Today’s New York Post editorial focuses on the media bias against George Bush.
During October alone, Kerry coverage on the network news shows — Rather, Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings — ran 77 percent positive. Bush's coverage, meanwhile, ran just 34 percent positive. Throughout the entire campaign, a full 64 percent — two out of three — of network stories on the president were negative.
Americans aren't blind to this blatant bias. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press's survey found that fully 50 percent of voters believe most reporters wanted Kerry to win.
The media offered plenty of ammunition to reinforce that conclusion. The Media Research Center has compiled lists of the worst campaign-season distortions by the news media in general and by The New York Times in particular.
Rather's Memogate fiasco heads the list, of course — and it will be interesting to see what, if any, repercussions fall on those who perpetrated that fiasco. Yet that was just one story in an endless yearlong media assault meant to prove that Bush had been AWOL from the National Guard — a charge that was never proven. (During just two weeks in February, CBS, NBC and ABC aired no less that 63 such stories on their morning and evening news shows.)
In sharp contrast, the media long ignored the disturbing questions raised about Kerry's Vietnam record by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. They finally addressed the issue only months later, when it was clear that the charges were causing Kerry political damage — and then only to declare them "demonstrably false."
Bloggers were crucial to the outcome of this election by providing a counterweight to that media bias described by the Post. Imagine if they hadn’t been around to unmask Dan Rather’s forgeries. But credit is due the American voting public. From years of subjection to countless inane TV commercials, Americans have developed an ability to cut through the nonsense, to ignore the noise, and to make an informed decision. This year we've reached the point where a majority of American voters, as evidenced by the outcome of this election, have come to recognize Rather, Brokaw, and Jennings for what they are - nonsense, noise.
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