Almost as infuriating as the fact that the major mainstream news organizations are blatantly, unprofessionally and unethically biased toward liberal and progressive policies, causes, politicians, and the Democratic Party is the refusal of so many in the media and on the Left to admit it. This is a big problem, because it is impossible to fix a problem when those responsible for it refuse to acknowledge that there is a problem. Yet a fair, objective and independent journalistic establishment is crucial to the proper functioning of a democracy, and the open yet still denied abdication of this role by journalists, which shifted into a higher and outrageous gear with the media’s shameless stumping for Barack Obama in 2008 poses a continuing threat to all citizens, not just left-leaning ones. The Obama administration’s arrogance, ineptitude and rank defiance of the Constitution on many fronts will supply some future historian with a fascinating study of how the removal of news media scrutiny does the most damage to the government it is trying to prop up.
Journalists either deny the bias allegation (admittedly, some with integrity, like CNN’s Jake Tapper, do not) because they are too biased to realize it, or because they believe that they should be biased, since progressivism is The One True Way. Citizens who deny it, like the readers here that I can usually rouse by asserting the obvious about media bias, either do so because they can’t see it (the fact that reporting supports what they support just proves the competence and wisdom of reporters!) or because they feel their favored policies and leaders are the beneficiaries of the bias, so why mess with a good thing?
The first is depressing; the latter is disgraceful. Thus it is worth the time of any American who cares about a functional democratic institutions to keep looking for the smoking gum example that is so egregious even cynical partisans and fools will have to finally admit, “Well, yeah, you got me. The media is left-biased as hell. I guess we should do something about it. It’s not healthy.” It gets discouraging, though, because those in denial are expert in rationalizing each example of media slant. The 2008 push for Obama? Well, it was just great for the country to finally have a black President…politics and ideology had nothing to do with it. The media’s blatant advocacy for a crack-down on guns to bolster the Democratic assault on gun-ownership? Hey, reporters are human beings and parents—this wasn’t politics: kids are dying!!! Papering over unemployment figures, human rights violations, inter-agency scandals, political use of the I.R.S., and blatant Presidential lies that in the past have sparked months of front page and editorial attacks against Republican presidents?
Well, it’s just great for the country to finally have a black President.
The current smoking gun is of a superficially trivial nature, but it has special force because I can’t see a single valid reason why such a disparity should exist other than bias. In 2006, the Washington Post’s coverage of Laura Bush 60th birthday and the week surrounding it was one paragraph buried in the Style section, noting that the President had “left the campaign trail yesterday in time to celebrate his wife’s 60th birthday at the family ranch in Texas. Our colleague Peter Baker reports that the president gave Laura Bush a triple-strand, amber-colored citrine necklace. The low-key dinner included family friends Lois and Roland Betts, Regan and Billy Gammon, Debbie and Jim Francis, and Nancy and Mike Weiss.” That was it. The rest of the news media gave similar significance to the landmark occasion for the First Lady, which, I must say, was the appropriate amount of coverage to give. Non-narcissist adults not in the throes of depression do not treat birthdays ending in zeros as cause for massive and elaborate festivities, and the celebration of national leader’s birthdays by the public and the news media is the stuff of dictatorships and totalitarian regimes. The news media, including the Post, treated Michelle Obama’s 50th birthday on January 17 as if it was a date of national importance. Papers like USA Today started promoting it months ago. The Post had a front page puff piece contrasting Hillary Clinton’s birthday celebration when she was First Lady to Michelle’s—hmmm, wasn’t there another FLOTUS in between there?—and the New York Times had a puff piece of its own. ABC News disgraced itself with this bootlicking display, “50 Ways to Celebrate Michelle Obama’s Birthday.”
Birthdays aren’t news, you know. They are well scheduled in advance. The only reason to treat them as new is to show fealty and favor—I don’t celebrate the birthdays of people who aren’t my personal friends. So I’d like to know from the bias-deniers out there: what legitimate, logical, ethical explanation can you cite for the wildly disparate ways the news media has covered the seminal birthdays of the two most recent First Ladies, both occurring during the second terms as their husbands’ poll numbers were falling faster than my faith in humanity when I watch “Girls” on HBO?
By the way: Happy 50th birthday, Mrs. Obama.
Ethics Alarms 
I’m not wishing that sow a single thing, save a swift exit from the housing we provide for her.
He birthday present cost me a pile of money, and in a recent interview she had the unmitigated gal to say that when they leave the White House she is looking forward to traveling.
These shit-piles are beneath contempt.
Jackie Kennedy got similar treatment. My father used to rant along a similar vein. The more things stay the same.
Well, the news media owed her, since they assisted her husband in cheating on her.
“Gall” is spelled with two l’s.
I also dropped “r” turning “her” into “he”.
If this is the best you can do, I am unimpressed.
What a load of dreck. Tell me what unconstitutional policies the Obama Administration has pursued that DON’T constitute a continuation of policies established by the Bush Administration. And then turn your reputedly critical eye toward Fox and Newsmax and Rush Limbaugh and tell me there’s no bias there.
I’m a socially liberal but otherwise conservative Democrat. I was a Clinton appointee, and a George W. Bush appointee. I’m about as bi-partisan as it’s possible to be, and your one-sided criticism of media bias is…biased.
Consider the ethical implications of that.
Red flag answered.
And, yet, there was no answer.
exactly!
But Buuuuuuuuuuush.
Because Obama has no authority to end anything he doesn’t like.
What a fucking joke. Get the fuck out of here until you grasp the central theme, ‘kay?
Right back at you. (Oh, and the recourse to profanity kind of proves that you can’t hold your own in a rational discussion.)
The fact that you can’t actually refute my position, and have to poke at my spelling and word use is telling.
You are still blaming a man 5 years out of office for the shit being pulled by the guy in office that is beyond anything Bush ever did.
Classic.
I worked for the guy (George W. Bush) for a little over 5 years, and I’m proud of having done so, despite our disagreements on some things. That’s OK. We’re Americans. We disagree from time to time.
What are you?
I like the implication that I’m “not an American”.
Very clever.
Also very predictable.
Of course. You stepped right into it, after all.
It was easy to set you up for the ignorant comment once I realized you were a fucking moron.
I mean, only a complete dumbass would nitpick spelling without making a counter argument and then be shocked that people think he’s some sort of hack.
“You don’t agree with me, so you are in american” was easy to assume.
Mr Meatshield.
Let me parse the argument you make against Chris, who actually worked in the Bush Administration. You say:
“ignorant…fucking moron…complete dumbass..nitpick…hack…”
You also refer to a FLOTUS as a “sow” and a “shitpile.”
And you have the nerve to accuse someone of not refuting you on the merits? Go google “hoist with his own petard.”
Thank you, Charles. I didn’t respond to his argument because there was no argument to respond to. (And, yes. I just ended a sentence with a preposition.)
Bush is a fucker, but many of us knew that going in. Obama is a motherfucker because he promised the moon and gave us… more of fucking Bush… a lot more.
Yo, Meat Man, hate to say it but your shit’s getting old. Either that or I’m starting to feel the effects of Devil’s Cut whiskey. Either way, big wuss, I’m still waiting for your rebuttal about some god damn thing we were arguing about. So there!
Oh no! Fattymoon has gotten his liquid courage and called me out!
I’m a-skeered!
Obama was never going to be anything but an abject failure. That no one believed us at the time isn’t our fault.
Supporting evidence for your opinion, Porky? (Love this whiskey!)
…
An empty suit who never actually did anything and who surrounded himself with socialists (violent socialists in at least two cases), especially one from Chicago, was never going to be even remotely competent, let alone ethical.
Ok, you win. Whiskey’s got me. I feel a mock turtle neck creeping round my shoulder, so leaving this discussion to play DayZ. You play DayZ, I shoot you on sight. C’mon, I darez ya! http://dayzgame.com/ (Ya can download it on Steam, ya big wussie.)
Jeff gets here to the nut of the reason why Obama’s Bush imitations and extensions, and the media’s refusal to score him for it, are so outrageous. He promised to not only be different and better, but different and better in kind. Less divisive. Transparent. Honest. Candid. Competent. Accountable. If the media were fair and objective, it would at least be as critical of Obama as Bush, and properly more so. There is just no argument against it.
I may have to ignore Chris until he says something honest, perceptive or intelligent.
Perceptive and intelligent are subjective terms, and you may conclude that neither applies to me.
Honest? Tell me where I’ve lied.
I didn’t say, or mean to imply, that you have said anything that’s dishonest. And I do apologize for the cheap crack about appointees—that was gratuitous nastiness. Taking down the Christmas tree always puts me in a vile mood…the combination of nostalgia and dry needles sticking in me. Please forgive me…just a crappy thing to say. But I do not appreciate being called biased when the evidence I am basing my analysis is undeniable and of long standing, and your “rebuttal,” though not a lie, was not good faith either, but smoke and mirrors. The honorable thing to do, as an intelligent individual who realizes that he actually has no persuasive counter arguments to offer—Newsmax????— is to admit the likelihood that the other party is, painful as it may be to accept, correct, not to toss sand in the air. That was what I meant to convey.
Mr. Meatshield,
It’s hard to find real data in the cloud of your insults and outbursts, but you seem to be saying Obama should have been able to reverse some unfortunate Bush-era policies by now.
I believe he’s done quite a bit of reversing of the Bush era. Consider the following:
–Osama bin Laden’s right to life under the Bush administration was revoked under Obama’s
–The stock market has recovered from its Bush-era lows under Obama
–Inflation is lower under Obama than under Bush
–US Budget deficits under Obama have been lower than Bush’s last year’s budget deficit – every single year.
–Both presidents announced an end to the war in Iraq – only one of them stuck
Unfortunately, you’re right about a few things.
-Obama still hasn’t been able to restore the massive hit to unemployment driven by Bush era policies; though beginning two years after, it’s been coming down.
-Gitmo is still a blot on our national reputation.
All in all, though, elections have consequence. So do wars. So do massive spending on wars coupled with lower taxes. All of which hardly stop the moment you elect someone new.
So when you pooh-pooh critiques of leftover policies from the Bush administration, you’re just not to be taken seriously.
Based on intelligence work done under Bush, and an attack that other people had to actually order because he didn’t want the pressure.
Hard to believe that when the Fed pumps over a trillion dollars a year into the bond market that the stock market could do well. Truly.
Because the Fed is proking around with the bond market. In a way that can’t continue and will catch up with us.
You base this on a “last year” number because it was a one-off spending binge that few people like. If you use averages over entire times in office, Obama more than doubles Bush’s deficit spending.
Oh, and that “Bush’s last year” was something Dems wanted. But whatever. It’s all Bush’s fault. I get it.
You mean the withdrawal from Iraq that happened in direct accordance with the treaty Bush signed before leaving office? You’re welcome.
There are more people out of work now than at any time under Bush. That you think the U1 numbers have any actual connection to reality is… Well, I’m not shocked. You are sort of stupid…
In fact, it was renovated and expanded under Obama, just as drone strikes, domestic spying, and abuse of power were expanded.
Yay Obama!
These are objectively horrible, Charles.
–Osama bin Laden’s right to life under the Bush administration was revoked under Obama’s. (As if Bush’s efforts weren’t as responsible for Osama’s death as Obama’s. It was hardly a new operation.)
–The stock market has recovered from its Bush-era lows under Obama. (Please. If the stock market is down, it will go up. With an epically slow and jobless recovery, you’re estopped from citing this as an accomplishment)
–Inflation is lower under Obama than under Bush. (That’s Fed policy, and we’ll be paying the price down the line. Inflation was hardly a problem under Bush. Investment interest rates are also lower.)
–US Budget deficits under Obama have been lower than Bush’s last year’s budget deficit – every single year. (Oh-my-god. The total of Obamas deficits dwarf Bush’s, and the last year was a joint figure between the two administrations.)
–Both presidents announced an end to the war in Iraq – only one of them stuck, (Cheap shot. Bush never announced an end to the war–if you are citing the “mission accomplished banner put up by the carrier crew, that’s been thoroughly debunked. Their mission WAS accomplished. And ending the war incompetently so the entire operation is sacrificed is hardly an accomplishment.)
Such a forced list is a better validation of my assessment than anything I could write. Wow. It’s worse than I thought.
And he thinks it is a victory…
Jack,
Those were all cheap shots; just a lot less cheap than Meatshield’s completely data-lacking snide comment to which they were a response.
You’re going to hold me accountable to high data standards in responding sarcastically to a zero-content obscene rant? Puh-leeze.
So what you’re trying to say….On an ethics website…. Is that because someone had already lowered himself to profanity, that it was ok for you to lower yourself to nonsense and cheap shots?
Chris S: of course Fox News has a bias. As does MSNBC. Rush Limbaugh is a commentator, not a newsman. Newsmax, I don’t consider a news source; it’s too out there – but on the premise that a stopped clock is right twice a day (or was, in the pre-digital age), if you want to call it a news outlet, fine. Yes, it’s got a conservative bias.
But these are all comparatively small – even Fox – in comparison to the larger major media monolith, which consists of the alphabet networks, the wire services, most daily newspapers and NPR.
It is of these that Jack writes. And as one who works with media, I agree with him.
I’m sorry, Arthur, but you need to look at Fox’s numbers. They are the major news source for a significant portion of the American public.
We probably do still have a disagreement, but thank you for understanding my point that media bias is not one-sided. I wasn’t claiming that the liberal side is innocent — I was saying that everybody (including me) has a bias and that always has to be taken into account.
Saying that only one side’s opinions have to be taken with a grain of salt is, itself, a bias.
Chris S. – you need to look at the numbers yourself. I study them. Fox is indeed dominant in the cable news sphere, drawing more than MSNBC, CNN and CNN Headline News combined. Even so, in 2012, Fox drew an average of just slightly less than 2 million viewers in its primetime programming (when the opinion shows, not the news shows, are aired). During the day, Fox typically drew about 1.1 million viewers; CNN and MSNBC are tied at about 400,000.
By comparison, ABC primetime news was about 7.1 million, NBC’s was about 8.3 million and CBS was about 6 million.
According to Arbitron, in 2011 NPR’s Morning Edition drew just shy of 13 million listeners per week and Morning Edition just north of 12 million.
The newspaper industry is in a sorry state, but still sells an average of 40 million newspapers a day.
All of these outlets have websites, and the numbers cited above do NOT include Web reach. Fox News is in the top ten for news sites, as rated by unique monthly visitors, but they lag well behind Yahoo/ABC, CNN, NBC, CBS., USA Today and the New York Times.
Now: many of these outlets are in deep financial kimchee but their reach remains, if the ad dollars don’t. The inescapable conclusion is that Fox (which IS nicely profitable) has much more presence of mind than they do actual reach. Which must amuse them mightily.
I’m not quite sure that I get your point. So, Fox is not important because their daytime viewership is greater than MSNBC and CNN combined? And NPR’s Morning Edition is about in the same ballpark as Fox? (Nice switch of metrics from daily to weekly, by the way. I congratulate you. Somebody may have been too stupid to notice that.)
You completely missed my point. It’s that all media outlets have a bias of one sort or another. I just think it’s incumbent on all of us as consumers of news to realize that we may fall victim to the perpetual danger of selectively listening to only those who tell us what we want to hear.
I didn’t say Fox wasn’t important. I’m putting it into perspective – that Fox’s reach is far less than a lot of people assume it is, and is in fact considerably outweighed by the legacy outlets. As for Morning Edition/NPR -: that’s how Arbitron reports their numbers – but it’s also likely that they have an extremely high number of regular listeners, so their 12 mm weekly likely represents a far larger regular audience than Fox’s. An assumption that one divides the total by five and comes up with numbers comparable to Fox is silly – as is the assumption that a different 2 mm people tune into Fox every day.
As to your second graf: on this point, we COMPLETELY agree – lock, stock and barrel. Your previous post on this subject did NOT make that viewpoint clear.
To Jack’s original point: the problem is not that media outlets have bias. The problem is that Americans have been conditioned to believe in the concept of “objective” media – which is an American conceit, and a comparatively recent one (early 20th century) at that. Very few other parts of the world, even those with free market economies, attempt to position their media outlets that way. And the larger problem is that so many in American journalism buy into the concept as well, blithely unaware that they share biases with their editors, publishers and station/network chiefs, were likely trained and hired that way, and that those biases have become institutionalized.
All media is non-objective, because it is run by humans. Ours appears to be the only nation that refuses to recognize that, and stacks the deck despite of it.
Thanks for reminding me of the low quality of both parties’ appointments.
You really think pointing to the one right-biased broadcast news organization (countering all the rest), conservative talk radio (which is irrelevant to the post) and, seriously, Newsmax???…is a serious rebuttal to the vast majority of dailies, the Post, Times, USA Today, ABC, CBS, NBS, MSNBC, PBS, NPR, CNN, most local outlets? Is this really typical of your analytical ability? I talk about the bias of the mainstream media toward the Obama administration, and your retort is “Obama shouldn’t be held accountable for policies that are a continuation of the Bush policies which he was perfectly capable of ending, and pledged to end, and that Bush was slammed repeatedly and consistently for by all of the outlets I listed? Honestly? Embarrassing.
This is a weak, insultingly lame and poorly constructed comment. It you are going to accuse me of bias, you better do a lot better than this. But I am grateful for it, because it proves my point beautifully.
Even more than my friend Charles winning my bet with myself by resorting to the “50 is a bigger deal for women than 60 is” Hail Mary to explain away pretty obvious bias. (Try telling that one to my wife, Charles.)
Jack,
I missed the part where because you say you anticipated my argument, that it was therefore wrong. How’s that work?
I said my argument had the virtue of being testable, and now being back at the office, I can test it.
Going back at least as far as FDR, apparently only three First Ladies had her 50th birthday while in the White House – Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosalyn Carter, and Hillary Clinton. Hillary’s was far more elaborate than Michelle’s, and Eleanor’s far less. And if you google the coverage, Hillary’s press coverage was pretty big too. (You may, of course, see that as evidence that Big Media has been biased for several decades now; I don”t see it. But then again, maybe I’m a bias-denier).
I’m not sure what one can make of this, other than to say Republican First Ladies, at least back to WWI (I haven’t gone further back) seem to have all been over 50, and as I said I’m guessing weren’t wild about drawing attention to decade birthdays beyond that.
So – what was it you were saying about media bias?
Jack,
I don’t know if I will cop to being a bias-denier, but let me wade into this one nonetheless.
You might take a look at how people in United States, especially women, celebrate 50th birthdays versus 60th birthdays. I know in my case, the former was a much bigger bash than the latter; somehow it seems more appropriate to be laid-back at 60.
I think it is no accident therefore that Laura Bush chose to celebrate her 60th in the backwoods of Texas, at the Bushes’ very private ranch, while Michelle is celebrating her 50th in the middle of Washington. Seems to me it would’ve been much more remarkable for Laura to celebrate her 60th in Washington, and Michelle her 50th in Chicago.
I note that this is a testable hypothesis: you could go back and look up prior First Lady birthdays of each type while they were in the White House, and see what emerges.
And since you’ve mentioned media bias, what to make of a blogger who refers to “The Obama administration’s arrogance, ineptitude and rank defiance of the Constitution on many fronts?” Did any of the Bush administration’s misadventures ever incur such language? (Hey, for all I know, you did say exactly such things about Cheney/Bush, I am honestly just asking).
Thank you. You said it better than I did.
All administrations are different, as are all Presidents—arrogance isn’t one of the first criticisms I would have of the Bush years, but they define Obama’s. Here are just some of my assessments of the previous administration—the posts about torture and Abu Ghraib constitute a whole library.
http://ethicsscoreboard.com/list/bushadmin.html
http://ethicsscoreboard.com/list/ajackson.html
http://ethicsscoreboard.com/liars/0610_bush.html
http://ethicsscoreboard.com/list/politics2005.html
That said,I think Obama is the weakest, mots destructive, mots disappointing and most inept President in my lifetime, and quite possibly as bad as any in American history, which makes the biased media coverage all the more disturbing…and, as I have written, part of the reason for the arrogance and failure.
Interesting…”possibly as bad as any president in history…”
Well, at least no doubt where you stand, Jack.
Opinions at the level of “good” and “bad” presidents are unarguable, of course, except perhaps in the long view of history. My guess is it’ll take 20 years to definitively see whether your judgment accords with that of the historians – but assuming we’re both around to see it, I’ll lay you 20 bucks and odds that you’re well off the mark.
Care to sharpen up the bet and make it official?
🙂
Before you do, you might want to Google “Best and Worst Presidents.” You’ll find there’s a long history of surveys, and the most recent compilation suggests the following: [this from Wikipedia]
“George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt are consistently ranked at the top of the lists. Often ranked just below those Presidents are Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt. The remaining places in the top ten are often rounded out by Harry S. Truman, Woodrow Wilson, Dwight D. Eisenhower, James K. Polk, and Andrew Jackson. The bottom ten are James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, GEORGE W. BUSH, Millard Fillmore, Ulysses S. Grant, Zachary Taylor, and John Tyler…
And going back a bit further:
In 2011, through the agency of its United States Presidency Centre (USPC), the Institute for the Study of the Americas (located in the University of London’s School of Advanced Study) released the first ever U.K. academic survey to rate U.S. presidents. This polled the opinion of British specialists in American history and politics to assess presidential performance. They also gave an interim assessment of Barack Obama, but his unfinished presidency was not included in the survey (had he been included, he would have attained eighth place overall).
In 2012, Newsweek magazine asked a panel of historians to rank the ten best presidents since 1900. The results showed that historians had ranked Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama as the best since that year.[20]
A 2013 History News Network poll of 203 American historians, when asked to rate Barack Obama’s presidency on an A-F scale, gave him a B- grade. Obama, whom historians graded using 15 separate measures plus an overall grade, was rated most highly in the categories of communication ability, integrity, and crisis management, and most poorly for his relationship with Congress and transparency and accountability.[21]
Of course, they could all be wrong, and you could end up being right…
My area of specialization was the American Presidency and leadership theory as it related to the presidency—Presidential history was also my hobby from the age of 10 on. I’ve followed those polls sincxe the days when Arthur Schlesinger Jr. automatically rated very Democrat within sight as a great President and every Republican ave Lincoln as “near-great.” My professor for the American President history course was Doris Kearns—like the vast majority of historians, a partisan Democrat (she was widely believed to be one of LBJ’s sexual conquests.
I’ve seen most of the polls. Rating Obama high for integrity at this point is a terrible joke, and shows how desperate historians are to rate him highly. Crisis management is easy if you never find out about them. What crisis has Obama managed at all? That’s hilarious.
I generally agree with the 20 year point—it took almost 75 years for historians to admit what a disaster Wilson was. Which is why I’ll trust my own assessment over theirs, thanks. Historians have proven themselves untrustworthy as far as Presidential rankings go—as with the one a couple of years ago that I wrote about, ranking FDR above Lincoln and Washington–despite helping to surrender Eastern Europe to communism and imprisoning American citizens because of race. If a republican had done that, regardless of his other accomplishments, he’d be staring up at Rutherford B. Hayes.
Obama’s an easy call as an epic and tragic failure now, and by 2016, there won’t be any objective argument. Which doesn’t mean the historians won’t rate him a C, just because.
And this list— Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama—who was on that panel? Wilson, who returned us to Jim Crow, laid the groundwork for WW II and got us into the first World War on a pretext? Kennedy, whose major accomplishment was not getting us in World War III after blundering us into it? Johnson, who lied our way into Vietnam hell? Clinton, who was justly impeached, and who is directly responsible for the polarized, toxic dysfunction we have today? I’d love to see THAT panel. All Democrats automatically admitted to the list, despite perfidy, incompetence, failure and crimes!
Oh good grief. A famous woman turning 50 is a big deal. A 60th birthday less so. You know that. Everybody knows that. There is media bias — but this is a lousy example.
It doesn’t fucking deserve fawning puff peices from JOURNALISTS.
You’re right. It is a puff piece and I think this kind of stuff is stupid. But it doesn’t show BIAS, it demonstrates a slow news cycle and the need for a puff piece. Just like the local news shows “the local shelter pet” each week up for adoption.
In forty minutes CNN is going to run a half hour biopic titled “An Extraordinary Journey”.
Guess who it is about…
“The life of … is celebrated…”
From CNN…
And there isn’t a bias? You don’t fellate someone with such a bullshit piece unless you are fawning over them.
Oh, no! It’s because of the mythical significance of every woman’s 50th birthday!
In forty minutes CNN is going to run a half hour biopic titled “An Extraordinary Journey”.
Guess who it is about…
“The life of … is celebrated…”
From CNN…
************
Ugh!
Who is worse, the “news: station that makes the program, or the nitwits that watched it?
We are a country in shambles.
Who says its a big deal, as in news? Front page big deal? Ridiculous. The difference between a First Lady’s 60th and another’s 50th is one paragraph and a front page story and multiple features? Tell me another. Pure rationalization.
You’ve jumped the shark on this one. 60th and 70th bdays aren’t celebrated to the same extent. I’m not rationalizing but boy you are sure biased on this one. They would have covered any first lady turning 50 — assuming she’d agree to the hoopla.
No, they really wouldn’t, and haven’t. Pieces about leader birthdays and leader family birthdays are dictator worship stuff, inappropriate, and not news by any stretch of the imagination. (Front page puff pieces? Show me another.) This stuff was embarrassing with Jackie, and worse with Michelle, and it is the antithesis of an unbiased reporting. I’ll go further…it is unethical to appear to be kowtowing to this degree, whatever its intent. The fact that you and others have been lulled into thinking that treating the First Family like royalty—especially this one—-is normal or healthy doesn’t make it so.
Ugh. You know what this reminds me of — when Oprah turned 50. It was news for days, and she obviously is not a politician. I didn’t care about that and I don’t care about this either. But what I view as “stupidity in media” you seem to read as “bias in media.”
The two are not mutually exclusive. Here’s the kind of challenge Barry, the late lamented Ampersand, would frequently meet: find me an example of a conservative or Republican non-president pol that the news media made an equivalent fuss over when they were only having a birthday.
The media is biased in favor of Oprah, of course. Where was the big media whoop-de-doo when, say, Rush Limbaugh or Bill O’Reilly turned 50? Some of the symptoms of media bias are so familiar nobody pays attention any more.
Oprah threw her own b-day bash. A woman celebrating 50 instead of hiding in the closet is more newsworthy (although still belongs in my “I don’t care book”) than a man turning 50 — regardless of politics. Men look distinguished at 50, women are considered old.
But… But they are… 🙂
Wish I could argue with you on that one.
I’m not saying there is no bias. But I agree with Beth that this isn’t a good clear example. Media interest will be a function of many factors. The fact of Michelle being the first black FLOTUS among them. But surely the much larger factor is the willingness and readiness of the FL to get involved or exposed.
If the Presidency has assessed Michelle favourably as an asset, then pumped a heavily prepared press pack to their media contacts then remaining variability in coverage might be accounted for by media folks being increasingly short of time to write stories and a slack or difficult news day. Putting Michelle on the front page or lead story gives the media a good visual – which is sales/audience.
Entities should not be propogated beyond need?
Let’s out it like this…
How much lead time do you think is needed for a special 30 minute show about a First Lady’s birthday?
How far in advance do you think they need to start working on it?
The story can be prepared well in advance, a lot of lead time. Which would make it a good ‘banker’ or hedge against slack news and tight deadlines. Not bias, just laziness/desperation. As Fred just said, and I agree with him..
Since it is specifically for her birthday, it would be unlikely to be a random bank-show.
As for special 30 minute non-news slots. Well, media like goood looking women. Are you shocked?
That you apparently think Michelle Obama is good looking?
Yeah. You had never struck me as particularly insane before…
From AMS that’s close to a compliment. Honestly I think Fred and Jacks later comments nail it, not a clear case of partisan bias as such, just cheap and nasty, very nasty and disturbing. I think we can leave this side thread now, ok?
Oh, FLOTUS is fine looking, but the superlatives about her appearance have been over-blown from the start. Jackie K. was also never as gorgeous as the media liked to claim—she was just attractive in comparison to Mamie and Mrs. Khrushchev.
There hasn’t been a truly gorgeous First lady since Mrs. Cleveland…
So the roots of this particular, ahem, unethical media bias are that deep? I (‘wikipedia’) note that the 21 year old newly wedded Presidential bride was, allegedly, a feted popular favourite even in 1886. So apparently – sex sells, even distant allure, even in the Victorian age. If so, then so sad. Really. Sad.
Hard to say. Maybe with a decent eyebrow wax and some lipstick…..
To the Scurvy-Knave-It-May-Concern and Proprietor of this Electric Bawdy Show,
Free my sweet Frances from your seedy gaze, cur! She is a gentle-woman and no ordinary lady-for-hire, nor a subject for a county-fair nickel peep show! She selected me, a provider of lion-like proportion, to be hers and hers alone! I will not stomach the notion of her beautiful countenance to be bandied about and passed amongst the grimy hands of the likes no better than street urchins!
Those who have added their cat-calls to this despicable exchange are likewise vermin! I’ll speak of this no more. Persist in the profaning of my fair Frances and we shall have fisticuffs, though I am not practiced in the art nor of appropriate physique, that will not dissuade me from rising as champion of her!
See to it that this fascinating electrical community telegram service is used no more in the transferrance of my wife’s lovely image again. I bid you consider the gentler half of our species with more decorum and respect.
I am off to my end my row with that conivving and immoral James Blaine; if I can just arm-twist those Mugwumps to my side!
Low Tariffs, Gold Standard, and Harumph!
Sincerly,
Grover Cleveland
Thanks you for stopping by, Grover. Honored. How’s the rubber jaw working out?
nice
Nonsense, Bruce. Of course the White House was behind the story angle. Michele is arguably more popular than Barack these days.
But the fact that the White House was pushing the story doesn’t mean the media should actually do anything with it. HInt: Black man getting elected president? Newsworthy and historic. Black woman turning 50? Not so much, and certainly not deserving so much coverage.
Oh, in case anyone missed it, there’s a special edition of Life in the supermarkets just now. Guess who’s on the cover.
Original question: “So I’d like to know from the bias-deniers out there: what legitimate, logical, ethical explanation can you cite for the wildly disparate ways the news media has covered the seminal birthdays of the two most recent First Ladies, both occurring during the second terms as their husbands’ poll numbers were falling…”
I accept the posiblity that the coverage was unethical. There may also be partisan bias. The facts don’t prove it, however, as there are other, lesser, hypotheses which can fit. Take any differences in preparedness, suitedness and willingness of the two First Ladies in question for the job, And add the specifics and vagaries of the media and press, the specific business of the media on that day/month/season. Pile on the specific commercial agendas. Together or separately those could account for the disparity in coverage. Jack would at least have to exclude all such factors before the ‘bias hypothesis’ were seen as sound and valid and true.
But I agree with Fred’s comment below and Jack’s later comments. And you. A White House promoted press pack puff piece is not a story. But it is ‘on-screen product’ or spectacle of the fawning obsequious kind I associate with my, UK, royal family (yecccchhhhh!)
Clear enough, or do I err somewhere? 🙂
No, that’s clear, and it’s fair, Bruce. I do think that were this incident occurring in a vacuum your argument – particularly with regard to commercial agendas – would have more merit (and would in fact be one I might advance myself; I’ve thrown similar flags on several premises here).
In light, however, of the mainstream media’s history in covering the man – beginning with a stunning lack of curiosity about his background when he was still a candidate, and running through a wide variety of mis-steps and outright scandals, we have ample evidence (if merely circumstantial) to conclude that the current onslaught of Michele-Ma-Belle coverage is nothing more than propaganda.
I’m about to disagree with everybody in the thread. Hey, it’s good practice in having a thick skin.
It’s an error to accuse the media of letting bias interfere with doing their jobs.
They aren’t, because _they’re not doing their jobs_. They haven’t been for decades, and that’s the problem.
It’s not “bias” to run a “video news release” from a PR firm, or to run unchecked rumors, or to report something from a “senior official” without verifying it. It’s negligence. It’s a violation of rules of journalistic ethics like “do your legwork” and “get two sources”, the rules which once made the press useful. The Our Town Democrat, following those rules, could be both biased and honest.
“Bias” could simply be the result of a lifetime of experiences. It is blatant toadying, though, to refrain from running embarrassing stories for fear of losing access to photo opportunities.
We don’t have left-biased or right-biased news reporting because we don’t have news reporting at all.
I’m a fast reader, Jack, but sometimes I really get tired of wading through the same arguments. So, just for my convenience, how about setting up a quick quiz for new commenters which they need to pass before posting:
Using Ethics Alarms, anwer the following questions: (#1-5) At least five unethical rationalizations or misconceptions (may not be consecutive); (#6-7) At least two ethical decision-making tools; (#8-9) At least two names of the most frequent commenters with whom you agree/disagree; and most pertinent, (#10-13) At least three titles of blog posts Ethics Alarms has presented on the same subject previously. [Questions may be waived in favor of a three-paragraph essay on the posts mentioned in 10-13: first, the ethical point(s) of the posts; second, a precis of the discussion following them; and, third, your prospective — pertinent, well-reasoned, passionate and/or entertaining — contribution.
Previous commenters are grandmothered in, of course.
If you don’t have time (such as when you are being strip-searched at the airport), just copy/paste the answers in this section and let the regulars evaluate. …. Yes I know, it’s against your policy to block civil discourse in this manner. But if the Fourth Amendment can be tossed . . . .
Please delete the word “civil” … there may be another AMS out there. Not likely, but just in case.
Maybe I need to buy this so I can better grasp whatever it is that’s going on here.
http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=4222
The only reason for the “big 50” focus on Michelle Obama is just typical of this Administration — when you’re in trouble, find something else for the idiot populace to focus on. It’s OUR money helping her celebrate — and who cares? — and it’s OUR country that is in the depths. I’m sick of all of this (and by the way I’m over 60 and look better than she does…).
Distraction, after distraction, after distraction from the real issues of the day and Obama’s rank failure as a president. Sure, Jackie Kennedy charmed Kruschev, but she was an elegant, educated, multi-lingual, individually wealthy young woman who was roped into being First Lady — at age 35, i might add, not 50. Barbara Bush handled it the right way: with so much negative going on the world, why would she “bask, bask, back” in some sort of regal adoration of her goddamn birthday? She didn’t. Old Michelle (I guess we can call her that now) did, and loved it..
Ego and narcissism by both Barak and Michelle run their lives. Unfortunately, they’re also running our country.
All news is bias, some well more than others. This doesn’t bother me much until it becomes ridiculous. Here I sit watching “The Brain Trust” on Fox. A young woman expounding opinion on Ed Snowden making statements about how awful a person he is and how he bypassed all available options, opting to run to a foreign country, then giving all secret files to media. She was drawing a picture of complete irresponsibility on his part. This is an old issue now, she clearly having no knowledge of how the real-world operates, especially the hierarchy inside a gov’t structure, such as the one Mr. Snowden worked within. This type of media slant misinforms people, misleading them and has no place in the professional journalistic arena. Fox in this example is no better than an emotional inaccurate kneejerk response seen on Twitter. Fox needs to improve, a lot.
Mr. Snyder: All you have offered here are two of the lamest excuses for bias (and corruption) that there are. 1. It’s Old News. (Now often presented as the “Hillary What Difference Does It Make Now?” tactic.) 2. The likewise Clintonian “Everybody Does It” paen to ethics poverty.
You may not think much of the Bush Administration, but I think an unbiased study of the last three First Ladies would quickly establish Laura Bush as head and shoulders above the other two in any category you could mention- including lending dignity and couth to that important, though unofficial position. Come to think of it, George had it all over his predecessor and successor in that regard, as well!
But that’s another issue…