Media Research Center are set forth below:
(1) Former MSNBC news anchor Chris Matthews earned the honor of "Quote of the Year" for his reaction to a Barack Obama speech during his campaign for President. In reporting on the speech, Matthews said, "I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often… It's a dramatic event. He speaks about America in a way that has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with the feeling we have about our country. And that is an objective assessment."
(2) Time Magazine’s Nancy Gibbs won “The Obamagasm Award” for writing, "Some princes are born in palaces. Some are born in mangers. But a few are born in the imagination, out of scraps of history and hope.... Barack Hussein Obama did not win because of the color of his skin. Nor did he win in spite of it. He won because at a very dangerous moment in the life of a still young country, more people than have ever spoken before came together to try to save it. And that was a victory all its own." CNN’s David Gergen was the runner-up for “The Obamagasm Award” for the following comment during live coverage of Obama’s convention speech: "In many ways, it was less a speech than a symphony. It moved quickly, it had high tempo, at times inspiring, then it became more intimate, slower, all along sort of interweaving a main theme about America's promise, echoes of Lincoln, of King, even of Reagan and of Kennedy.... It was a masterpiece."
(3) NBC News Anchor Brian Williams won an award for his “soft and cuddly interview” with Michelle Obama. During the interview, Williams asked the following question to Ms. Obama: "What of the attacks has busted through to you? What makes you angriest at John McCain, the Republicans? What's being said about your husband that you want to shout from the mountain tops is not true?"
(4) Reporter Deborah Solomon was ridiculed for her interview with Businessman T. Boone Pickens in The New York Times Magazine. The interview included the following exchange: Solomon: "You helped re-elect Bush in '04 when you gave $3 million to the Swift Boat campaign to discredit John Kerry's Vietnam service. Do you regret your involvement?" Pickens: "Why would I?" Solomon: "Because it's such an ugly chapter in American political history." Pickens: "Oh, I see. Well, it was true. Everything that went into those ads was the truth." Solomon: "Really? I thought it was all invented."
(5) In an article for an NBC advertizing supplement included in a newspaper magazine insert, NBC reporter Lee Cowan wrote, "When NBC News first assigned me to the Barack Obama campaign, I must confess my knees quaked a bit.... I wondered if I was up to the job. I wondered if I could do the campaign justice."
(6) ABC’s George Stephanopoulos was recognized for the following comment about Obama’s cabinet appointments: "We have not seen this kind of combination of star power and brain power and political muscle this early in a cabinet in our lifetimes."
The news media’s adoration of President Obama and everything he says or does has continued in 2009. Even before Obama’s first day in office, the media concluded he would be one of the country’s greatest Presidents. The media has compared Obama to George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Members of the media could not contain their excitement during Obama’s inauguration. In her report during the inauguration, CBS co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez asked, “Does it get any better, or more beautiful, or more spectacular, than this?" Harry Smith of CBS referred to Obama’s inauguration as a “most sacred event.” While gushing with praise for Obama, members of the media also could not resist the temptation to take a few swipes at outgoing President George Bush. NBC’s Tom Brokaw said the “streets are filled with joy” because “an unpopular President is leaving and people have been waiting for this moment.” NBC’s Nightly News Anchor Brian Williams also was unable to suppress his feelings. He referred to the inauguration as “absolutely stunning” and added, “To see people, whatever your politics, that excited about our new chief executive after a line of what the ordinary voter would maybe describe as bad choices or choices of evils, for years, generations, it is unbelievable to me."
I am not alone in observing the media’s obvious bias. Some media critics have referred to the media’s coverage of the 2008 election and Obama’s inauguration and first days in office as the “death of journalism.” Bernard Goldberg, a former long-time reporter for CBS and a vocal critic of today’s media, has written a book entitled “A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (and Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barak Obama and the Mainstream Media.”
For me, when I read the newspaper or listen to the news on the radio or television, I am always reminded of my uncle’s frequent references to The Daily Disappointment. I may not be disappointed for the same reasons he was, but I am always disappointed. The thing that disappoints me the most is when I observe a reporter who is not even trying to suppress his or her bias and to present the news in a balanced and objective manner. Unfortunately, it is frequently difficult in today’s environment to distinguish between the news pages and the editorial pages of a newspaper or between the reporters and the commentators on radio and television.
Posts
