Media Bias

Watching MSNBC this morning I haven’t seen any mention of Freedom Works, the force behind the Tea Party, urging President Obama and Congress to not help out Haiti.

It’s amazing to think about. Whenever there is any news about the tea party, the mainstream media is like a crowd trying to enter Wal-Mart on black Friday to cover the story. Now we have some very big news about the tea party and the media flat out ignores it. God forbid they actually have to give the tea baggers some negative coverage.

So there you have your liberal media at work – ignoring something as horrible as the position Freedom Works is taking against the poor people of Haiti.

Remember last month when that memo from FOX News got leaked that said they wouldn’t tolerate any more on air errors, and if they happen people could lose their jobs? Well let’s see if it works:

Last week, Fox and Friends showed a Rasmussen poll graphic revealing that a whopping 120 percent of the American public believes scientists may be falsifying research to support their own theories on global warming:

So Fox – who will be getting the ax for this? We’ll all be waiting your response.

For the past several days the media has been pushing the story that “Pelosi knew about torture and did nothing”. When people come out to defend Pelosi, such as former Senator Bob Graham, they are ignored. Instead the media has gone to bed with the Republicans in pushing their own version of what did or did not happen in 2002.

The shocker occurs today when Rasmussen, the very right leaning polling company, releases the results of this little gem:

So by a small margin the public is siding with Pelosi on the whole story. That’s pretty telling given the nonstop effort by the media and right to scapegoat Pelosi on the whole issue. 

Check out this headline from the AP:

Democrats block GOP bid to extend DC vouchers

Hmmm – really sounds like some parliamentary move to stop the vote, like a filibuster or something. But read on:

The Senate voted 50-39 along mostly party lines to reject a bid by Nevada Republican Sen. John Ensign to extend the program beyond the 2009-2010 school year. That leaves in place a provision contained in a huge spending bill that requires Congress and the Washington, D.C. government to re-approve the program. Republicans say that is likely to kill it.

Ahhh so the measure failed by a standard vote, in which they didn’t get a majority.

Now if this was a Democratic bill that didn’t make it through, the headline would read more like “Democrats fail to get enough votes to pass …..”, even if they only have 59 votes.

So when it’s a filibuster, then it’s “not enough votes”, but when a measure just fails then it is “blocked”. Yeah that makes sense.

There has been so much talk lately trying to blame the market on Obama. Bob has been keeping track of MSNBC's usage of a graph tracking the market since election day. So I wonder if the media would mind using some other numbers?

DJIA when Bush took office: 10781
DJIA when Bush left office: 7949

Now let's compare that to those "horrible" times of the 90s the Republicans refer to so much:

DJIA When Clinton took office: 3241
DJIA When Clinton left office: 10781

While Clinton more than tripled the stock market, Bush dropped it by 75%. And look at this graph. The Republicans and media can’t continue using the 9/11 or Iraq War meme:

The market more than recovered after 9/11 and well into the Iraq War. As matter of fact, the big nose dive wasn’t until last year. But was that from Election Day?

Sure the market has gone down since Obama took office, even since Election Day, but there was a much larger decline a month before the election. Funny how the media won’t enlarge their graph by a single month. I guess it would totally defeat their argument.

I’m getting a late start today, but just caught MSNBC talking about today’s “America Tea Party” that the wingnuts are throwing (during CPAC no less haha).

Santelli his a “populist nerve”? Since when do we consider 20% populist? Does that mean our country is now 60% elitist?

Really MSNBC – you got to do better than this. I guess you won’t though since facts get trumped by loyalty to your own company.

Just not on Morning Joe, Scarborough said that Obama’s approval ratings will continue to go up because the stimulus package passed and that makes Obama a winner, and Americans “love winners”.

Really?

The past two years George Bush was able to get whatever he wanted out of Congress, yet look at his approval rating. Also look at what it did to Congress’ approval rating.

What it boils down to is that Joe thinks we are idiotic, superficial tools that can not make our own decisions. Forget that fact that a majority of this country supported the stimulus bill. Ignore the fact that Democrats across the board are seeing a rise in approval ratings, while Republicans are suffering major losses – including in the south. All that doesn’t matter. Instead we are dumb ass Americans who don’t know what the hell is going on in our country, so we need Joe Scarborough to swoop in and tell us what we think.

No Joe – you are the moron. That is why you sit on the TV blindly supporting your Republican party every day while America continues to kick them to the curb. Hopefully MSNBC will wake up soon and follow suit.

I keep hearing the media say that Obama is “fear mongering” when talking about the stimulus plan. Here’s an example from today:

The Note, 02/11/09: Fear Itself -- A $3 trillion day, a bailout bust, as the president stokes fear to prod action

So we are losing a record number of jobs, businesses are closing at an alarming rate and banks are failing faster than an MLB drug test, yet some how that is fear mongering. That’s pretty ironic considering how the media bent over and grabbed their ankles when George Bush had people out there talking about mushroom clouds being delivered by Saddam.

Shouldn’t we also call it fear mongering when John McCain did the unprecedented action of suspending a presidential campaign to address a bailout? Not the media. Instead they called him things like “hero” and “leader”. Yes, for John McCain to “fear monger” is heroic.

That’s your so called “liberal” media in action right there. I must say though that I am hearing more and more people talk about how idiotic the media is and saying they are turning them off. So if enough people do that, will the media executives start “fear mongering” when they are facing massive layoffs and declines? I would love to see that day.

Between doing my daily work and shoveling snow yesterday, I watched Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC. During her show she had 3 Republicans on to talk about the stimulus bill, as compared to 0 Democrats. Looks like the bi-partisanship memo never got delivered to the media. Think Progress tracked this on all networks and found that Republicans received 2-1 coverage over Democrats:

That’s amazing. Even more amazing is the fact that FOX seemed to be the network out to give more balanced coverage. I guess we should give them kudos there. The so called “liberal” CNN and MSNBC failed miserably.

Jon Stewart has some fun with the hypocrisy on the right going on now over Obama’s presidency.

The talk today will be this:

The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year.

The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Yemen’s capital, Sana, in September. He was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists before resurfacing with Al Qaeda in Yemen.

His status was announced in an Internet statement by the militant group and was confirmed by an American counterterrorism official.

Of course buried deeper in the article is this:

In the Internet statement, Al Qaeda in Yemen identified its new deputy leader as Abu Sayyaf al-Shihri, saying he returned from Guantánamo to his native Saudi Arabia and then traveled to Yemen “more than 10 months ago.” That corresponds roughly to the return of Mr. Shihri, a Saudi who was released from Guantánamo in November 2007. Abu Sayyaf is a nom de guerre, commonly used by jihadists in place of their real name or first name.

(emphasis added)

So this guy was released while Bush was still in office, but it’s now Obama’s fault. trying to say how it proves that Obama can’t close Gitmo.

Of course Obama never said he was “closing Gitmo and releasing everyone”. The plan is to close Gitmo, a place that has become a symbol of human rights violations around the world, and move the detainees to other places to be held. Obama said they would review every single case and decide what to do with each detainee. Besides, wouldn’t it be safer to have all these people separate instead of putting all our eggs in one basket? Also – shouldn’t we ask ourselves how well this Saudi rehabilitation program is working? He was supposed to be rehabbed by Saudi standards, but goes right back to terrorism. Considering how close Bush was with the Saudi royal family, I am not surprised by this failure in rehab.

Look at this headline on ABC’s World Newser Blog:

Gift Certificates for an Abortion?

Sounds like something to really get the religious right up in arms – don’t it. The story they are talking about is this one, which I posted about last week.

The network of 35 clinics across the state announced it is offering holiday vouchers for basic health care services "or the recipient's choice of birth control method."

The organization decided to offer the vouchers because so many people are uninsured or are putting off health care because of prohibitive costs, said Betty Cockrum, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Indiana. Nearly 800,000 Indiana residents don't have health insurance, she said.

ABC follows their typical path of being a right-wing pandering news organization. They want people to think that all Planned Parenthood does is “kill babies”.

We are facing a possible depression in this country. People won’t have the money to go out and do things, so they need to find ways to entertain themselves. Guess what one popular thing to do is? If you said screwing then you are right. Also consider how much it costs to raise a baby today. Do we really want to see an onslaught of new babies that the parents can’t afford to raise?

I think Planned Parenthood is going to be a key ally in our fight against a failing economy.

Awaiting the Obama cabinet? How about worrying about your financial future? Well none of that is important. Instead let’s focus on the most pertinent issue of the day:

President-elect Barack Obama has yet to attend church services since winning the White House earlier this month, a departure from the example of his two immediate predecessors.

On the three Sundays since his election, Obama has instead used his free time to get in workouts at a Chicago gym.

Impeach Now! Doesn’t Obama know that part of his duties in the Constitution is to go to church every Sunday?

However, back here in the world of reality, it seems that Obama has a perfectly good reason to not go to church on Sundays:

Asked about the president-elect's decision to not attend church, a transition aide noted that the Obamas valued their faith experience in Chicago but were concerned about the impact their large retinue may have on other parishioners.

"Because they have a great deal of respect for places of worship, they do not want to draw unwelcome or inappropriate attention to a church not used to the attention their attendance would draw," said the aide.

Sounds reasonable – right? Well the Politico doesn’t think so, as they go on to say that Bush and Clinton went to church following their wins. My response is – so fucking what? Who cares if the President goes to church, or ever went to church? A month ago Obama was chastised for going to church, because of Wright, not he is under fire for not? Hey this Politico article appeared at 3 in the afternoon on a Sunday. Did the authors, Jonathon Martin and Carol Lee, skip church to work on it? Maybe we should check that out and write a big article. Or maybe we should start looking at the Politico as nothing more than a Matt Drudge – all the news you can’t use.

Un-fucking-believable. This is the poll CNN ran on their front page:

I have a couple suggested polls:

• Is John King to attracted to John McCain to cover the Presidential race impartially.
• Does Wolf Blitzer get on your nerves?

If you have any ideas, let's hear them.

Ben Smith has more on this.

Yesterday the news broke of Giuliani and his possible funneling of funds to support some nice vacations. So how does that Washington Post respond? By this front page hit on Obama:

Despite his denials, rumors and e-mails circulating on the Internet continue to allege that Obama (D-Ill.) is a Muslim, a "Muslim plant" in a conspiracy against America, and that, if elected president, he would take the oath of office using a Koran, rather than a Bible, as did Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the only Muslim in Congress, when he was sworn in earlier this year.

So rumors are front page stories? I head a rumor that Perry Bacon, the author of this article, got caught fucking a goat. Maybe the NYTimes can run that on the front page tomorrow.

BarbinMD has more.