A man of honor…

November 6th, 2008

…is someone who can acknowledge that something is wrong even when he personally benefits from it:

I voted for Barack Obama and I’m glad he won. I hope he becomes a great president. Lord knows we need one.

Now the bad news. I’ve been thoroughly disgusted by press bias in his favor.

As someone who is a “communications professional, viagra canada physician ” I have a healthy regard for the difference between what I do in advertising — advocacy — and what the press is supposed to do — report facts.

Press favoritism has reached an outrageous and dangerous point in this country.

It was clear from the day he started running that the press was in Obama’s pocket. Anyone who couldn’t see that is either a fool or didn’t want to see it. I’ve included some links below but for those who just want the topline:

By 8 to 1 Americans think the press wanted Obama to win.
In the last months of the campaign, viagra sales cialis the press carried three times as many negative stories about McCain as about Obama.
I have every reason to believe that Obama is an honorable man. But what if the press decides to adopt someone who isn’t honorable? The fact that they rolled over for my guy gives me no solace at all.

We are living in a nasty, salve troubled world and we need the best press we can get. Instead, we have a bunch of arrogant, snotty, know-it-alls who believe we need their advice on how to think. They are tough on the people they don’t like and fawn on the people they do.

I have no use for the self-righteous, god-botherers of the Republican right. But they’re dead right about one thing — the “media elite” in this country are a fucking disgrace.

I’ve said it before, the way the press behaved in this election was absolutely despicable and did more lasting damage to our democracy than anything George Bush could have done over the last eight years.

Entry Filed under: Media,Politics

4 Comments Add your own

  • 1. John Foust  |  November 6th, 2008 at 10:08 am

    I’m totally confused. When we’re talking about Fox News and talk radio, it’s always “the market has spoken”.

    When it comes to purported press bias, it’s always “that nasty MSM, they’re not giving us what we want.”

    We need the best press we can get? We get that by paying for it, right, and voting with our dollars, right?

  • 2. Vinny  |  November 7th, 2008 at 9:19 am

    I think the media did a terrible job, but I find if hard to attribute it all to bias. I think the time that was wasted on the McCain campaign’s faux outrage over Obama’s “lipstick on a pig” remark demonstrates at least some measure of bipartisan incompetence.

    I also think that the ratio of positive to negative stories is also somewhat misleading. You cannot blame media bias for all the prominent Republicans who abandoned the McCain campaign and the nasty infighting within the McCain campaign. It is hard to see how there could have been an equal number of negative stories about both candidates given how badly McCain’s campaign was doing.

    I also think that the media has been doing a terrible job for years.

  • 3. JJ  |  November 8th, 2008 at 12:40 pm

    John –

    Talk Radio is not the “news”. All of those shows and hosts will openly state that they have an opinion talk show.

    Those same same studies that showed the number of negative stories were overall 3X higher for McCain than Obama also did a break down by major media source. Fox News was shown to have shown 40% negative stories for both McCain and Obama. That seems pretty balanced to me – not overly right-wing. It just seems right wing compared to the other networks because they are so far to the left.

    With all this talk about the fairness doctrine possibly coming back, will that mean that NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, and NPR will have to show the same balance as FOX? Or is it really to just try to get the popular talk radio guys off the air?

  • 4. Vinny  |  November 8th, 2008 at 6:18 pm

    Given how badly the McCain campaign was imploding at the end, you have to give Fox News credit for keeping the numbers equal by dredging up nonsense like the “terrorist fist jab.”

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