ABC Network Bias Against Bush Exposed In Memo

[goat balls]

They caught CBS..and now ABC gets busted. How long till they bust NBC?

Liberal media bias: here's the proof
Paul Greenberg (archive)


October 22, 2004 | Print | Send


Folks know what Liberal Media Bias is. Even those who deny it have to know what the rest of us are talking about. Anybody can read it between the lines, see it on CBS (also ABC and NBC), hear it on NPR, and almost feel it, it's so thick at times. Like an oil slick over the news, L.M.B. permeates American journalism's elite.

But defining Liberal Media Bias isn't easy. Because its very purpose is to be slippery, hard to pin down, indefinable. At its most effective, L.M.B. isn't even noticeable. It's supposed to come naturally, even automatically. Indeed, that's the object of the game: to present opinion as news, bias as fact, so smoothly that nobody is aware of the subtle switch.

As with George Orwell's newspeak, the function of L.M.B. isn't just to condition thought; it's to make any other thoughts unthinkable. Or at least unfashionable.

L.M.B. may be hard to pinpoint but, as a justice of the United States Supreme Court once said about pornography, you know it when you see it. Or hear it. Or read it. At least you should if you've got the slightest ear for language. It can even be a kind of spectator sport. Sometimes you almost want to cheer, its sleights of mind are executed so smoothly at times.

At other times, you just groan. I take the precaution, on hearing the first groaner on an NPR newscast, of switching to the classical music station. I owe Linda Wertheimer alone a debt of immense gratitude for guiding me to some of the most beautiful symphonies in the Western canon.

But although evidence of Liberal Media Bias abounds, there's never been any proof that it's part of a conscious pattern, a deliberate decision, something ordered from above. Till now.

Because now, thanks to some public-spirited leaker at ABC, we have the full text of an internal memo from its political director, Mark Halperin, to his minions. It's dated Friday, Oct. 8, 2004, and it makes perfectly clear whose side ABC "News" is going to be on in this presidential election:

It goes without saying that the stakes are getting very high for the country and the campaigns - and our responsibilities become quite grave.

I do not want to set off (an) endless colloquy that none of us have time for today - nor do I want to stifle one. Please respond if you feel you can advance the discussion.

The New York Times (Nagourney/Stevenson) and Howard Fineman on the web both make the same point today: the current Bush attacks on Kerry involve distortions and taking things out of context in a way that goes beyond what Kerry has done.

Kerry distorts, takes out of context, and mistakes all the time, but these are not central to his efforts to win.

We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides "equally" accountable when the facts don't warrant that.

I'm sure many of you have this week felt the stepped up Bush efforts to complain about our coverage. This is all part of their efforts to get away with as much as possible with the stepped up, renewed efforts to win the election by destroying Senator Kerry at least partly through distortions.

It's up to Kerry to defend himself, of course. But as one of the few news organizations with the skill and strength to help voters evaluate what the candidates are saying to serve the public interest. Now is the time for all of us to step up and do that right.

To summarize: Yes, our candidate may falsify now and then, but the other guy's falsity is at the center of his campaign. This memo might as well be a declaration of political war on ABC's part. It's what every true believer thinks in the heat of an election season. But it's unusual for a supposed unbiased newsman to think so. Or rather say so. In writing.

Liberal Media Bias isn't just a feeling anymore; it's a documented plan. Case closed. With a full confession.

And if you honestly can't hear the prejudice in ABC's memo, try switching the names of the candidates around and it'll come through loud and clear. Unless, of course, you really do believe one presidential candidate is basically a good guy and the other is evil personified.

The bias behind much of the news Americans are fed isn't exactly a surprise. But at least when you're listening to right-wing talk radio, you know you're listening to right-wing talk radio. And when you're watching Fox News, you can be confident it's fair and balanced in favor of the right.

It's the pretense of objectivity at the old established networks that offends, or should. Now it lies shattered.

What's surprising about this memo isn't ABC's Liberal Media Bias, but that someone at the top would be dumb enough to put it in writing.

How can anybody take ABC's election coverage seriously after this? This memo makes even CBS' fake-but-accurate coverage, phony documents and all, sound semi-honest. Once again, between leakers and bloggers, The Old Media has been unmasked. The proof is in the memo.



©2004 Tribune Media Services

Read Greenberg's biography

[Prodigal Son]

And where is your outrage over FOX News "directive of the day" memos?

Watched "Outfoxed" last night...it's hard now not to associate Rupert Murdoch with Goebbels, or see FOX as anything more than a right-wing propaganda machine for the GOP.

[goat balls]

And where is your outrage over FOX News "directive of the day" memos?

Watched "Outfoxed" last night...it's hard now not to associate Rupert Murdoch with Goebbels, or see FOX as anything more than a right-wing propaganda machine for the GOP.

I would view FOX as biased as hell. That's where.

I don't think that anyone questions the "fact" that FOX is biased.

But I would say that most people believe that ABC, NBC, and CBS are NOT biased and there is the outrage. We are all starting to see mediums such as FOX and talk radio as a result. I believe that many people are sick and tired of the bias of the big three networks and looking around for other news sources....maybe that's why FOX is growing so much?

[Tarkan]

And where is your outrage over FOX News "directive of the day" memos?

Watched "Outfoxed" last night...it's hard now not to associate Rupert Murdoch with Goebbels, or see FOX as anything more than a right-wing propaganda machine for the GOP.

No one really claims Fox isn't biased. Conservatives have Fox. Liberals have CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, the NY Times, the Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, etc ad nauseum. These are leftist organizations parading as impartial news organs.

But liberals, who consistently fall into the trap of thinking they are "moderates" because all their friends are liberal, or even more liberal than them, reflexively think there is no liberal bias verging on the level of a conspiracy with regards to the established news media.

Hell, on DemocraticUnderground, they regularly attack the media because they aren't carrying the torch well enough for their candidate.

Remember that whole voter intimidation thing?

Well, it's happening in Florida. But it's Democrats that are doing it.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/ ... -news-palm

[britneyfan97]

i've heard of worse already. one of the guys i was in iraq with has a girlfriend with a GW bumper sticker. she's had her rear window broken, and anti-bush related statements scratched into the door.

polotics seems to keep getting more and more childish. buti have to say with all the accusations going about - it's kerry supporters behaving like (to add to the repeated nazi statements) the 'brown shirrts'.

[Dim]

CNN is now chasing FOX for that right-wing chest-pounding flag-waving demographic - I don't think you can call them liberal anymore. The right also has the Clear Channel, Sinclair group, the New York Post and Moonie Times, Boston Herald and thousands of other News corp papers around the US.

In my opinion the editorial writer is a little hysterical - it's one memo written by one person. The CBS forgery scandal is WAY more significant, and the bias shown doesn't come close to what you'll get from the right-wing media outlets listed above.

Did anyone see the survey of voters knowledge of world events proving that many Bush supporters have a very flimsy grasp on reality? Maybe that's appropriate since the administration is now defining itself as faith based - it's all the nay-sayers and moaners who are 'reality based'.

http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Pres_ ... 21_04.html

[Prodigal Son]

What can you say Dim? Something is wrong in America.

[goat balls]

Dim...why do you know so much about what is happening over here...I thought you were a New Zealander?

CNN not a liberal watering hole? Check out Judy "I'm really a socialist" Woodruff on CNN's Inside Politics. Word on the street is that George Bush the first threatened her husband in a Dallas restaurant.

Bush supporters have a flimsy grip on reality? And the left wing kooks are well informed?

I'm telling you all though...this kooky liberal bullshit is going to backlash.

[Renard]

Liberal/Conservative; Democrat/Republican; Good/Evil; With us/Against us.

With all due respect, are Americans really incapable of perceiving more than two dimensions?

I beg to differ. I just think a lot of influential people and their sycophants think it easier to dumb it up for everyone else.

[Tarkan]

Dim...why do you know so much about what is happening over here...I thought you were a New Zealander?

CNN not a liberal watering hole? Check out Judy "I'm really a socialist" Woodruff on CNN's Inside Politics. Word on the street is that George Bush the first threatened her husband in a Dallas restaurant.

Bush supporters have a flimsy grip on reality? And the left wing kooks are well informed?

I'm telling you all though...this kooky liberal bullshit is going to backlash.

I think Dim still has US citizenship.

The left is better informed when it comes to the fact that Iraq didn't plan and execute 9-11.

They are a little less informed when it comes to the fact that Haliburton and the Bush-Cheney Whitehouse also did not plan and execute 9-11.

[Dim]

I think Dim still has US citizenship.

Heh heh. Back on the old board it used to drive FUG crazy that I could return to the US at will.

[Kasca]

CNN not a liberal watering hole?

>>>No, it's not. Did you ever watch Cafferty in the morning? And Bob Novak, oh, yeah, he's REAL left wing. Remember when CNN was covering the pre-war peace marches, the biggest peace marches in world history? No? You don't?? That's because they were called and told to pull them by the White House and they did, within 15 minutes, and that was the end of that.

And not's forget smarmy Larry, who's been avoiding any kind of political coverage since the war began.

[patriot]

It's a pretty sad state of affairs when a political bias in the NEWS has become a societal norm. We Americans are such lazy ass-holes that we don't mind a news network that panders to our idealogies, and neglects to give us the truth; no that would be too upsetting for we fragile little peasants.

Democrats go to their haven of Liberal propaganda, and Republicans go to their bastion of neo-con spin. The Founding Fathers are spinning in their graves, and they'd be ass-up if a partisan should happen to pass by.

[Michael]

I prefer a free press to a fair press. Who would get to decide what's fair anyway? The FCC Bureau of Fair and Balanced Reporting? Collectively, we get the government we deserve. If it's because we aren't paying attention, act ignorantly or stupidly, don't demand better reporting... oh well. The upside is that the internet is making the major news outlets more and more irrelevant as anything other than advertising agencies for whichever social or political agenda they happen to be pushing that week.

[Romeo247]

Bush ~ Cheney 04' woot woot!!