blogsNH - Beware: Tycoon ousts Wall Street Journal editor - Comments

Focus Of The Press

Bill Bunker — Mon, 26 May 2008 22:56:12 -0400

The Democratic machine tried to do the same thing to McCain and his ties to extremist ministers. However, their comments were not as prolific and did not go to the extreme that Reverend Wright's did.

There has NEVER been any proof either way on what the Swift Boat veterans claimed on Kerry. Kerry created his own issues early on in his life with innuendo about soldiers torturing the enemy in the fashion of Genghis Kahn and other second hand accounts. He also met with the North Vietnamese in Paris.

You stated that: "this is not about what you communicated, it's about how you communicate". Unfortunately, your comments about asking Bush and Cheney where their medals seems to be not about the facts but more about how you communicate your view. The Left always attacks in a fashion of two wrongs make a right, but they do not. The press is notorious for this kind of behavior which brings us full circle to the issue that was originally discussed in this blog.

As far as Limbaugh, I am not a fan but if you listen to Air America, Democracy Now!, FSTV or read MoveOn.org, they operate in a Limbaugh like fashion. Now you say that the media is not liberal and if you truly believe that Limbaugh is not a journalist then you must agree that Randi Rhodes, Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz, Amy Goodman are entertainers as well. Are you saying that there is no outlet for honest news and all slants are conservative in media?

As far as how I communicate; I believe in calling a spade a spade. Today, in the press and society, there is far too much relativism and gray complexion on all issues political or otherwise.

What press failed to focus on Rev. Wright?

Ken Braiterman — Sat, 17 May 2008 23:01:00 -0400

Rev Wright was front-page news in the so-called liberal media for two weeks, and he's still there, making front page from time to time. Unscrupulouse partisans swiftboated John Kerry, and the so-called liberal media re-ran that 30-second spot for free a thousand times even though it was completely false. Nobody in the liberal media investigated or said it was false. Same with Kerry throwing away his Vietnam medal. He earned that medal by getting shot at. Why did the liberal media ask him where his medal was instead of asking Bush and Cheney where their medals were. You don't get shot at when you have five student deferments, or when you're a frequently absent weekend warriot in Alabama. So they don't have any medals.

And I'm not the least bit interested in a liberal Rush Limbaugh. That kind of programming damages America by polarizing it, and shading the ttruth to conform to some ideology or another. They're not journalists. They're entertainers. They do not check their facts or make even a pretext of fairness or balance -- not to mention accuracy. This is not about what you communicated, it's about how you communicate. A plauge on both their houses.

Liberal? Conservative?

Bill Bunker — Sun, 4 May 2008 14:42:31 -0400

I would agree that the media is lazy and they do take a tabloid approach to the news.

I travel constantly and your point about talk radio is simply untrue. I hear Air America in every single market on at the same time as other views. I hear NPR which no one can say is not biased, seeking emotional response to their stories and reporting.

I also hear other independent stations that are progressive as well. Randi Rhodes is the Rush Limbaugh on the Left and her numbers are not dwarfed by conservative talk radio. Her points are not accurate, are filled with emotion. When you constantly hear about stolen elections, 9-11 inside jobs, etc. with no collateral backup of those facts, it is not accuracy in media.

I was in Colorado and 2/3 of the talk radio there is progressive. If I had a dollar for every time they repeated "stolen election" I would be a millionaire. Same thing in Northern California, Chicago, San Antonio and Detroit. I don't see a conservative domination of the market.

Can you say with certainty that Keith Olberman does not counter Bill O'Reilly or Chris Matthews is not progressive?

As far as coodination is concerned, I worry more about progressives. They are far more organized and involved with far more websites, blogs and internet initiatives than Republicans and conservatives. Of course, you have to look at the demographics and political trends. The country is split about 50:50 and I doubt that Rush Limbaugh or Neil Boortz or Randi Rhodes or Thom Hartmann change many minds. Most have their own partisan followings.

However, someone with an agenda professing to report real news can have an impact.

I mentioned the way the reporters bleed through in their reporting. To me, there should be zero tolerance for that. I don't care if it is a conservative or liberal.

I do not pay much attention to Grover Nordquist but could equate him to MoveOn.org. They do pretty much the same thing,

As far as the Reverend Wright situation, that is a matter of perspective. He did say those things and now he is trying to derail Obama. Obama sat in that church for all of those years and knows what Black Liberation Theology stands for. To allow your children to sit there and listen to hate speech about whites, speaks to character. Whether or not it has foundation in some distant way to history.

You are correct though, the press ran with the easy, lazy story and the press focused on the wrong topic with Wright and here is why...

Black Liberation Theology is an insidious and hateful agenda that calls for the seperation, not the unification and blending of races. That would have been a story that the press could have had a field day with. I have done the research and anyone who reads their agenda would see that it is filled with hatred and disdain and it will take race relations to a new low. No one talks or reports quotes from the theology and then links them to Wright's preaching/

Now the press either did not focus on the facts in the Wright case for one of two reasons.

Either they were lazy as you suggest or they do not want to expose the facts about BLT because it is so troubling. If you consider the latter they might have seen the revelation of the facts about the religion as more harmful to Obama than the tabloid story.

A third and plausibe reason is because any time you question or comment on anything about an African American leader, you are automatically branded 'racist'. In reality, the stereotyping and categorization of a persons race has not place in civil conversation or debate. i.e. It should not be discussed nor should it matter. I believe the press shys away from anything that might cause them to be accused of 'racism'.

To use that and bring up an individuals race suggests that the person you are communicating with has some built in bias and prejudice. Unless you can read someones mind that would be pretty difficult to determine.

The "liberal media" is a conservative myth

Ken Braiterman — Sun, 4 May 2008 08:59:37 -0400

The problem with the mainstream media today is not that they're liberal. Instead, they are lazy and underfunded. They'll write a lead, get a liberal quote and a conservative quote, and call the story fair and balanced. They don't have to do any more than that, and they don't.

The liberal media came under fire from a right wing group led by Reid Irvine in 1964. The big media really were left-leaning back then. I was a journalism student at the time. Under that right-wing pressure (which included threats to boycott advertisers in media that refused to change), the so-called liberal media changed, and the change was completed in 1981, the first year of Reagan's first term.

Between '64 and '81, the major incremental change was from a standard of "fair and accurate" to "fair and balanced." Balanced meant conservatives on every op-ed page, and quotes from conservatives in every news story. The right wing created "think tanks" to research and communicate their points of view. Very often, the media presented these hired guns as disinterested experts. The Democrats were far less successful at that.

Fox News and AM talk radio, the right-wing media, don't even pretend to be fair or balanced, and they're often inaccurate as well.

In '81, most political and opinion writers were still liberal, but they bent over backwards to give Reagan a honeymoon, or at least an even break. In his first two years as president, Reagan and his policies were so popular that the media felt they could not and should not prevent him from getting his message out.

By 1983, Reagan's policies were gaining traction, the economy was recovering after 15 years of steady decline, and we were starting to feel good about ourselves and our country for the first time since 1966, when the Vietnam War went sour.

In addition, there were changes in professional journalists. When Reagan was elected in 1980, most of the political writers were still Vietnam-Watergate generation. The new people coming in from journalism schools were far more conservative. These younger people came of age just in time to see liberalism fail miserably.

WE also saw the emergence of genuine right-wing media: those think tanks, the Washington Times, the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal (which was separated from the news department by a Chinese Wall), AM talk radio, and Fox News. The only news medium I've ever seen that is more slanted than Fox News, to the point of being inaccurate and unethical, was the Union-Leader under William Loeb. There is nothing on the liberal side that compares to Fox News. You lower standards every time you say the other side is just as bad.

These conservative media are actually coordinated, but they do not rise to the level of a "right wing conspiracy." A Republican veteran of the conservative movement named Grover Nordquist sends an e-mail every day to the editors, radio talkers and right wing TV producers suggesting talking points for the day. His source is the Bush White House spin machine.

The idea is that if enough people say the same things often enough, they'll be picked up by the mainstream media. Remember John Kerry throwing away his Vietnam medal? Why didn't the so-called liberal media say Kerry won that medal by getting shot at, and it's his business what he did with it afterward. Where are Bush and Cheney's medals? The media didn't say that because stupid Kerry did not say that.

And if the media are so liberal, why did they make such a big deal over Rev. Wright, a black minister, and say nothing about John McCain wearing out the knees of his trousers begging bigoted right wing (white) preachers for their support -- the same preachers he called "hate-mongers" in 2000.

There's no liberal medai. There's a lazy media, and that's even more dangerous to democracy.

The Press

Bill Bunker — Fri, 2 May 2008 07:59:06 -0400

The Wall Street Journal is a fine newspaper and you make a good point that it should not be tainted by agenda or turned into a "rag".

Your comment about Fox News is somewhat accurate but you omit any critique of other networks and newspapers that practice the same tabloid journalism or are tainted by political agenda. I am not sure that Fox news has "dragged down the quality of news everywhere" but I am sure that most of the major news anchors and networks prior to Fox News reported stories tainted by agenda from one perspective.

I can recall Sam Donaldson on ABC in the eighties would report on stories and the content was thorough and presented the upside as well as the downside. Then, in virtually every story he would end with something like; "however, experts say" or "but professionals I talked with said". It was always from one viewpoint.

To me, newspapers and broadcast media should report the facts and allow people to decide. We are barraged with talk shows on the Right and Left all day long. We really should have news that is absent of opinion. That is difficult to find in today's journalistic world.

I read the New York Times and Boston Globe and reporters for both newspapers reveal their agenda in their writing. I also read the Boston Herald and the editorial viewpoint spills into the stories, their placement and tone.

The larger point is that we live a "tabloid" society. This morning I am getting ready for work and on C-Span watched an interesting piece about the troops in Iraq with no contamination of fact. Still, it is tough on their call in shows for the hosts to not show their hidden opinions. You can see through the facial expressions and smirks. Are they fair when they take calls from all side...yes, but agenda bleeds through.

Your points are well stated concerning the quality of journalism. However, it would be refreshing if newspapers were transparent on their news pages and kept editorial where it belongs. The Monitor does a fairly good job at that and surprisingly, the Union Leader does as well.

A recent poll that I read exposed that the majority of print and broadcast media are liberal in their view. You were in the industry for a while so let me ask you a question. Is that due to the fact that you see so many things and are exposed to a broader world?

I don 't think anyone wants to see the WSJ change and in my opinion I trust their stories and reporting over anything I read in the NY Times. My opinion is that the tabloidization (not a real word but I will use it anyway) of the newspaper industry started a long time ago and publications like USA Today have fed into that movement.

Good points and you are right to be concerned but Murdoch would be playing Russian roulette if he changes much at the WSJ. I think he acquired the newspaper to raise his legitimacy more than to increase the size of his wallet. We will wait and see.

Beware: Tycoon ousts Wall Street Journal editor

Ken Braiterman — Thu, 1 May 2008 20:31:32 -0400

What will become of the Wall Street Journal under media baron Rupert Murdoch, who bought the Journal‘s parent company in December for $5.16 billion? We got our first hint last week when he pushed out Marcus Braschli, the WSJ’s managing editor, and put in his own man. He said the changes he wants to make were not moving fast enough (four months). When Murdoch bought the Journal’s parent company in December for $5.16 billion, lovers of excellent journalism experienced a collective chill. The WSJ is the best daily business and finance newspaper in the world, and its coverage of world and national news ranks with the NY Times and Times of London. Now it’s owned by the owner of Fox News, the NY Post and supermarket tabloids all over the world.