There are 40 comments.

1. Inactive
   Larry3435

   @Larry3435

   1:40 PM EST ⋅ Dec 30, 2017

   My reaction to the title of the OP was to wonder why it was missing the introductory clause “This just in…”  Yes, of course the media is absurdly and transparently biased.  But that isn’t even the worst of it.  Bias is something for which we can correct.  What is really scary is that the media is so monumentally incompetent.  Not only do they have no idea what is going on, but they have no interest in talking to anyone who does know what is going on.  Even on subjects that are completely apolitical, the media gets the story wrong, every time.  Every time.

   I could write a post on this subject.  Hell, I could write a book on this subject.  There have been so many occasions where I have had direct knowledge of an event which was covered by the media, and it is stunning how wrong they get their facts.  I was talking once to a prominent attorney who has handled a lot of high profile cases, and I asked her if there was any media outlet that was at all accurate in reporting what happened in those cases.  She said, “Yes, the National Enquirer.  That’s the only one.”  I believe it.

   There are a lot of sources of this incompetence, many of which you already know about.  The desire to get the “story” first, the desire to sensationalize it, and so on.  These are obvious to anyone.  But there are other, less glaring sources as well.  One of which is the practice of deciding on a story line, and then looking for facts to support it.  This is not a bug; it’s a feature.  This is how they teach it in journalism school.  Reporters are supposed to make up a story in their heads, and then find facts that agree with their pre-determined narrative.  I have been interviewed by “journalists” who work like that.  They ask ridiculously leading questions – “So, would you say [insert the sentence they want for their story].”  If you don’t say yes, they immediately lose interest and flip to the next card in their rolodex, looking for a corroborating quote.  If the reporter just said, “here’s what I think,” it would be an opinion piece.  But by finding a puppet interviewee to mouth the words for her, the reporter gets to pretend that it is “objective journalism.”  The whole enterprise is just ridiculous.

2. Member
   Matt Balzer

   @MattBalzer

   1:50 PM EST ⋅ Dec 30, 2017

   Larry3435 (View Comment):
   She said, “Yes, the National Enquirer. That’s the only one.” I believe it.

   Well, they did break the John Edwards affair story.

3. Member
   Arahant

   @Arahant

   2:13 PM EST ⋅ Dec 30, 2017

   Larry3435 (View Comment):
   She said, “Yes, the National Enquirer. That’s the only one.” I believe it.

   Sounds like the movie Real Men from 1987.

4. Member
   Kate Braestrup

   @GrannyDude

   4:02 PM EST ⋅ Dec 30, 2017

   It’s one thing to report on a story—like the Obama Hezbollah-stand-down story—with a slant. It’s another thing altogether to just refuse to cover it at all. That’s just bizarre.

5. Coolidge
   TBA

   @RobtGilsdorf

   4:35 PM EST ⋅ Dec 30, 2017

   Say what you will about the National Enquirer, but at least they have an ethos.

6. Member
   Kate Braestrup

   @GrannyDude

   5:02 PM EST ⋅ Dec 30, 2017

   Am I wrong to believe that it was different…not so long ago? That the WaPo and NYT used to be real newspapers? That their reporters would never have ignored the IRS scandal, the Fast and Furious, Obama’s Hezbollah thang, etc… just because they [heart] Obama?

    

7. Inactive
   Larry3435

   @Larry3435

   6:16 PM EST ⋅ Dec 30, 2017

   Kate Braestrup (View Comment):
   Am I wrong to believe that it was different…not so long ago? That the WaPo and NYT used to be real newspapers? That their reporters would never have ignored the IRS scandal, the Fast and Furious, Obama’s Hezbollah thang, etc… just because they [heart] Obama?

   How would we have known, Kate?  There was no internet.  No Fox News.  No talk radio.  God only knows what they hid from us back then.

8. Member
   Arahant

   @Arahant

   6:19 PM EST ⋅ Dec 30, 2017

   Larry3435 (View Comment):
   God only knows what they hid from us back then.

   Like Kennedy’s health? Like Kennedy’s philandering?

9. Inactive
   Phil Turmel

   @PhilTurmel

   8:05 PM EST ⋅ Dec 30, 2017

   Kate Braestrup (View Comment):
   It’s one thing to report on a story—like the Obama Hezbollah-stand-down story—with a slant. It’s another thing altogether to just refuse to cover it at all. That’s just bizarre.

   But par for the media’s course for decades now.  I gave up on a local paper back in 1995 for just this reason (Myrtle Beach Sun, fwiw).

10. Inactive
    SkipSul

    @skipsul

    9:52 AM EST ⋅ Jan 2, 2018

    Dave Barry seems appropriate here:

    January:

    Meanwhile the big emerging journalism story is the Russians, who according to many unnamed sources messed with the election. Nobody seems to know how, specifically, the Russians affected the election, but everybody is pretty sure they did something, especially CNN, which has not been so excited about a story since those heady months in 2014 when it provided 24/7 video coverage of random objects floating in the Pacific while panels of experts speculated on whether these objects might or might not have anything to do with that missing Malaysian airliner. You can tune in to CNN any time, day or night, and you are virtually guaranteed to hear the word “Russians” within 10 seconds, even if it’s during a Depends commercial.

    March:

     . . when Washington is consumed by Russia Mania, to the point where the panels of expert speculators on CNN are being fed intravenously on-air so they don’t have to take even a moment’s break from speculating about all the alleged things that the Russians have allegedly been up to. Adding fuel to the fire is FBI Director James Comey, who tells a hearing of the House Committee on Holding Hearings that the Russians definitely were involved in the 2016 election and currently control the Department of Commerce, the Coast Guard, and as many as eight state legislatures.

    May

    . . . Trump fires FBI Director James Comey in an effort to get rid of this pesky FAKE NEWS — as confirmed by Fox News — Russia distraction so the administration can get on with the critical work of failing to enact its agenda. The result of the firing, of course, is that the political/media complex becomes even more obsessed with the Russians, who according to CNN sources now make up 47 percent of the population of Washington, D.C. Under intense pressure to do something, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, whose name can be rearranged to spell “Snootier Nerds,” appoints former FBI director Robert Mueller (“Mr. Leer Trouble”) as special counsel, with the power to, quote, “investigate this Russian thing until the Earth crashes into the sun.”

    July:

    . . . President Trump, following in the footsteps of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, tweets out a video clip from the Internet in which he body-slams a wrestler with a CNN logo superimposed over the wrestler’s head. This in itself is so embarrassing that everybody assumes the story cannot get any stupider, but CNN rises to the occasion by announcing that its “KFile” investigative team has ferreted out the identity of the image’s creator, a private citizen who goes by the Internet name “HanA**holeSolo.” (We are not making this up.) In a lengthy story on this journalistic coup, CNN magnanimously declares that it will not reveal his identity because he apologized and “showed his remorse” for other things he has tweeted that CNN, in its constitutionally prescribed role as Internet Police, deemed unacceptable. And thus the republic is saved.

    October:

     . . when former Trump campaign officials Paul Manafort and Rick Gates are indicted in connection with special counsel Mueller’s Russia probe, sending CNN into a panel-gasm so intense that the camera lens becomes smeared with political-insider fluids. Trump responds by tweeting that the charges involve events from “years ago,” and there was “NO COLLUSION!” This is proof enough for Fox News, which resumes its regularly scheduled programming of Fudge Recipes of Country Music Stars.

    December:

    . . . congressional Republicans finally manage to pass tax legislation, which in its final form is expected to be approximately the same length as War and Peace in the original Russian but less intelligible to the average American taxpayer. The consensus of expert media commentators is that the legislation will reduce taxes for the middle class, increase taxes for the middle class, stimulate the economy, destroy the economy, make America great again, and LITERALLY KILL MILLIONS OF PEOPLE.

    Expert media commentators are the reason that much of the American public has decided to get its information on current events from memes.

    On the Russian front, Mike Flynn pleads guilty to lying to the FBI and agrees to cooperate with the Mueller investigation. In response, six New York City fire companies are dispatched to a midtown Manhattan studio to hose down CNN’s expert panel. For its part, Fox launches a six-part Special Report on winter lawn maintenance