We all know the media is biased. Actually, biased is too mild a word. It’s way beyond biased.
It’s corrupt. It’s depraved, dishonest, deceitful. And deliberately so.
We know this.
Here are just a few statistics, from Tim Groseclose’s seminal book on media bias, Left Turn:
- In a typical presidential election, Washington correspondents vote about 93-7 for the Democrat – a greater percent than union members and voters in the congressional district that includes Cambridge, MA
- From a July 2004 study, the ratio of journalists who gave to John Kerry vs. those who gave to George Bush was 93:1 . That is, 99% of those journalists who gave to one or the other gave to Kerry
- From a 2008 IBD study, for every 1 journalist who contributed to McCain, 20 gave to Obama. That is, 95.2% of those who gave, gave to Obama.
- A June 2009 Washington Times study of campaign contributions of ABC employees during 2008 presidential campaign found that they gave 80 times as much money to the Obama campaign as to the McCain campaign. Thus, of the money ABC employees gave to one of the campaigns, 98.8% went to Obama.
They put their money where their mouths are, and naturally, they then put their mouths where their money is! Is it any surprise they do what they can to support Democrats and revile Republicans? They’d be foolish not to! They’re protecting their investment. To report any story, any news, that might jeopardize the success of their investment would be the shocking thing. They are acting in a totally rational manner, insofar as supporting a leftist agenda is rational.
But how many viewers of network news are aware of this?
Here’s something else.
The Presidents of ABC News, CNN and CBS News are married or blood relatives of administration officials, as is an ABC Senior correspondent. The graphic says it all. Read more here and here.
We’d like to think that, for example, Claire Shipman, a senior national correspondent at ABC News, would report objectively about the president given that she’s married to
Jay Carney, the White House Press Secretary. But is it likely?
Given that the Democratic party and this administration in particular are woven in with the media both through money – voluntary donations – and family – blood and marriage – it would be absurdly naive to continue to expect objective news reporting. All pretense at an independent fourth estate is clearly just an illusion.
And finally, there’s the fact that these networks upon which Americans rely for their news, their information about the world, are subsidiaries of corporations, not independent entities whose goals might, in a perfect world, be to provide the most accurate reporting to their viewers and readers.
For example, NBC (and USA, A&E, the Weather Channel and several other channels) is owned by General Electric – yes, the corporation that last year paid no taxes and whose CEO Jeffrey Immelt had been the chairman of President Obama’s Jobs council. And yes, these news agencies are corporations – evil, hateful, targeted-by-Occupy corporations.
And we’re expected to trust these guys for the NEWS? For investigating the government they’ve donated to or are related to, or the corporations which own them?
Are we total idiots?
Are we total idiots?
Apparently we are. Because in large part, we’re not even aware of these impediments to honesty.
But Rage Against the Media will be launching a ballot initiative here in California, one that we hope spreads across the nation: the “TRANSPARENCY IN JOURNALISM” ballot initiative.
No, we don’t want to outlaw donations, or marriages, or corporate ownership.
But we do believe that consumers of the news have every right to be aware of these ties between government and the media.
We are proposing that these ties be prominently displayed on websites, facebook pages, mastheads and at intervals in their news crawls during broadcasts so that we can make the best decisions about our news.
Americans believe in having full information about the nutritional makeup of our food – ingredients, fat content, calories, percent of recommended daily allowance of vitamins; here in California every public building has some kind of warning about potential health hazards in the air, the water, whatever is being sold. We believe that we can only make good decisions based on complete and accurate information.
And yet, when it comes to making the best decisions about just about everything in our public lives, the information we rely on is suspect at best. RATM believes we each should be aware of the content of our news media. Transparency. It’s not just for government anymore (as if it ever were) but for who reports our news.
Something like this:
Of course, we can only affect what happens here in California for the time being, so only local affiliates and newspapers would be affected. We have no doubt, though, that this idea would spread across the country because – why WOULDN’T you want to know who is deciding what news to report on? Why WOULDN’T you want to know who’s controlling the information made available to you?
Will it pass? We don’t know. But the conversations inspired through the process of putting this on the ballot, as well as campaigning for it, will make in themselves huge strides towards informing the public about the extent of these obstacles to objective reporting. And we eagerly challenge anybody to argue against our right to know what percent of reporters at a given network have given to political parties, or to know who is related to whom in this most transparent administration, and which corporations are tied to the networks. Who can argue against transparency? And of course, all news agencies would be required to do this. Yep. Even Fox News. This is a non-partisan initiative, because bias hurts us all.
And sunlight, as we know, is the best disinfectant. Knowledge is power. We deserve the knowledge. Let them fight against informing the American people about the content of our information sources. You can’t fight the light.
Bring it ON.
Bring it ON.