You can call me a 'concern troll' if you want, that's fine. You can go back and see how long I've been posting here if you want. It is true that many of posts are often a scolding of the lefties for going to far ... but consider that tough love :) ... I want the democrats to win, and many people here do them no favors.
There are many posts that make me cringe. Particularly ones from the front-page posters who should know better. Notwithstanding the poor grammar, spelling and punctuation I often see -- which, in my opinion, hurts credibility ... I'm also talking about overly reactionary posts. Things are taken out of context and blown out of proportion. It's the same thing the 'other side' does - and we complain about it here. Rightly so. Then we do it ourselves.
Everyone too quickly loses sight of the stuff that's truly bullsh*t - truly hypocritical - etc....
But nothing is worse than the claims of "media bias." It makes people here look silly. And it does 'our side' no favors.
And the right wingers are doing the same exact thing, in reverse, as you know. Often about the same people that are being criticized here. So and so is a "shill" - a "lackey" - "in Bush's pocket" ... a "suck-up to the corporations" .... and a lot worse things.
98.5% of the time, these charges are complete bullspit.
I had a conversation with a republican recently, who said that the media is not hammering Obama on his past drug use, like they did with Bush. This, to him, was "proof" of bias. ... Another friend said the media coverage of the NY Times was so biased, that Obama is constantly on the front page, and McCain isn't. This is the same NY Times that people here call shills of the right. Amazing. ... Other people have gone to town on the media's unfair coverage of Palin. You guys are saying, it's not hard-hitting enough.
Does it not strike anyone that the left and right are saying the same thing in the opposite? You can't both be right. You'll say "they are wrong." - I say, "you're both wrong."
I worked in sports for years. Lots of local sports. INEVITABLY, any time we wrote an article on one high school, the parents of kids at the rival high school would scream 'bias' -- These people would actually count column inches. I would have to tell these people - "Look, I didn't even grow up around here - I could give a rat's ass which school is more heavily covered. I follow the story."
This kind of selective perception is so obviously silly when it comes to local sports. But for some reason, it doesn't strike anyone as obviously silly when it comes to politics.
Now, don't get me wrong ... it's NOT avoidable for human beings to allow their pre-conceived biases to seep into their coverage. True. The best j-school teacher I ever had (a radical lefty :)), was the one who taught us this. It's unrealistic to expect otherwise. Subconsciously, they make choices in framing or headlines or what to focus on.
Some media people, obviously (Fox), allow themselves to be more consciously biased. But the vast majority of news reporters are not intentionally trying to "suck up to the man" - or "be a Bush lackey" - or whatever other nonsense people spew. There is no 'vast media elite conspiracy'
The ability for humans who are passionate to "selectively perceive" ANYTHING is extraordinary.
Someone like Tom Brokaw ... I don't care how he votes. Maybe he votes republican, maybe he doesn't. I don't know. But he's a SOLID, PROFESSIONAL NEWS man for decades. An "Anchor" in what the word should mean.
If we had more of them, and less of Fox and Olbermann, the world would be a better place.
I may agree with Olbermann by and large, but I've never liked him since he was on SportsCenter. His smarmy, sarcasm may be 'red meat' to the left, but his passion clouds his judgment on every little thing. His comments are often just as unfair as we accuse the right of being. He falls into the same reactionary traps that right wingers fall into ... and that people on DKos fall into constantly - including, obviously, the front-page posters.
Every little thing is blown out of proportion - sometimes context is exaggerated or misconstrued - and sometimes intentionally.
This HURTS the cause, as far as I'm concerned. And it's intellectually dishonest.
There is PLENTY -- TONS -- of ISSUES where we can genuinely have a MAJOR problem with the republicans. Inventing new ones out of every little thing, is counter-productive.
But that's another side of the same coin to what my original point is.
MSNBC did the right thing in putting David Gregory in the role. I don't even think he's a great anchor, but he's a solid news man. My pick, if I had one, would be Norah O'Donnell, who does a consistent solid job, and would be my pick to host Meet the Press - if they go with an in-house replacement.
UPDATE: Shoot, mean to include this link -- which is a great recent critique of the whole thing:
http://www.thepomoblog.com/...
UPDATE 2: SHOOT again .... I forgot to also say, that I completely agree that there are MANY crappy 'journalists' who don't do a good enough job at reporting facts, or asking good questions. But that doesn't mean they are intentionally shilling for one side or the other. There are crappy people in every professional. There are a lot of crappy comments on this site.