The Scourge of Media Bias in This Presidential Election Cycle

At no time in our history has there been a more biased media than in this current election cycle. It was obvious from the very start of campaigning when the mainstream talking heads enthusiastically ordained Hillary Clinton as the next President way back when – before she fell from grace and was replaced by a newer, more liberal media darling, Barack Obama.

The reasons for this are to be found in the very nature of a majority of these pontificators’ ideology – a strong tendency to the left, the far left in many cases. While there were many right wing press representatives as culpable, inarguably the preponderance of today’s media persons are liberal minded to the extreme as revealed in surveys of their voting patterns as well as closely monitoring their reporting.

Media bias toward the Democrats and their nominee became clear and obvious by early spring, 2008. Blatantly so in many cases. Instead of observers of the political process, as is their responsibility and function in a democracy, they errantly became participants – participants with a clear choice of candidates as they cast their vote early and often for Barack Obama.

Their obvious disdain for anyone or anything Republican was evident from day one of this campaign season. They dislike President Bush with a fervor seldom witnessed and they were not at all abashed to say so in no uncertain terms. The vileness of this dislike – verging on hatred by some – determined their current positions as they searched for an alternative – any alternative – to the Republicans, both Presidential and Congressional, and landed squarely on the side of the Democrats where they felt welcomed and at home, cuddled by their own established and comforting liberalism.

The mainstream press has overwhelmingly lacked objectivity in assessing the two Presidential candidates and – at times so gleefully and so unprofessionally as to be distracting – developed a love-fest relationship with Barack Obama. Such overt and frequent on-air statements as “we will make history in this election” were common in cable news reporting – “code words” for their blatant support of the first black Presidential nominee.

Their discussions of the conventions and debates, as well as perceived and press accentuated gaffs by the McCain-Palin pair, were so exceedingly biased towards Democrats that one could not avoid becoming concerned with the lack of any truly fair assessment of the election process in their coverage. The San Diego Union-Tribune on the editorial page of Saturday, October 25th, nailed it when they so stated in an editorial entitled “Media bias? Some journalists have already voted”. In it the editor astutely observed “We usually don’t put much stock in claims of media bias …But there are times when the partisanship and favoritism are so apparent that they cannot be denied. This presidential election is such an occasion….the media aren’t fooling anyone with their pretense of objectivity. Little wonder that Americans have such a low opinion of the journalism profession when they perceive reporters and editors as something less than honest brokers….too many supposedly objective journalists have made their first choice perfectly clear.”

This was followed by another commentary on the editorial page of October 28th entitled “Noxious analogy, Comparing GOP, Nazi rallies reflects on media” wherein they observe “Decades from now …the first entry is sure to be the Barack Obama – national media coupling of 2008. What is going on now is simply stunning….Consider the readiness of journalists to liken McCain-Palin rallies to Nazi rallies in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s….In the Oct. 28 New Yorker, Steve Coll …became the latest….Steve Coll should be ashamed. But, then, so should many others in the national media….”

Precisely, although you will not see such an honest assessment on the editorial pages of The New York Times or The Washington Post nor hear a forthright discussion of this topic on television networks such as ABC, CBS, NBC, or the obviously extreme leftist MSNBC!

Americans should be very troubled when the fourth estate, inherently responsible for conveying political news fairly and with at the very least a modicum of objectivity, takes obvious sides so blatantly in an election. That should never happen, but it has.