Offering frequent news and analysis from the majestic Evergreen State and beyond, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's unconventional perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

The Myth of the Liberal Media is Dead

In the wake of former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan's book, with its dressing down of the media for "dropping the ball" with regard to coverage of the Iraq war, CNN's Jessica Yellin went on Anderson Cooper 360 last night and destroyed what little was left of the myth of the liberal media.
"The press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings," Yellin said.

"And my own experience at the White House was that the higher the president's approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives — and I was not at this network at the time — but the more pressure I had from news executives to put on positive stories about the president, I think over time...."
Journalists are supposed to report the news, not make the news. But corporate executives, as we've seen too many times in recent history, seem to only care about profit. And given that the Bush Administration has proven itself to be a subsidiary of corporate America, why bite the hand that feeds you if you're an executive of a news outlet?

Comments:

Blogger Howard Martin said...

Thanks for posting this, Ken.

May 29, 2008 6:46 PM  
Blogger LE said...

Dear Obama Superdelegates,

I want to ask you how you can continue to support Senator Obama after this latest disgraceful episode where his campaign maliciously and intentionally disseminated a vicious lie regarding Hillary's comment about RFK in order to impugn her. Why did he feel he had the right to malign her like this, and why do you remain silent?

The comment Hillary made about RFK is in no way offensive; it must be taken out of context and intentionally misinterpreted to give it a meaning other than as a time marker, which is how Hillary Clinton used it. All Hillary said was that nomination fights historically have extended through the summer and have gone to the convention in August, and she gave a date that has historical significance: June when RFK was still campaigning. Her emphasis was on the word June, if you watch the Argus Leader video, it is clear:
Hillary Clinton Coverage. Hillary's larger point was to ask why, if history is a guide, she has been asked to drop out of the race when other Presidential contenders like Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy, FDR, Woodrow Wilson, etc. have taken their fight to the convention?

I do not accept that Obama should not be held personally responsible for this slander against Hillary Clinton, if you hold President Bush responsible for the war in Iraq, though Bush never fired a shot. Obama has repeatedly shown a mean streak and a horrible lack of judgement that is unacceptable for a Presidential contender.

From small slights (not shaking her hand on the Senate floor, giving her the finger at a rally, members of his campaign calling her a monster) to outright slander (RFK, Dr King/Johnson remarks), Obama is not someone I can respect or would want to have the responsibility of steering our great nation.

For the Obama campaign to e-mail the national press corps and insinuate that Hillary's statement was sinister is a new low.

Obama has repeatedly behaved in an unprincipled manner:

* He worked to disallow a new election in Florida and Michigan
"The Obama people are blocking it in the Legislature"

* He refused to debate Hillary
"At Home in Midwest, Obama Explains Why He Refused Debate Challenge"

* He did not stand up against Wright for 20 years while Wright used the pulpit to spread hateful lies against the United States and its people, including blaming the U.S. for creating the AIDS virus in order to commit genocide.
"An Angry Obama Renounces Ties to His Ex-Pastor"

* He insults the Democratic process by working to disallow the delegates from Florida from counting, calling it a "name recognition" exercise, when it was in fact a fair election where he broke the pledge to not campaign there by buying national cable advertisements.
Obama's new ad is a "clear and blatant violation"

"Obama suggests halving Florida delegation"

* He accepted money and land from a corrupt influence peddler like Tony Rezko, turning his back on the residents of Chicago's South Side who needed the affordable housing that Rezko was supposed to provide after receiving one hundred million dollars to do so. Even now eleven buildings in Obama's district are still boarded-up and unlivable.
"Obama ducks the questions: Suddenly, our open senator is acting like a dissembling pol"

"An Obama Patron and Friend Until an Indictment"

* He accepted money from the Nuclear Power industry and is an advocate for it, after being bought off, even though we have no solution for the disposal of nuclear waste.
"Nuclear Leaks and Response Tested Obama in Senate"

If you continue to support Obama, after these displays of corruption, of malice, and poor judgement, and after the disgraceful way he has behaved toward Hillary, then you will make it impossible for me to continue in the Democratic Party. Your judgement and your leadership would be as suspect as Obama's.

Furthermore, by continuing to support Obama you send the signal that you condone a society where no one in a leadership position stands up for an innocent person like Hillary Clinton while she is slandered in the media by a member of her same political party. If you agree that Hillary should not have mentioned a historical fact, RFK's death, because Ted Kennedy was recently diagnosed with cancer, making Hillary uncaring, then I find your reasoning to be gravely lacking. RFK is public domain, his legacy belongs to us all: Americans and the world. Hillary was not chanting about his death at a rally, she was not gleeful about it, she was using it as a historical reference during an interview with the editors of the Argus Leader newspaper.

In addition, if you think that the word "assassination" should be taboo and no one, especially Hillary, should dare mention it during a Presidential race, then I can only say that superstition has no place in rational thought; the word "assassination" does not have magical powers. To suggest that mentioning the word "assassination" might "give people ideas" belies the reality that having the secret service detail all around the Presidential contenders is a much stronger suggestion to people than making a historical reference in an editorial boardroom meeting would.

What all of these attacks on Hillary's innocent comment have in common, besides the fact that they are an attempt to silence her, and that they are irrational and mean-spirited, is that the society that her attackers want us to accept, and you if you are complicit and do not stand up for her, is completely frightening. I do not think it is just to silence a person. I believe in freedom of speech. I also do not want to live in a society where historical facts are taboo and cannot be uttered because of superstition or "the spreading of ideas"—that is a Police State, it is not Liberty, it is not America. If Obama supporters want this kind of society, I will have to fight against it: I will become a Republican.

Hillary Clinton has been working on solutions that will help our country return to greatness for nearly two decades. She is what would be best for our nation. Hillary Clinton is qualified, dedicated, knowledgeable and caring. To overlook her accomplishments and her experience for an upstart with the thinnest of resumes is a slap in the face on a core value of America, that we are a meritocracy. To dismiss her for a corrupt and malicious man like Obama, who would slander her and accuse her of murderous intent, is beyond contemptible.

History will judge you unworthy of your leadership position if you do not stand up for the innocent, if you do not condemn Obama and his campaign for this most brutal assault on a true American patriot like Hillary Clinton.

"In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up."

—Pastor Martin Niemöller

May 29, 2008 10:12 PM  
Blogger EuropeanWoman said...

Hear, Hear. From afar, living in Europe, I despair at my home country and the triviality with which Clinton is criticised by the American media, versus the inexplicable and endlessly long leash given to Obama and his half-buried alliances with known militants, seditionists and figures in organised crime; to say nothing of his wife's racially motivated comments from the podium and elsewhere. America has the blinkers on. They want a male -- any male -- in preference to Clinton.

Discrimination against women in the United States is the reason I left. As a corporate executive for 25 years, as a woman who survived divorce American style, as a single mother raising three children alone against the odds, I know there is no equality, in any way shape or form, for women in the United States. Glass ceiling? More like brick wall.

Sadly, America will pay the price for allowing, even encouraging, the media to focus on the head of a pin during this campaign, merely to spite a female -- especially a competent and courageous female -- on behalf of the Boys Club: the mostly male politicial phalanx with it's few kow-towing Nancy Pelosis and her ilk. Clinton wants the real job. Not in my lifetime say the men -- and the media carries their banner for them. Disgraceful, but typical.

Based on the media whitewash, the United States apparently prefers any male at all in preference to Clinton. The first Black President they say - if it suits the occasion and the audience. But make no references here to women please, nor to qualifications, we're not talking minorities -- nor even majorities, as in the dase of the majority female population of the country.

Bottomline, I'm referring to neither, not to blackness or whiteness as the press so often infers, nor to sex, but to competence or, in this case, incompetence in a case of obvious favoritism of even an incompetent man over a qualified woman.

Beyond the abhorrent and destructive discrimination of the US media against women, I wouldn't vote for Mr. Obama for no other reason than I think him entirely incapable and rudely motivated, as he, above all, has declared himself willing to delegate the Presidential responsibilities and authority as well, entirely to others. Just delegate decisions wholesale he says, no indication how or even why. Government by committee? So why vote him into the office at all?

Further, his agenda for "change" doesn't say what change. Change merely for it's own sake? Change from what and to what? What is the USA signing on for with this candidate and why so excited for anything "nouveau" versus well known, tried and true?

I propose, because the person with the track record is a woman. And in America women control the broom, not the boom.

With higher numbers of single parents, widowed and never-married adults, [in the millions]; and as people who are underpaid, underprivileged and overworked and who represent the MAJORITY population, women had better get a perspective on their position in the United States and stop splitting their numbers along party, media propaganda, and racial lines. Sounds like in this election it's already too late.

May 30, 2008 2:28 AM  
Blogger Howard Martin said...

LE:
No offense, but your comment sounds like something you are shopping all around the internet. It has no relevance to the post about the media. Heads up: when you post long rants randomly people may think you are a crackpot.

May 30, 2008 5:20 AM  
Blogger Howard Martin said...

Another rambling, off-topic, venomous comment. Can't Hillary's supporters just tell us how wonderful she is, without trashing Obama? Is it possible for some to consider that maybe the only reason some people oppose Hillary is her record of support for the Iraq war, her saber-rattling towards Iran and a domestic agenda that tilts toward the political insiders who were the basis for her early fundaising success? In short, Hillary stands for not enough change from the status quo.

May 31, 2008 9:47 PM  

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