Prepare for the Onslaught: Media’s Liberal Bias in This Election Year
By Gary Hancock:
It has long been credibly acknowledged that what is considered to be the conventional news media consistently affords preferential treatment to liberals and their causes. The bias runs deep as explained by the Media Research Center in its report Media Bias 101. That report notes that “[s]urveys over the past 50 years have consistently found that journalists — especially those at the highest ranks of their profession — are much more liberal than the rest of America.” More airtime and more column space for liberals and their causes, and a higher priority given to those stories is a widespread practice and fairly overt. Further extensive is the bias by omission of conservative viewpoints and issues.
Just as deviant and widespread, but less overt, is the practice of using selective literary styles within a news piece to slant the audience’s view of a particular position or person. Often, positive words and phrases are used regarding liberals. Negative words and phrases spatter news pieces and headlines targeting those who oppose the liberal causes. This bunk occurs under the media’s self-acclaimed affirmation of impartial journalism.
As an example, a recent Associated Press news piece opened: “President Barack Obama’s plan to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba slammed into a wall of Republican opposition on Tuesday, stopping cold Obama’s hope for a bipartisan effort…” Note the placement of the slant-words and phrases: “slammed into a wall,” “opposition,” “stopping cold,” which are negatively directed at Republicans; while “hope,” and “bipartisan” are positively associated with Obama. Republicans obviously are mean-spirited partisan obstructers opposing Obama the good guy. The piece also went on to mention the large number of GTMO detainees already released (with the implication it is no big deal, or almost standard practice, to release many others, with some being transferred to locations within the U.S.). No discussion was included of the prudent legal problems with moving some to the U.S., and no mention was made of the number of those released who became active again in terrorist networks. Pick up practically any newspaper or listen closely to mainstream TV and radio news broadcasts and such examples become obvious when you begin to notice them — and they are regular and abundant.
At one time extant was a journalistic creed extolling impartiality, independence, truth and yes, even dignity in news reporting. With the increase in journalists’ allegiance to the progressive banner during the years, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised to find journalists relegating the creed to the forgotten back page. They seem to have fully capitulated to the progressive dogma that any means justifies the end.
Subconsciously at least, the general populace may recognize the single-sidedness of much of the fodder published and of that saturating the airwaves under the guise of journalism. As an admired profession, journalism is rated near the bottom in polls ranking respect. Truth and fairness do matter to most of the American people, at least on some level.
Even if aware of the extent of bias in the media, a large audience absorbs their news from somewhere considered mainstream, and the prevalent but subtle bias soaks in, regardless. In a recent piece by Rachel Alexander of The Stream and Intellectual Conservative websites, notably exposed is the liberal bias in the ubiquitous internet search engine Google, and on the social media sites Twitter and Facebook. Many people, perhaps especially Millennials assimilate a significant part of the daily news through those internet sources. Subtle and obscured to readers, the methods used by those sources of ‘news’ sponsor a liberal bias that is unmistakable when analyzed.
Now, with the upcoming presidential election later this year, it is a very good bet that we’ll see even more of an uptick, nay onslaught, of liberally biased pieces and all sorts of pro-liberal literary subtleties in the so-called news media (including the social media). This election is important (no revelation there). Both the conservatives and the liberals in this country realize much is at stake. Because of that importance, the media promoting liberal bias will be in the proverbial tank — and in big — for the Democrat candidates during the year. All the stops will be pulled, all the party-line rabbits will be yanked out of the hats, and any means necessary to forward the progressive agenda will be employed.
You can see it already. In a piece by the Media Research Center, “The results [of the MRC research for 2015] show a network news agenda heavy on crime, terrorism and weather, but light on Democratic scandals, ObamaCare’s failings, the out-of-control national debt, sanctuary cities and Planned Parenthood’s grotesqueries.” And conspicuously, many of the crime stories were overly interested in touting the pro-liberal position of “allegations of misconduct against police officers.” Regarding the terrorism stories, “the networks barely noticed the refusal of both President Obama and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton to label the enemy as radical Islam.” And as for the weather stories; “the networks often put them in the context of climate change.”
News items and airtime mentioning climate change are becoming items regularly churned out by the liberal propaganda mill. The New York Times ran a piece carried by many newspapers across the country, February 22, entitled “Seas are Rising at Fastest Rate in Last 28 Centuries.” Not to argue the scientific dubiousness of that claim here, the article propagandized the certainty of man-caused global warming as a reason for the rising sea levels, and promoted the need for more severe and inflexible actions (than the Paris agreement calls for), presumably to whip the deniers and businesses in line. The overwhelming view by liberals is that the deniers in this country are Republicans and conservatives; while the Democrats, aka progressives and liberals, are the ‘green’ good guys.
Of course, climate change is but one of the progressive causes that we will be inundated with during the next several months as the mainstream media intensifies its efforts to support the liberal cause ahead of the elections. Expect a steady barrage of liberal bias regarding immigration, guns, a nominee for the Supreme Court, the evil profit motive, corrupt and uncaring corporations, income inequality, the official unemployment rate, healthcare, government investing in people, etc. Conservatives will be portrayed as obstructionist bad-guys. Liberals and progressives (and even socialists) will be portrayed as advocates for the little guy and other victims, with compassionate plans for those in need of healthcare and relief on student debt; as well they will be heralded as righteous purveyors of myriad government goodies to the masses.
As part of the media bias favoring liberals, rest assured that we will also hear less, or be fed mere trite talking points, from the mainstream media about the near $20 trillion national debt, the near $150 trillion unfunded entitlement obligations, high poverty and increased numbers receiving food stamps, Benghazi, Hillary’s emails and her numerous and decades-spanning varied transgressions, sanctuary cities, the true levels of unemployment, the people hurt by Obamacare, and the devastating effects of progressivism and socialism. And, certainly, always to be downplayed or never mentioned as part of the liberal media bias are the benefits and morality of capitalism and individual liberty.
Yes, the liberal media bias has been with us for quite a while now, but in this vital election year it will be a flat-out onslaught. Get ready for it.
Source: Intellectual Conservative
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