Ace had a fine point a few weeks back about media bias and the ways mainstream media figures respond to criticisms from the Right and the Left:
They don’t even bother responding to us on the right, even in a clear-cut and provable systemic and deliberate case of a bias such as this. They don’t even bother defending themselves. They just ignore us. Because they’re not even reading us and even if they did, what we think just doesn’t matter.
When various leftist bloggers attack MSM figures, the response is usually fairly immediate. Joe Klein spent weeks defending himself from lefty attacks; Paul Krugman just posted a blog entry defending himself against the charge he had dared to deny the divinity of Barack Obama.
But they don’t even bother acknowledging the most obviously-verifiable criticisms of the right. Not even an acknowledgment.
Politically, you are what you read, and culturally, you are whose opinions you give a crap about.
By their very reading habits and exquisite concern for the opinions of leftwing bloggers, they give the game away. I could spend three weeks attacking Joe Klein; I’d never get a response. Because not only is he not reading me, he also doesn’t even know anyone who may be reading me and might forward my criticisms to him.
Give it a try, Crank. Robert in BA might prove you wrong just for the fun of spite 🙂
The more interesting question is what conservatives intend to do about it. After CNN’s Eason Jordan lost his job (which was shortly after Rather), the MSM journalists made a very conscious decision to ignore blogs on the right. Some even wrote about it. They vowed to shut off the oxygen. No matter how embarassing the MSM screwup (see e.g. AP’s many failures in the Mid-east) and how compelling the case made by the bloggers, there isn’t any coverage. And there won’t be.
Blogs on the right have joined talk radio as part of the echo chamber. Valuable for getting the truth to readers and listeners on the right, but worthless at getting information to the mushy middle whose only info comes from the MSM.
Swift Vets showed how to get the truth out. Conservatives have refused to learn the lesson. Rather than complaining, wouldn’t it be great to see conservatives actually doing something to get the truth to the voters in the middle who decide elections?
This MSM criticism is fantasy. The untold story about this election is NOT that the MSM has failed to discover the hidden dolls of Marx and Lenin in Obama’s closet its that they absolutely give McCain a pass on EVERYTHING. Every article is “he’s a maverick, he’s an independent, he’s deviating from Bush.” Absolute, pure horsehit, but I must give the man credit for cultivating their worship of him for years with “straight talk”. He’s getting a free pass and not only do you whiny prigs on the right know it, youre counting on it…its your ONLY shot given the public’s repudiation of the Repubs on the war and the economy.