Newspapers Are Out of Touch

I had a conversation at work Friday with a coworker about the main stream media. His assertion was that the reason people hate Obama is because they aren’t reading newspapers anymore. His proof that people aren’t reading the papers? The fact that they are dying all over the country.

He and I tend to disagree on quite a bit. I blame his education. This was just one of the examples of how his teachers have failed him over the years. He failed to recognize the slant in the news; he failed to understand the history of print journalism in this country and he failed to understand why people are no longer following the MSM.

Point one; he didn’t recognize the way words can be used to sway even the reporting of facts. Take for instance just reporting the description of a crowd at a Tea Party Rally. Describing them as “simmering with hostility” leaves a different impression than calling them “boisterous”. Both may be basically accurate, but neither may convey the whole truth.

The Van Jones resignation is interesting too for the slant it can show. Here is the Fox News story; and here is NBC. Notice the difference?

It was also his contention that the MSM isn’t slanted, Fox News is. I argued that all of the MSM is slanted BUT Fox. The channel is slanted, but I don’t see any slant in their reporting. Read the NBC report. This is a screen shot; in case they see the light and change the story later this weekend:



In 4 short paragraphs they reference “Smear Campaign”; “Lies and Distortions” and that Jones was “under fire for a series of inflammatory statements he made about Republicans”. But they aren’t biased. What were the statements, NBC?

Now read the Fox story. I found it quite fair.

Point two: his contention was that media bias is new. Well, if you consider William Randolph Hearst and his creation of Yellow Journalism in the 1890’s new; then maybe. Of course the whole idea that there were entire newspapers against Abe Lincoln has to be forgotten about. And the entire Jefferson presidency. And everything back to the pre-revolutionary days.

Anybody remember when every town had at least2 papers? One would lean left and one would lean right, and you got the whole truth by reading both? He was complaining that people got their news from blogs, and not newspapers, and blogs are biased.

Well, duh! It’s just like the old days. Read left blogs and read right blogs; then you get the whole truth.

The reason nobody reads the newspaper anymore (or watches ABC; CBS and NBC) for their news is because they have lost their credibility. We know they are biased; but they refuse to admit it. And until they decide to admit their bias they will continue to slide.

But the left NEEDS us to reads their propaganda organs. Their version of the ‘truth’ is correct; we just need to realize it.