The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Creative Ideas About Media Bias

Posted on | May 21, 2012 | 16 Comments

There are few things more boring than listening to conservatives complain about liberal bias in the media. We’ve heard it all before and nothing ever changes, because the people who run the media sincerely believe one of two things:

  1. Their coverage is actually objective and balanced; or
  2. Republicans are a dangerous menace — genuinely evil — so that publishing “news” slanted in favor of Democrats is a valuable public service, a sort of philanthropic humanitarian project.

Maybe it’s a little of both.

Discerning the motives for liberal media bias, however, is less important than teaching our fellow citizens to recognize such bias — which is often subtle enough that you don’t notice it unless you know what to look for — and doing what little we can to counteract it.

Trying to push back against media bias can be a frustrating endeavor. One suspects there are idle hours when RNC chairman Reince Priebus ponders the possibility of violent revenge on the bastards. At the wilder reaches of his imagination, for example, Reince might dream about hiring a production company to gin up a fake al-Qaeda video, with a masked actor portraying a fanatical jihadi guerrilla, issuing a new directive, ranting in Arabic about how those vicious infidels at the New York Times — owned by a notorious Zionist dog! — have incurred the righteous wrath of Mohammed’s servants by their heinous insults. The ranting jihadi would hold up a picture of Paul Krugman or Tom Friedman and explain how these willing tools of the Great Satan have abetted the schemes of Imperialist Aggressors. “Strike now! The Prophet must be Avenged!”

The chairman of the Republican National Committee would never actually try a devious scheme like that, for obvious reasons. You’d never be able to keep a  thing like that secret. Somebody would talk, or the CIA would spot the video as a fake. It might turn into a scandal or something.

All I’m saying is that we could understand — perhaps even sympathize — if that kind of crazy idea occasionally crossed Reince Priebus’s mind.

Instead of plotting twisted ways of striking back against those wretched liberal bastards, what Republicans end up doing is spending lots of money for TV ads in an effort to counteract the impact of the allegedly objective “news” that the media cranks out. Politico:

Obama super PAC slump continues
The pro-Barack Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action is still struggling to keep up with GOP super PACs preparing to unleash millions of dollars in independent advertisements. . . .

See? Republican super-PACs are out-raising Democrat super-PACs, and this development is worrying enough to the liberals at Politico that they turn it into a big headline that serves two purposes:

  1. It alerts Politico‘s liberal readership that Democrats need to raise lots of money to fight the (objectively evil) Republicans, thus to help encourage liberals to give generously next time they get a fundraising letter from the DNC or the Obama Campaign; and
  2. It helps lay the pretext of an excuse in case Mitt Romney manages to beat Obama, namely that those greedy evil rich Republicans stole the election by illegally spending their own money.

This is how bias works. Good news for Republicans is bad news for liberals, and so any success for the GOP must be A Very Bad Thing. Big headline from the New York Times Zionist Imperialist Dogs:

‘Super PACs’ Changing How Political Operatives Operate

This is Very Bad News, you see. Without even reading the story, you know that this article will leave liberal readers feeling a profound concern about the influence of Republican super-PACs, a concern these reader have never felt in regard to the influence of labor unions or MSNBC. And the next time the liberal gets a letter, phone call or e-mail from a Democratic fundraiser, they’ll be psychologically primed to give money, because they’ve been told repeatedly, by the New York Times and other media outlets they trust, that those evil Republicans are trying to use sneaky super-PACs to steal the election.

Reince Priebus does everything he can to fight back, short of inciting radical Islamists to blow up the New York Times office (620 Eighth Avenue) which would, however, only be a small (although not insignificant) step toward solving the media-bias problem. John Hinderaker spots this Associated Press headline today:

Is GOP trying to sabotage economy to hurt Obama?

Here’s a better question: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

Stunned disbelief is the only possible reaction to finding this kind of partisan accusation — quite literally a DNC talking point, as though reporter Charles Babington started with a press release from Debbie Wasserman-Schultz — being made in an Associated Press headline.

Imagine the reaction at GOP HQ this morning: How do you even find the will to keep on trying, when every day brings more and more examples of purposeful partisanship by the press? What can possibly be done, when the Associated Press, the New York Times and every other major media venue pushes out a constant flow of Democrat propaganda?

It’s enough to make a Republican want to denounce these dishonest biased weasels for what they really are . . .

Infidel dogs who blaspheme against Allah!

 


Category: Election 2012, Media Bias, New York Times, Reince Priebus, Republicans

Comments

16 Responses to “Creative Ideas About Media Bias”

  1. Bob Belvedere
    May 21st, 2012 @ 9:00 am

    A succinct and dead-on-balls-accurate description of how subtle media bias works.  Thanks.

    PS: One quibble, Stacy: you really should have started the post with the phrase ‘Herewith, a brief primer…’.

  2. JeffWeimer
    May 21st, 2012 @ 9:22 am

    Bob, that’s weapons-grade funny right there.

  3. JeffWeimer
    May 21st, 2012 @ 9:26 am

    They’re all worried about the superPACs, but they’re the superest PAC of all – the MSM-PAC. They act exactly as a super-PAC would, except they get to disguise their advocacy as actual content instead of advertising.

  4. rosalie
    May 21st, 2012 @ 9:26 am

    Stacy’s doing his part in combating the media’s bias.  It’s obvious that he lives by the quote at the top of his blog.  I’m just glad he’s on our side.

  5. robertstacymccain
    May 21st, 2012 @ 9:35 am

    LOL! The infamous Gerson-Wehner method!

  6. Analitika
    May 21st, 2012 @ 10:33 am

     I don’t see why i should care what he says, in the sense of attributing
    any wisdom to him. Some of his positions might be okay, just as a
    broken clock is right twice a day, who knows, but who cares? Reading his blog is nothing to brag about. 

    In fact he seems to be a typical conservative whinger, who complains about “liberal media bias.” Now all sides complain about media bias but when you think of it, who OWNS them? Rupert Murdoch. Okay, the NY Times is sort of liberal, but even they, for instance, in their typical liberal hand-wringing way, deferred reporting on the ILLEGAL and UNCONSTITUTIONAL Bush Regime spying on its own citizens without court authorization, and in many other ways gave the Bush Regime the benefit of the doubt. Conservative media go for the throat. “Fair and balanced” is an Orwellian expression. You prefer conservative media?

  7. Yeah, They’re In the Lefty Tank…And? | Daily Pundit
    May 21st, 2012 @ 10:56 am

    […] Creative Ideas About Media Bias : The Other McCain There are few things more boring than listening to conservatives complain about liberal bias in the media. […]

  8. Bob Belvedere
    May 21st, 2012 @ 11:02 am

    Tut, tut, Anamikalitika.

    [with apologies to JeffS]

  9. JeffWeimer
    May 21st, 2012 @ 11:04 am

    When they get like that, I get this mental image of Gollum talking to his “precious”.

  10. Stealth Media Bias Succinctly And Accurately Explained « The Camp Of The Saints
    May 21st, 2012 @ 11:21 am

    […] wizened warrior of the reporting game, Robert Stacy McCain, has penned a succinct and dead-on-balls-accurate description of how Stealth Media Bias […]

  11. McGehee
    May 21st, 2012 @ 12:42 pm

    I don’t see why i should care what he says

    And yet you came in.

  12. Adobe_Walls
    May 21st, 2012 @ 1:07 pm

    Where do we keep the thorazine?

  13. Adobe_Walls
    May 21st, 2012 @ 1:10 pm

    “The chairman of the Republican National Committee would never actually try a devious scheme like that, for obvious reasons.”

    Exactly why we need an actual VRWC. 

  14. richard mcenroe
    May 21st, 2012 @ 3:18 pm

    Michael Crichton was fond of quoting the famous Professor Murray Gell-Mann on what he called the The Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect…

  15. Adjoran
    May 21st, 2012 @ 5:25 pm

    Babington is 100% hack.  I sometimes drop in on his drivel to mention this fact, and always draw a few “likes” from it – Yahoo! insists on notifying me of this, I never go back to the article on the grounds that suffering through Charles’ nonsense once is enough to claim my civic duties fulfilled.

  16. Warmongerel
    May 22nd, 2012 @ 11:41 pm

     And yet, Obama had continued said “ILLEGAL” and “UNCONSTITUTIONAL” policies..and not a word of that was mentioned bu the Moonbat