> Thanks for the tip. I’ll check it out.

If enough people request it here, I may post it. It’s long and I’ve posted enough today!(!!)

Thanks for the tip. I’ll check it out.

That is a good point! I must admit, I never thought of that angle.

Of course, many of the “big” reporters in the media probably had to start off with the low-level human interest stories as interns. This could presumably influence them throughout their careers, even when they may be covering high politics instead of the every tragedies. And sometimes, as with the Walter Reed scandal, sometimes personal tragedies themselves become big news.

This is something that I admit to finding particularly enjoyable about TMV…unusual perspectives leading to my seeing different angles on issues than I would normally see.

> I agree.
>
> You make an excellent point here and, I think, this “corporate bias� of the
> organizations counteracts the individual “liberal� bias of reporters. After all,
> reporters know who is paying their cheques every payday.

Journalists and editors are largely liberal. So are the content and bias that come from the so-called mainstream media. Nobody intelligent disputes that the liberal are media. It is evidence of leftist extremism if someone claims that CNN, ABC, CBS, etc., are “corporate right-wing” media. What they produce is systematically the opposite and has been for ages. A longer annihilation of “conservative US mainstream media” myths was provided by the late Michael Kelly (a rare conservative journalist killed in Iraq) and is probably too long to post here but anyone who has read it would enjoy it, an entertaining elaboration of obvious truth.

I agree.
You make an excellent point here and, I think, this “corporate bias” of the organizations counteracts the individual “liberal” bias of reporters. After all, reporters know who is paying their cheques every payday.

In support of your point one could cite the fact that, right after the O4 election, the head of CBS News visited the White House to make amends for Rathergate. I thought this a disgusting sycophantic bowing to power at the time — after all, if they thought the story was good they should have defended it.

Domajot, I agree with you argument that the “media’s top loyalty is to getting the scoop, and they will grab any red meat they see.”

Bill Clinton is an obvious case in point. Almost every survey of journalists in America find that they vote Democratic by ovewhelming margins – usually about 70 % – but that had little impact on their ripping Clinton to shreds.

However, your statement: “Bush was treated with kid gloves. HIs alcoholism was taboo everywhere except in some frenzied blogs, for example.”

You have forgotten the DUI leak to the media in four days before the 2000 election. A Democratic attorney in Maine had discovered Bush’s decades old DUI record months earlier…and with Bush ahead by 5 points…faxed it to every media outlet in the US immediately prior to the election.

This badly damaged Bush with the evangelical vote, and made Gore actually competitive…leading to the Florida debacle.

Thus, Bush’s alcohol problems have been front and centre in the American media, I would argue. Also, most surveys of American journalists do find they vote Democratic by huge margins. ABC ‘s Terry Moran – when interviewed on his brother’s blog – stated his view that the White House Press Corps was about 80% Democrat.

The degree to which this makes them “favour” Democrats is, however, debateable, I must concede to you. Good journalists will try to remove their partisan thinking from their work.

As for #1, I agree that Republicans have outsmarted their opponents. They are also more ruthless.
I give them credit for the smarts, but ruthlessness is not something I can admire.
It leads to the kind of negativity that we deplore when it’s over, but condone while the fight is still ongoing.
While it can not be denied, I am personally repelled by the notion that the most important factor in elections is the strategy, the media posturing, and not the message. I would gladly vote for a stuttering ugly person who had the right ideas.

#2 is no more than a Republican talking point, and I assume you honestly see it that way when your partisanship is running high. That doesn’t make it true.

As we went through this topic, I claimed and still do that the media’s top loyalty is to getting the scoop, and they will grab any red meat they see. In fact, compared to other candidates, Bush was treated with kid gloves.
HIs alcoholism was taboo everywhere except in some frenzied blogs, for example.

What you so ‘clearly’ see is a mixed bag of contradictory episodes to me.

But the other piece to that puzzle had to do with the control of media in this country. He who controls the media, controls public opinion. Or as goes the media, so goes the nation.

I hope the documentary will spend time on that issue…. hopefully encouraging Democrats to build the same kind of media infrastructure that the Republicans have. Although it finally looks as if the Republican media fortress is starting to crack just a little….. it’s STILL strong.
The Democrats (independent progressives too) have to learn how to first build a media infrastructure to match rivals, and then learn to effectively use it once they have it.

Neither one of these things has been accomplished so far.

Nonsense. The media greedily picked up the juicy Swift boat stuff, ignored all the cracks and falseries in that narrative, and refused to give Bush’s problematic past the same ‘air time’ (especially alcohol and possible drug abuse plus the holes in his national guard service story). As most big business units, Media corporations generally tend to be more conservative than liberal and this showed in their coverage. They had more to win from a continued republican ‘laise faire’ policy than from possible Dem regulations of the media market.

“The managing editor of Newsweek contended in 04 that media support was worth 15 percentage points to Kerry (he later reduced this to 5 points).”
Then media coverage of the Swift boat lies was worth 30 percentage points to Bush.

“The one constant I’ve observed, in 27 years as an on-again, off-again political reporter, is that Republicans return reporters’ calls and Democrats don’t…. Republicans return a reporter’s calls—and not grudgingly but eagerly (in contrast, you should hear the impatient and dismissive tone of the Democrats when you call them up).”

This is a very interesting comment, as it explains something I’ve puzzled about — why the Bush WH, who often seem to despise the media, and the MSM who skew liberal, seem to cooperate often as in the selling of the Iraq war in the pages of the NYT etc.

Wolff’s answer is: while the GOP hate the media, and vice versa, they will supply the media with talking points…while the Democrats are often clueless about why they should feed the media at all…apparently expecting, since the MSM are liberal too, that they will support the team regardless of what the Democrats do.

Gray, on this point the media were totally complicit…in supporting the Democrats.

There was a lengthy analysis of this episode in the MSM shortly after the election. At this point in the campaign, Kerry was in total lock-down mode. Rove kept trying to get the reporters covering Kerry to ask him to explain the seeming contradiction in his votes.

The reporters refused, with one member of the White House press corps telling Rove: “We’re not going to do you any favors.”

Rove’s solution: Every speech Bush gave, several times a day, every day, was a demand that Kerry answer this question.

Rove knew the news media skews Democratic, and did not care for him. But they simply could not ignore the President of the United States when for two weeks the president’s sole media message was – in essence – a single question.

Rove referred to Kerry’s anticipated answer as “The Gift”. They knew, based on Kerry’s track record, that he would say something very dumb. They would repeatedly check with each other via Blackberry: “Has he given us the Gift?”

Finally, a reporter asked Kerry the question…and the rest is history.

Gray, the media covered Kerry’s ass as best they could…especially in this episode. Rove was simply successful in working around the media on this point.

But without the support of the media, Kerry would not have even been competitive. The managing editor of Newsweek contended in 04 that media support was worth 15 percentage points to Kerry (he later reduced this to 5 points). But the media – which skews Democratic – is clearly liberal…and essential to any Democratic campaign.

Which doesn’t say that the election WASN’T stolen. Too many strange results, especially on touch-screen voting machines without paper trails, to simply dismiss the suspicion. Just look at the results of the elections in New Mexico before and after touch-screen machines became verboten. An astounding reduction in ‘undervotes’ from 2004 to 2006. Pure coincidence?

“In one truly revealing segment, So Goes The Nation chronicles how Republican operatives tried to lay a trap so Kerry would bite at the bait and say something as politically suicidal as “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.â€?”

The complicit role of the media, which spread this republican talking point without adequately reporting about the context of this remark (and of the bill) shouldn’t be forgotten too. But of course, Dem communication management, which should have vehemently countered this crap, and put their own version against it, was totally MIA, agreed.

“And they knew: END GAME.”
No exaggerations, pls. Nobody knew before the polls closed. It was a close race until the very end.

“the science of moving people to make desired choices”
That’s a ‘science’ like economics. Still much Voodoo and Alchemy in it…