Posted by Tina
The picture at the left is a recent one. I’m told it was part of some reporter’s unflattering depiction of Tea Party demonstrators.
I’ve been saying for some time, and in various ways, that the main stream media is biased in favor of Democrats. This is a problem for America because they claim to be neutral, presenting as serious and professional journalists, when in fact they are not. Those of us on the right in politics have observed the farce for some time having witnessed the lies and distortions and born the brunt of the irresponsible double standard for decades. While bad reporting made being in the “other” party difficult, the real harm and travesty is that the American people have not been served by the so-called fourth estate. As citizens we rely on journalists to investigate and bring to our attention facts and evidence concerning events of the day and politics. At election time it becomes even more important. We need accurate and complete information so that we can make wise choices and decisions when choosing our leaders.
A new report from the Business and Media Institute exposes the imbalance I’ve been attempting to share with you. The report is quite lengthy but worth the time to read. I’ve included links and excerpts to other reports from the main post. I think you will find this information with direct quotes and video very enlightening:
“Networks Flip Flop on Jobs – A study from the Business & Media Institute,” by Julia A. Seymour
“Blame for ‘Wicked’ Reagan, but Praise for Obama’s ‘Important’ Stimulus”
These are tough times. More than 3 million people have lost their jobs just since February 2009 and consumer confidence fell unexpectedly in September. The unemployment rate has spiked from 8.1 percent to 9.7 percent in the first seven months of Barack Obama’s presidency and is expected to climb even higher. ** Despite that grim news, the major news networks have spun their unemployment reports into “good news” and presented Obama positively. Journalists tried hard to present rising job losses in the best possible light. ** ABC’s Charles Gibson called the loss of 539,000 jobs in April a “marked improvement” May 8, 2009, because fewer jobs were lost than in March. In June 2009, Gibson was talking again about “hopeful” signs in the job numbers as more Americans were out of work. ** But flashback 27 years ago to 1982, the unemployment rate was in roughly the same range as it was in 2009. Yet, network reporters consistently presented the U.S. economy under President Ronald Reagan as the “worst of times” by showing people living out of their trucks under a bridge and collecting free food at a food bank. ** CBS reporter Ray Brady told a “tale of two cities” on June 4, 1982. He found the “worst of times” in Waterloo, Iowa, where the unemployment rate was the highest in the nation: 25.4 percent. That was nearly 16 percentage points higher than the national unemployment rate of 9.5 percent. He contrasted Waterloo’s joblessness with 4.6 percent unemployment in Sioux Falls, S.D. where things were “close to” the best of times. ** Brady’s report addressed two very different employment situations, but most 1982 reports focused heavily on places where “desperation has turned to hopelessness.” The unemployment rate under Obama and Reagan was nearly identical, yet they received almost exactly opposite treatment from ABC, CBS and NBC reports. Reagan was mentioned negatively in reports 13 times more often than Obama.
I don’t bring this to your attention just to whine and complain or to disparage President Obama. I bring it to your attention to encourage you to view reporters with skeptical eyes and dig for the facts for yourselves. Pay attention and look for patterns where reporters rrepeat and use the same phrases and words to describe events almost as if they had been given a script. Until the fourth estate regains its footing and integrity, or disappears due to it’s flagrant misrepresentations, we are definitely on our own.
Also see the following comparative reports:
“One Economy Two Spins,” by Dan Gainor – Business and Media
“The media have hammered President George W. Bush on the employment issue despite 13 straight months of positive job creation and other good economic news.”
The October 8, 2004 jobs report was the latest evidence that they treat Bush far more critically than they treated President Bill Clinton on the same issue – sometimes even for the same results. The data indicated that the economy added 96,000 new jobs in September and nearly a quarter million adjusted to the totals earlier in the year. ** But media reports spun the new job numbers as a strong negative and stories either totally ignored the quarter-million job adjustment or buried it. This is not primarily a problem of economic interpretation. Instead, the media’s slanted coverage of employment reflects a political bias that colors their overall economic reporting.
“Bad News Bears,” by Dan Gainor – Business and Media
“Polls have repeatedly shown a public dissatisfied with the economy under President Bush.”
A January 2006 Pew Research Center survey said 64 percent of those questioned thought economic conditions were fair or poor – and that wasn’t even Bush’s low point. The May New York Times/CBS poll gave Bush just a 28 percent rating for the economy. ** Network news stories have painted a bleak picture of an economy in decline. Reporters treated gas prices as a metaphor for the economy – only when they were high. And a slowing housing market coming off two record years was just another club used against Republican incumbents by a pessimistic press. ** But the truth of the economy is far different. The United States continues to enjoy solid job growth. In the last year, 1.7 million new jobs were added and nearly 6 million have been created since August 2003 – a streak of more than three years of positive growth. Unemployment is a low 4.7 percent. Gas prices have declined once again – more than 75 cents from their recent highs.
“Few remember any more that 1979 and 1980 were the nation’s worst economic years since the Great Depression.”
Reagan saved America from Jimmy Carter economics: he brought inflation down from 13.5 to 4.1 percent; unemployment, from 9.5 to 5.2 percent; the federal discount rate, from 14 to 6.5 percent. Under Reagan, the number of jobs increased by almost 20 million; median family income rose every year from 1982 to 1989. It was the greatest peacetime expansion in American history. Charitable giving more than doubled, to more than $100 billion in 1988. But the media elite’s first drafts of history ignored the good news and highlighted the bad news. In a study of almost 14,000 network stories in on the economy during three one-year time periods – July 1 to June 30 in 1982-83, 1984-85, and 1986-87–Virginia Commonwealth University professor Ted J. Smith III found that as the economy improved, the amount of network TV coverage shrunk and grew more negative in tone. The ratio of negative to positive stories aggressively increased even as economic indicators improved, from 4.9 to 1 in 1982-83 to 7.0 to 1 in 1986-87. When an economic indicator grew better, the networks began covering it less so they could focus more on unhealthy economic signs. For instance, as the unemployment rate fell from 10.6 percent to well under 6 percent by 1987, the number of stories on employment plunged by 79 percent while reports on the growing trade deficit soared 65 percent and stories on the homeless jumped by 167 percent. ** The media had a theory to prove: Reaganomics was a dramatic failure. ** “If there is any President who does not deserve credit for our current economic prosperity it is Ronald Reagan. The latter part of the 1980s will go down as one of the most poorly-managed, economically reckless fiscal periods in American history.” — PBS To the Contrary host Bonnie Erbe, February 28, 1998 syndicated column.
Personally I will never forget that the day Bill Clinton was elected marked the absolute END to homeless stories in the news…the streets were still filled with the homeless but suddenly they were quite invisible.