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Me#1You#10
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Joined: 06 May 2004
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 Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2005 6:18 am Post subject: "Barnes and Goebbels" |
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Nick Danger of Redstate.org parries a bit with Fred Barnes' thesis that the MSM still rules the propaganda roost (well worth a read as well). The following will be music to this forum's ears...
| Quote: | Barnes and Goebbels
By: Nick Danger
Dec 1st, 2005
Writing today in the Weekly Standard, Fred Barnes opines that the mainstream media still rules the roost. As Barnes puts it:Despite all the good done by the alternative media, the mainstream media is still able to impose its interpretation on news events. It has no qualms about creating out of whole cloth national figures it likes. And the mainstream media continues to hold to a double standard, one for Democrats and liberals, another for Bush and Republicans. There's certainly no doubt about the double standard, but I question how successful the Press-Democrat really is in "imposing its interpretation" on events. I concede that if you put an ear into their echo chamber, it sure sounds like they have imposed their view. But is the public buying it, or are the "reporters" merely cackling to each other, and to whatever fraction of the public is already predisposed toward liberal Democratic politics?
The Press-Democrat's "news" coverage leading up to the 2004 election contained some of the most blatantly biased campaign reporting this country has ever seen. Barnes himself cites the Press-Democrat's complete silence concerning even the existence of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. This while the public was fed a steady drip, drip, drip of allegation, innuendo, supposedly significant dental records, and finally even forged "proof" concerning George Bush's National Guard service. But were the media able to lift Kerry into the White House with this charade? No, they weren't. The number of actual voters that the media were able to "impose their interpretation" on appears to have been quite small.
Similarly, Barnes cites the Press-Democrat's apparently amazing success at turning Cindy Sheehan into a national celebrity. I say "apparently" because there was no doubt that Ms. Sheehan was a celebrity within the media's echo chamber. But did anyone outside the Beltway even care? Immediately after leaving Crawford, when her alleged "fame" would have been at its peak, Cindy Sheehan embarked upon a nationwide "Peace Tour." So far as anyone can tell, these events came and went without a splash. In most places she stopped, "the public" stayed away in droves. So how big a celebrity was she really? Was she any bigger a celebrity than the Swift Boat Vets were to the half of the country that voted for Bush? I don't think so. To Democrats and their reporters, it must have looked like the so-called 'alternative media' created the Swift Vets out of whole cloth. Without a word having been said about them by the Press-Democrat, some 60% of the country found out about them and understood their message. That's as good as anything the Democrats' media was able to do with the "Peace Mom."
When Kerry finally broke his silence, the Press-Democrat opened fire on the Swift Vets with everything they had... apparently to no effect, except on the millions of Democrats who now "know" that the Swift Vets were liars and scoundrels. But nobody else knows any such thing, and Kerry is back in the Senate.
It is true that the media's coverage of the war in Iraq has been relentlessly negative, but poll results suggest that the public has learned to expect that from a pro-Democratic media, and has a pretty good handle on just how much 'windage' to apply to the coverage. Despite a triumphant chorus emanating from the press recently that it's finally time to "pull out of Iraq," complete with the fake epiphany of Rep. Murtha, only a tiny fraction of the public supports that position. When faced with having to actually vote to do it, the Democrats in the House complained that such a vote was a dirty trick. It's hard to look at that and conclude that an antiwar press has "imposed its interpretation" on anyone but fellow left wing Democrats.
It is indeed angry-making to conservatives to see the day in, day out proselytizing in the media on behalf of the Democratic Party. But I think we do not give ourselves enough credit for having built an alternative that works. The legacy media are certainly more visible, and they seem louder for all that, but their results suggest that only their choir is really listening to them preach. The rest of us can hear the roar, but we are laughing at it.
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fortdixlover
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 1476
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| Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 12:36 am Post subject: Re: "Barnes and Goebbels" |
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| Quote: | | Writing today in the Weekly Standard, Fred Barnes opines that the mainstream media still rules the roost. As Barnes puts it:[list]Despite all the good done by the alternative media, the mainstream media is still able to impose its interpretation on news events. It has no qualms about creating out of whole cloth national figures it likes. And the mainstream media continues to hold to a double standard, one for Democrats and liberals, another for Bush and Republicans. |
Considering the rapid spread of computer literacy and comfort in the younger crowd, who live via their internet-connected cellphones and iPods, the MSM's days of hegemony are coming to a close faster than they'd like to imagine.
-- FDL
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