November 3rd 2008
The Mainly Marginalized Media
E
veryone knows it: The mainstream media has gambled a huge stake in this presidential election.
I recently read that 80 percent of newspaper reporters support Obama; I don’t have a cite for that, so here are a few similar stats, with cites: WaPo-owned Slate revealed that among its staff Obama was ahead 55-1 over McCain. Pew found there were nearly twice as many negatively toned McCain stories, and about a third less positively toned McCain stories. I’ve come up with 102 instances of media bias with one hand tied behind my back; if I were a full time blogger, I have every confidence the tally would have easily passed 400.
And most important, three out of four Americans believe most reporters will not try to offer unbiased coverage during this campaign.
The media figure that if Obama wins, this trashing of their reputation as objective news sources will have been worth it and somehow their actions will be forgiven because they were proved right by the Obama victory. Nothing could be further from the truth. No matter who is victorious tomorrow, the media will not be the victors; they have willfully turned themselves from the MSM to the MMM: The Mainly Marginalized Media.
If Obama does win, we would be fools to trust the MSM to report accurately on the actions of the administration, which will only lead to further marginalization of formerly significant news sources. Faced with continuing and growing frustration with a lack of digging into Obama’s policies and problems, more and more Americans will look elsewhere for their news: the blogosphere, partisan publications that we can evaluate fairly because they make no bones about their editorial stance, talk radio (as long as the Fairness Doctrine isn’t reinstituted), and whatever big media haven’t marginalized themselves.
If McCain wins, it will be worse for the MMM. The only thing worse than deliberately trying to manipulate an election is deliberately trying to manipulate an election and losing. Based our experience with how they responded to Bush’s win in 2000, we cannot expect them to learn new behaviors and repent old ones. Instead, they’re likely to respond viciously since their egos were caught up with Obama, and subject McCain to even greater levels of negative reporting, which will just suck them further down in public perception, circulation and viewership.
I don’t see NBC/MSNBC, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, AP and the rest of the yellow blue journalists seeing the light and actively recruiting for political diversity up to the highest levels of their organizations. As Bill O’Reilly said, the only thing more important to the media than money is ideology.
Hollyweird apparently learned its lesson this time around. Sure, most of ‘em are in the tank for Obama and funded him lavishly, but we didn’t see a repeat of the sort of involvement they displayed in 2004. My guess: It hurt their earning power, just as it’s hurt the media’s earning power. But being more practical sorts, Hollyweird dialed it back and largely stayed under the radar. Cameron Diaz didn’t cry hysterically about rapes in the street if McCain is elected and Alex Baldwin didn’t threaten to move to Canada.
The media exhibited no such restraint, and as a result, only one in four Americans think they’ve been honest and fair in reporting the election. Three in four don’t trust them.
Faced with this marginalization, media outlets have three choices. They can stay the course, shrinking until they reach insignificance. They can recast themselves as partisan players, in the European model. Or they can recruit for political diversity from bottom to top, honestly recreating themselves as objective sources of news.
Only the latter will keep the media from becoming further marginalized, giving the traditional outlets hope for a future with significance and even profitability. But I doubt if there are enough qualified conservatives available who would be willing to risk their futures on a profession as risky as journalism, so this option probably is already foreclosed.
That leaves being stubborn and becoming ever more marginal, or willfully becoming more marginal by declaring sides. Quite a predicament they’ve gotten themselves into, and for what? To get a second-rate Democratic candidate for president elected?
They deserve what they get.
Art (both of ‘em: Okie on the Lam)
Posted in 2008, McCain, Media bias, Obama | 5 Comments » | 
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November 3rd, 2008 at 6:45 pm
I’ll believe the Lame Stream Media can change it’s yellow stripe (down the middle of it’s back) when I see a headline in hundreds of papers 0n 11/04/08 which states “Sarah Palin cleared of any wrongdoing by board in Alaska”, if the headlines don’t appear I still wouldn’t trust a media wonk in the outhouse with a muzzle on.
November 4th, 2008 at 12:40 am
Actually, I only did the one at the top. The other appeared first at Michelle Malkin’s blog, but I would have if I’d have thought about it.
November 4th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Scrapiron, or maybe it’s less newsworthy that a state Personnel Board whose members are nominated by the Governor’s office would find no ethics violations involving their boss–as opposed to a bipartisan legislative investigation in a predominantly red state that does find ethics violations. You say the media is biased, but I see a clear bias in your choosing to place equal or perhaps greater weight on the latter finding despite an obvious conflict of interest. Perhaps the media has a bigger story to cover at this point…like a historic Presidential election. I mean, the MSM didn’t even attack Palin for failing to honor her campaign promise to release her full medical records, opting instead to release a letter from her doctor stating, without evidence, that she is in good health. Funny how no conservatives are complaining about that huge oversight by the media to call her out on the broken promise…
November 4th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
DG - Not surprisingly I disagree with your spin. From the Anchorage Daily News:
The [State Personnel] board is set up in state law as an independent agency to hear complaints of violations of state ethics law brought against executive branch employees. Members are appointed by the governor, though Palin only had a role in appointing one of the three current members.
Both investigations found that Palin was within her rights to fire Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan.
But the new report says the Legislature’s investigator was wrong to conclude that Palin abused her power by allowing aides and her husband, Todd, to pressure Monegan and others to dismiss her ex-brother-in-law, trooper Mike Wooten.
One of the board’s members is a Republican; the other two are undeclared.
It’s also pretty much just funny that you hold that a legislative review of an issue is somehow above conflict of interest. Nowhere do interests conflict more than in elected legislatures. The head of the investigation was Sen. Hollis French, a Democrat who had called for Palin’s impeachment. He hired Steve Branchflower, the investigator. (Source)
November 5th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Laer, I’m not trying to spin. And I am not saying that a legislative inquiry is not without bias. But the legislature is independent from the executive branch at state, as at the federal, level. The majority of members of the legislative review, as I have read, were Republicans, reflecting GOP control of that body. The three-member panel that exonerated Palin rely on her or a future Governor for their reappointment, so she kind of signs their paychecks. This is a conflict of interest. Whether it translates into greater bias, I have no idea, but this would not stand in an investigation of a CEO of a company, let’s say, for insider trading or unjust enrichment violations. It is not spin to point this out nor raise it as a possible reason for more subdued press coverage. You can disagree, but please do not question my motives. I actually hope Palin’s ascendancy continues, because she will prove a disaster for the GOP; read Frum’s most recent stuff for a conservative with a similar take on her chances.