Friday, November 05, 2004

The Impact of Media Bias

Evan Thomas (grandson of Norman Thomas) is Assistant Managing Editor of Newsweek. He was quoted as saying before the election,

There's one other base here, the media. Let's talk a little media bias here. The media, I think, wants Kerry to win and I think they're going to portray Kerry and Edwards I'm talking about the establishment media, not Fox. They're going to portray Kerry and Edwards as being young and dynamic and optimistic and there's going to be this glow about them, collective glow, the two of them, that's going to be worth maybe 15 points.

Take a fair look at the mainstream media for the past six months, and it's clear that they were biased in favor of Kerry and against Bush.

Maybe Thomas was wrong. Instead of 15 points, it might have been 10, or perhaps only five. Whatever the impact of mainstream media bias, it helped Kerry and hurt Bush. If the media were professional and fair, the impressive Bush victory would have been significantly more impressive.

This U.S. mainstream media bias is also hurting us in other parts of the world. Foreigners mostly see CNN International and read the International Herald Tribune, a wholly-owned clone of the New York Times. CNNi is as bad as CBS. The other day, I heard Michael Holmes, a CNNi anchorman, refer to the Bush Administration as a "religious cabal." Is it any wonder that many people in other parts of the world have a negative view of the U.S. and Americans?

2 Comments:

Blogger Amal said...

Tom,

I agree that the media adores poking fun at GWB, but you have forgotten one important thing. GWB constantly makes reference to his religious beliefs. If he objects to the term religious cabal, perhaps then he should not be so adamant about letting everyone in on his religious identity. Not that he should hide it but maybe he should not be so in your face about it? What do you think?

6:00 PM, June 02, 2005  
Blogger Tom Carter said...

Amal, thanks for finding this one and commenting!

The liberal media is going to attack everything they can where Bush is concerned. The reality is that Bush's professions of religious faith are not less frequent or public than Clinton's or, for that matter, other presidents. I guess it's just something American presidents do.

I don't know if your remember this, but after Clinton was caught lying and commiting perjury over the Lewinski business, his retreat into public religion was shameless. I don't remember much press criticism about that. If it had been Bush, they would have torn him apart.

6:07 PM, June 02, 2005  

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