Distorted Reflections in the media mirror

Dan Rather Cartoon with Cal Thomas

Did you know there is too much opinion and not enough reporting of the facts in the news you're getting? This shocking information comes from the Project for Excellence in Journalism, an affiliate of Columbia University.

The study's focus on 250 stories mainly looked at the way cable TV networks and Internet Bloggers addressed those stories. It concluded that such outlets represent a "journalism of assertion" that favors the personal opinion of the individual delivering the information more than reporting.
The Fox News Channel (where I work and where no one has asked me to write about this survey) is singled out for alleged imbalance on such story's as the Iraq war, where the study finds twice as many "positive" as "negetive" stories. Seven out of ten stories on FNC were said to have included opinions not attributed to reporting.

Reporting on the study, the Los Angelos Times referred to "the model of mainstream media," which it said is "taking the time to gather and scrutinize each piece of infomation."
But the mainstream public does not percieve that the "mainstream media" takes the time check facts and eschews opinion in it's "reporting." According to the Pew Center for the People and the Press, only 35% of Americans think the media get the facts right.

It is this distrust and the perception that the so called "mainstream media" is biased that has fueled the rise of alternative sources of information. It has also fueled the angst of the big media boys, who are being held accountable for their biasis for the first time. They don't like such accountability and so they are reacting by attacking cable TV and Internet Bloggers.

Were it not for these alternative sources of information, the Swift Boat Veterans might never have found an avenue to make their voices heard about John Kerry, and Dan Rather might still be sitting in the CBS anchor chair instead of being held accountable for misreporting on President Bush's National Guard Records. What ought to amuse and amaze many people is the sudden "discovery" of opinion journalism in the media.

The Media Research Center (www.mrc.org) has been chronicling liberal bias on the broadcast networks and in newspapers and news magazines for years, but the oganization is largely ignored by the big media or dismissed as "conservative" or "right-wing," implying it's work cannot be trusted. (In the interests of full disclosure, I'm serving as the unpaid emcee for the Media Reseach Center's annual Media DisHonors Awards in April.)

If opinion journalism is now regarded as something to be avoided, how about begining the purge at the broadcast networks. On the CBS Evening News last March 31, Rather suggested that American civilians had volunteered to work in Iraq because "in this economy it may be, for some, the only job they can find." Is that opinion or reporting, since no source was cited or interviews conducted with anyone who said such a thing?

CNN's Aaron Brown delivered what a fair-minded viewer might have concluded was a personal opinion on his Nov 10, 2004, "NewsNight" program. He refered to criticism of Kerry by the Swift Boat Veterans and whether Kerry deserved the three Purple Hearts and an early out from Vietnam.

Brown said, "Look at this picture here [in the Stars and Stripes military newspaper], if you can. 'Troops' bravery Honored in Iraq.' These are all Purple Heart Winners. Someday, one of them will run for president and someone will say they didn't earn the Purple Heart. Welcome to America."

The problem for the mainstream media (which isn't mainstream anymore) is that it's denial of it's own biasis has caused the rise of Bloggers and cable news, especially Fox. If they had been truly reporting and not indoctrinating, there would be no Fox news, or Bloggers to study.



This Artical was originally written by Cal Thomas, his column is distributed by Tribune Media Services