An Abc News Reporter Reveals Shocking Facts

An ABC News Reporter Reveals Shocking Facts

The sheer bias in the print and television coverage of this election campaign is not just bewildering, but appalling. And over the last few months I've found myself slowly moving from shaking my head at the obvious one-sided reporting, to actually shouting at the screen of my television and my laptop computer. But worst of all, for the last couple weeks, I've begun -- for the first time in my adult life -- to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living. A few days ago, when asked by a new acquaintance what I did for a living, I replied that I was "a writer," because I couldn't bring myself to admit to a stranger that I'm a journalist. So, when I say I'm deeply ashamed right now to be called a "journalist," you can imagine just how deep that cuts into my soul. Now, of course, there's always been bias in the media. Human beings are biased, so the work they do, including reporting, is inevitably colored. Hell, I can show you 10 different ways to color variations of the word "said" -- muttered, shouted, announced, reluctantly replied, responded, etc. -- to influence the way a reader will comprehend exactly the same quote. We all learn that in Reporting 101, or at least in the first few weeks working in a newsroom. But what we are also supposed to learn during that same apprenticeship is to recognize the dangerous power of that technique, and many others, and develop built-in alarms against them.

But even more important, we are also supposed to be taught that even though there is no such thing as pure, Platonic objectivity in reporting, we are to spend our careers struggling to approach that ideal as closely as possible. That means constantly challenging our own prejudices, systematically presenting opposing views and never, ever burying stories that contradict our own world views or challenge people or institutions we admire. If we can't achieve Olympian detachment, than at least we can recognize human frailty -- especially in ourselves. Reporting Bias For many years, spotting bias in reporting was a little parlor game of mine, watching TV news or reading a newspaper article and spotting how the reporter had inserted, often unconsciously, his or her own preconceptions. But I always wrote it off as bad judgment and lack of professionalism, rather than bad faith and conscious advocacy. Sure, being a child of the '60s I saw a lot of subjective "New" Journalism, and did a fair amount of it myself, but that kind of writing, like columns and editorials, was supposed to be segregated from "real" reporting, and, at least in mainstream media, usually was. The same was true for the emerging blogosphere, which by its very nature was opinionated and biased. But my complacent faith in my peers first began to be shaken when some of the most admired journalists in the country were exposed as plagiarists, or worse, accused of making up stories from whole cloth. I'd spent my entire professional career scrupulously pounding out endless dreary footnotes and double-checking sources to make sure that I never got accused of lying or stealing someone else's work -- not out of any native honesty, but out of fear: I'd always been told to fake or steal a story was a firing offense … indeed, it meant being blackballed out of the profession. And yet, few of those worthies ever seemed to get fired for their crimes -- and if they did they were soon rehired into even more prestigious jobs. It seemed as if there were two sets of rules: one for us workaday journalists toiling out in the sticks, and another for folks who'd managed, through talent or deceit, to make it to the national level. Meanwhile, I watched with disbelief as the nation's leading newspapers, many of whom I'd written for in the past, slowly let opinion pieces creep into the news section, and from there onto the front page. Personal opinions and comments that, had they appeared in my stories in 1979, would have gotten my butt kicked by the

nearest copy editor, were now standard operating procedure at the New York Times, the Washington Post, and soon after in almost every small town paper in the U.S. But what really shattered my faith -- and I know the day and place where it happened -- was the war in Lebanon three summers ago. The hotel I was staying at in Windhoek, Namibia, only carried CNN, a network I'd already learned to approach with skepticism. But this was CNN International, which is even worse. I sat there, first with my jaw hanging down, then actually shouting at the TV, as one field reporter after another reported the carnage of the Israeli attacks on Beirut, with almost no corresponding coverage of the Hezbollah missiles raining down on northern Israel. The reporting was so utterly and shamelessly biased that I sat there for hours watching, assuming that eventually CNNi would get around to telling the rest of the story … but it never happened. The Presidential Campaign But nothing, nothing I've seen has matched the media bias on display in the current presidential campaign. Republicans are justifiably foaming at the mouth over the sheer one-sidedness of the press coverage of the two candidates and their running mates. But in the last few days, even Democrats, who have been gloating over the pass -- no, make that shameless support -- they've gotten from the press, are starting to get uncomfortable as they realize that no one wins in the long run when we don't have a free and fair press. I was one of the first people in the traditional media to call for the firing of Dan Rather -- not because of his phony story, but because he refused to admit his mistake -- but, bless him, even Gunga Dan thinks the media is one-sided in this election. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those people who think the media has been too hard on, say, Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin, by rushing reportorial SWAT teams to her home state of Alaska to rifle through her garbage. This is the big leagues, and if she wants to suit up and take the field, then Gov. Palin better be ready to play. The few instances where I think the press has gone too far -- such as the Times reporter talking to prospective first lady Cindy McCain's daughter's MySpace friends -- can easily be solved with a few newsroom smackdowns and temporary repostings to the Omaha bureau.

No, what I object to (and I think most other Americans do as well) is the lack of equivalent hardball coverage of the other side -- or worse, actively serving as attack dogs for the presidential ticket of Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Joe Biden, D-Del. If the current polls are correct, we are about to elect as president of the United States a man who is essentially a cipher, who has left almost no paper trail, seems to have few friends (that at least will talk) and has entire years missing out of his biography. It is the traditional media's fault, for it alone (unlike the alternative media) has had the resources to cover this story properly, and has systematically refused to do so. Why, for example to quote the lawyer for Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., haven't we seen an interview with Sen. Obama's grad school drug dealer -- when we know all about Mrs. McCain's addiction? Are Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko that hard to interview? All those phony voter registrations that hard to scrutinize? And why are (the palpably deranged) Sen. Biden's endless gaffes almost always covered up, or rationalized, by the traditional media? Joe the Plumber The absolute nadir (though I hate to commit to that, as we still have two weeks before the election) came with Joe the Plumber. Middle America, even when they didn't agree with Joe, looked on in horror as the press took apart the private life of an average person who had the temerity to ask a tough question of a presidential candidate. So much for the standing up for the little man. So much for speaking truth to power. So much for comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, and all of those other catchphrases we journalists used to believe we lived by. I learned a long time ago that when people or institutions begin to behave in a matter that seems to be entirely against their own interests, it's because we don't understand what their motives really are. It would seem that by so exposing their biases and betting everything on one candidate over another, the traditional media is trying to commit suicide -- especially when, given our currently volatile world and economy, the chances of a successful Obama presidency, indeed any presidency, is probably less than 50/50. Furthermore, I also happen to believe that most reporters, whatever their political bias, are human torpedoes … and, had they been unleashed, would have raced in and

roughed up the Obama campaign as much as they did McCain's. That's what reporters do. I was proud to have been one, and I'm still drawn to a good story, any good story, like a shark to blood in the water. So why weren't those legions of hungry reporters set loose on the Obama campaign? Who are the real villains in this story of mainstream media betrayal? The editors. The men and women you don't see; the people who not only decide what goes in the paper, but what doesn't; the managers who give the reporters their assignments and lay out the editorial pages. They are the real culprits. Bad Editors Why? I think I know, because had my life taken a different path, I could have been one: Picture yourself in your 50s in a job where you've spent 30 years working your way to the top, to the cockpit of power … only to discover that you're presiding over a dying industry. The Internet and alternative media are stealing your readers, your advertisers and your top young talent. Many of your peers shrewdly took golden parachutes and disappeared. Your job doesn't have anywhere near the power and influence it did when your started your climb. The Newspaper Guild is too weak to protect you any more, and there is a very good chance you'll lose your job before you cross that finish line, 10 years hence, of retirement and a pension. And then the opportunity presents itself -- an attractive young candidate whose politics likely matches yours, but more important, he offers the prospect of a transformed Washington with the power to fix everything that has gone wrong in your career. With luck, this monolithic, single-party government will crush the alternative media via a revived fairness doctrine, re-invigorate unions by getting rid of secret votes, and just maybe be beholden to people like you in the traditional media for getting it there. And besides, you tell yourself, it's all for the good of the country …

Michael S. Malone is one of the nation's best-known technology writers.

Mr. Malone, thank you for your honesty and conscience. You have identified the fact that a totally biased media has gone way beyond the bounds of “leaning one way or another.” They have completely lied about, exaggerated, covered up and denied real facts that the public needs to know and should know about Hussein

Obama. They have decided to elect a Marxist president regardless of what it costs. The public has been gritting its teeth. The media has foisted off someone that the majority opposes and paid hirelings have been substituted for true Obama loyalists. The Marxists are buying and stealing the election. The media has done nothing but ignore the real facts. I hear people everyday asking, "what are we going to do about this?" "We are the victims of the most colossal fraud in history and the consequences are devastating.” There is also the crazy dangerous behavior of Obama supporters to contend with. We are seeing both fraud and terror from the Obama zombies during this election. So many people who support Obama seem insanely violent, rude, arrogant and dangerous. They don't answer questions on media interviews unless they are softballed. Anybody else they shout down. They have circulated many pictures of McCain and Palin tortured, beaten up and bloody. They hang effigies, frequently naked, of the two candidates. If effigies of Obama were hung, it would be a hate crime. But the left and blacks are immune to hate crime punishments, which only apply to whites and conservatives. President Bush’s refusal to prosecute such race crimes shows what side he is really on. In Chattanooga they crashed a car through GOP headquarters. Acorn, Obama’s vote registration organization is committing a load of nationwide voter fraud felonies, the State of Indiana is trying to charge them with racketeering. All the leftist and black terrorism is not punished. Do you see where this is going? At the “human level”, Obama supporters exhibit no humanity or manners in their speech or visage. They would make any Russian Commissar quiver! They talk while others are trying to talk. They throw their weight around. They threaten and they name call. They are red bullies. Who do these paid Obama thugs really represent? Obama refuses to wear an American flag pin, salute the American flag or display on any aircraft used by him. His close Weathermen Terrorists Advisors, Ayers and Dorn, covertly meet with him and Palestinian terrorist leaders, frequently. (The LA Times has tapes of such meetings but refuses to publish them.) (The left has so much power that Republicans are depicted in red colors and democrats in blue, by Democrat edict. That is a complete reversal of reality. Democrats are reds.) Such insanely violent thugs as are emerging from the Obama campaign are dangerous. God only knows what they will do to the people when they take charge. They are totally ruthless and without honesty. Read their harsh comments and

attacks on you. They talk just like the virulent communists that I have seen and heard in Eastern Europe. We cannot work with these people. They do not compromise. It’s their way or subjugation. This is it! Resist the reds! Do not let yourself be terrorized. We will not allow them to tell us what to do or think. We will not become communist wage slaves. Communists must be removed from government, media, academia and elsewhere, by any means possible.