Results so far:
| No | 36% | 86 votes | Total: 238 votes | |
| Yes | 64% | 152 votes |
The media is not bias in favor of Obama; the media is bias in favor of their paychecks.
Dirt sells. Controversy creates ratings. Conflict attracts an audience. The media needs an audience to give them better ratings so they can make money. In the youngest Presidential contender, who is also the first African-American nominee, the media has hit a gold mine. Barack Obama coverage, good or bad, is just what the media needs to compete with video games, reality TV, and blockbuster movies.
Since announcing his Presidential bid in February 2007, Obama has garnered media attention second only to the O.J. Simpson trial. But let us never forget for one second that this coverage has not all been positive. Unwanted endorsements, ill-worded statements, and even celebratory hand gestures have received hours of news time. The media reported numerous negative stories on Obama before even confirming they were correct.
The news media made numerous reports about Obama attending a madrasa as a child. The reports were based on an unconfirmed email and played on news channels over and over for days. After Obama's denial of the madrasa claim, the media THEN decided to investigate, ultimately travelling to Obama's childhood school in Indonesia. The media teams all issued retractions of their previous stories, and the email's original author, rougue politician Andy Martin, was ousted by the Washington Post in June of 2008. If the media was truly biased in favor of Obama, they would have either ignored the emails or verified the information before reporting on unconfirmed information and doing irreparable damage to Senator Barack Obama's public image. How much media attention was focused on the ousting of Andy Martin, the former presidential contender who wrote the false claims? It made the news one day. Never heard of Andy Martin? Its because resolving a controversy is not nearly as revenue-rich as starting one.
A mere hand gesture by Barack Obama is fodder for hours worth of media- and it is not praise being poured upon the Presidential hopeful. Once when he scratched the side of his nose with his middle finger, news "analysts" disussed at length whether or not he was "flipping off" Hillary Clinton. When Barack and wife Michelle gave each other a "fist bump," news reporters asked if this was a "terrorist fist jab." Three days of news coverage were devoted to the detangling of this foreign body language.
When something will attract viewers, the media will report on it- endlessly, if possible. Senator Barack Obama attracts viewers for multiple reasons: one group of society can't wait to see what he'll do next and the other group can't wait to see how that can be twisted into a mistake. The media will not let the gold-mine Obama go unreported, no matter which side they have to report to in order to keep the advertising dollars rolling in.
Learn more about this author, Chula Harjo.
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The staff of Slate magazine, owned by the Washington Post, supports Obama over McCain by 55 to 1. No wonder articles on Slate read like Obama campaign material. Rumors that Slate's staff hung Sarah Palin in effigy, beat her like a pinata, then burned her in a pagan ritual on Halloween have yet to be confirmed.
But that describes how deeply in the tank the mainstream media is for Barack Obama. MSNBC's Chis Matthews gets chills up his leg when Obama speaks. That's what passes for hard hitting journalism when covering Obama. Anchor Keith Olbermann tried to hand Obama a crown and scepter at the Democrat convention. These aren't isolated incidents. Even the mothers of the staff at the Politico think the Politico is biased.
The mainstream media has cast off all pretense of objectivity in this campaign, and they're paying the price. This Q3, during the most historic presidential campaign ever, the Washington Post's earnings dropped 86 percent from last Q3. Readers are fleeing the New York Times like rats fleeing bigger rats. In this age of cable and internet news, the American people embrace alternatives to these cartoonish media outlets.
The mainstream media backed itself into this corner when it invented the phony memo that Bush lied to get us into war in Iraq. Then they hammered us for 4 years with the phony drumbeat that the Iraq war was unwinnable. Then they covered up the success of the surge because it contradicted their agenda. They steadily lost audience because the American people could discover the facts from alternate news sources. This willful deception on the part of the media dangerously divided and weakened America.
Now the mainstream media is so heavily invested in their own fraud, they have to make Barack Obama king. Peter Robinson of Forbes explains, "If McCain wins, the mainstream media will remain what it really is, the 'more and more marginal media,' and I have a career to think about."
That's why the mainstream media has feverishly covered up who Barack Obama is, his record, and his vision. The media attacks any attempt to analyze Obama's record as not an issue for the American people or racist. They cover up that he was a member of the socialist New Party in 1996 and received the endorsement of the Democrat Socialists of America. They trumpet Colin Powell's endorsement but cover up Louis Farrakhan's, the Communist Party's, and Palestinian terrorist group Hamas's endorsements.
In Obama's first book, Dreams from My Father, he explains he actively sought out and surrounded himself with Marxists. His mother and father were avowed Marxists. His mentor mentioned in that book was communist party member Frank Marshall Davis. Obama's education reform partner, Bill Ayers is an avowed Marxist. Rev. Wright's racial justice platform is a form of Marxism. ACORN is a Marxist organization. But the press considers this information off limits and attacks anybody who brings it up as racist. The only people who spend their entire life seeking out, surrounding themselves with, and working with Marxists are fellow Marxists, but according to the mainstream media, pointing this out is racist.
The press considers Obama's "association" with domestic terrorist and Marxist revolutionary Bill Ayers a non-issue, but the real story is Obama partnered with Ayers implementing their shared vision for education in America. Last I checked, education was a major issue, but the press is covering up this 3 year, $100 million partnership even though it was Obama's only executive experience - the only experience that has prepared him for the job of president - in his life. Stanley Kurtz reports that Obama and Ayers laughed about increasing test scores at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Their goal was to radicalize Chicago students, not help them learn. Ayers explained the vision best when he was the guest of Fidel Castro's ideological successor in the western hemisphere, Hugo Chavez, at an education conference in Venezuela in 2006, where he advocated Marxist revolution through government education.
The mainstream media claims this isn't a newsworthy issue.
But Sarah Palin's wardrobe is. The press was certain they captured the "gotcha" moment that would get their man crowned when they discovered the GOP spent $150,000 on Gov. Palin's wardrobe. They spared no ink lambasting her. They considered this a story of hypocrisy that would end McCain's challenge to their chosen one. But when Obama made "I am my brother's keeper" the theme of his campaign, the press covered up that Obama never once bothered to help out his actual brother who lives in destitution in Kenya on $12 a year.
Now the LA Times is withholding a videotape from 2003 of Obama, Ayers and domestic terrorist Bernadine Dohrn at a party for ex-PLO spokesman Rashid Khalidi at which guests reportedly attacked Israel repeatedly. According to an anonymous LA Times insider, on the tape Obama says that Israel has no right to occupy Palestine and that Israelis committed genocide against Palestinians. But without the tape, this is just unsubstantiated rumor. LA Times reporter Peter Wallsten won't release the tape because it's too controversial, meaning too damaging to Obama. But the media happily and illegally dug into Joe the Plumber's government records so they could smear him for days.
Ironically, it was McCain's signature legislation, McCain-Feingold, that restricted freedom of political speech for Americans and gave the media this power to play kingmaker. Now I'll probably suffer the fate of all Obama critics in this race and be called a racist for writing this essay.
Learn more about this author, Mark Luedtke.
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