That Old MSM Double Standard

 

In the past, most people expected that the main news outlets were reasonably free of overt bias toward one side or the other in the political arena. Even presuming that expectation was true way back in some golden age of news reporting, it certainly isn’t true any more, and hasn’t been true for quite some time. I offer for your consideration two cases in point.

Case #1: Last week marked the fourth anniversary of the pathetic attempt by Dan Rather and Mary Mapes to massively influence a national election in this country, by presenting documents that even their own hired experts could not and would not verify as genuine. CBS News and its flagship program, 60 Minutes, suffered an enormous black eye, and Rather and Mapes (as well as a few others) lost their jobs as a result. Since then, the major news outlets have gotten a little more cagey in their attempts to sway voters. Fortunately for the voters, caginess isn’t nearly enough any more, and anyone with a brain and an internet connection can find out just how stupid the mainstream media think “we the people” really are.

Case #2: ABC News’ Charlie Gibson’s interview last week with Republican Vice President nominee Sarah Palin, was detailed, pedantic, badly filmed, deceptively edited, and, not to put too fine a point on it, a transparent attempt at a hatchet job against Gov. Palin. All other attributes of the interview aside, one might be inclined to be impressed by the hard-hitting questions Gibson asked the candidate–that is, unless one decided to do a little research to see if this hard-hitting style was the norm for Mr. Gibson when he interviews candidates for high office. Just for the sake of comparison, you understand…

One might therefore be surprised to find [Enough of the fourth person stuff!  Ed. Fine, it was grating on me, too.] Anyway, you’d find that old hard-hitting Charlie Gibson did an important interview with Sen. Obama just about three months prior to his interview with Gov. Palin, and asked such hard-hitting questions as:

Senator, I’m curious about your feelings last night. It was an historic moment. Has it sunk in yet?

Public moments are not your own. There’s a million people pulling you in a million different directions, but when everybody clears out, the staff is gone, you’re in your hotel room at night and you’re alone — do you say to yourself: “Son of a gun, I’ve done this?”

When you announced, did you truly, in your gut, think that a black man could win the nomination of a major party to be president of the United States?

Will you go to Iraq?

Public financing: Going to take it or going to say no?

Is the hardest part of all this behind you or ahead of you?

What did you think of the Clinton speech?

And finally your daughters. What did they say to you? Did they take it as a matter of course that Daddy could be nominated to be president? They never knew what older people know in terms of discrimination, although they may still feel some. What did they say about that?

I watched closely your countenance last night, your mien, as you stood in that hall. You didn’t smile much. Has the joyfulness of this hit home yet? Do you take joy from it?

Compare those to the kinds of questions he asked Gov. Palin in his interview with her:

Can you look the country in the eye and say “I have the experience and I have the ability to be not just vice president, but perhaps president of the United States of America?”

And you didn’t say to yourself, “Am I experienced enough? Am I ready? Do I know enough about international affairs? Do I — will I feel comfortable enough on the national stage to do this?”

Didn’t that take some hubris?

Let me ask you about some specific national security situations. Let’s start, because we are near Russia, let’s start with Russia and Georgia. The administration has said we’ve got to maintain the territorial integrity of Georgia. Do you believe the United States should try to restore Georgian sovereignty over South Ossetia and Abkhazia?

So what do you do about a nuclear Iran?

What if Israel decided it felt threatened and needed to take out the Iranian nuclear facilities?

Clearly, Gibson felt no need to discuss either the actual credentials or the worldview of the man who is now the Democratic nominee for President.

Wouldn’t it be nice if Gibson–or anyone–felt compelled to ask Sen. Obama the same types of questions Gibson asked Gov. Palin? Wouldn’t it be a real service to ABC’s rapidly dwindling audience if they did so? However, one mustn’t forget: this is the mainstream media. They have a reputation to live down to.

Stoutcat