Thursday, August 04, 2005
Own Worst Enemy?
Most Americans have already come to the conclusion that the vast majority of the MSM leans toward the liberal side of the political spectrum. As a result, they tend to ‘push’ certain stories to advance their agenda. Tuesday, we saw the climax of their latest cause, the special election in Ohio’s Second Congressional District.
The media was out in force supporting “an anti-war” veteran of the Iraq War, Paul Hacket, who was running as a Democrat in a solid Republican District. He was featured on a wide variety of national news shows, including those on CNN and MSNBC. I personally saw his interview with Chris Mathews on Hardball, and thought Mathews could barely contain his glee that this Democratic War Veteran (all capitalized, of course) was running a good race.
Hacket did come close to a win. I think the close race was TOTALLY due to the MSM giving him this coverage. Can you remember the last time a special congressional election got ANY MSM national coverage, except in passing? I sure can’t.
In this vast coverage, almost all of the MSM conveniently ignored the fact that while Hacket was on these shows calling Bush a “chickenhawk” and saying he had no respect for him (thus playing up his hard-core Democratic credentials), he was running commercials in the Ohio Second District implying that Bush supported his candidacy.
I think the biased news coverage by the MSM drove all the hard-core Democrats to the polls in that District, giving Hacket good numbers for a special election. However, the time of MSM dominance is gone. People recognize the MSM bias for what it is. I suspect that the hard core Republicans were also driven to the polls for the same reason, the biased news coverage. Not wanting to give the MSM a victory, hard-core Republicans turned out also. The result in this Republican District was to be expected, a victory of the Republicans.
I think the MSM is now their own worst enemy. They can no longer push candidates or causes any longer (motivating their liberal viewers) without producing an equal disgust of their bias (which motivate the conservative viewers). Now, for each action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The days of the MSM being a power broker in the US is over.
The media was out in force supporting “an anti-war” veteran of the Iraq War, Paul Hacket, who was running as a Democrat in a solid Republican District. He was featured on a wide variety of national news shows, including those on CNN and MSNBC. I personally saw his interview with Chris Mathews on Hardball, and thought Mathews could barely contain his glee that this Democratic War Veteran (all capitalized, of course) was running a good race.
Hacket did come close to a win. I think the close race was TOTALLY due to the MSM giving him this coverage. Can you remember the last time a special congressional election got ANY MSM national coverage, except in passing? I sure can’t.
In this vast coverage, almost all of the MSM conveniently ignored the fact that while Hacket was on these shows calling Bush a “chickenhawk” and saying he had no respect for him (thus playing up his hard-core Democratic credentials), he was running commercials in the Ohio Second District implying that Bush supported his candidacy.
I think the biased news coverage by the MSM drove all the hard-core Democrats to the polls in that District, giving Hacket good numbers for a special election. However, the time of MSM dominance is gone. People recognize the MSM bias for what it is. I suspect that the hard core Republicans were also driven to the polls for the same reason, the biased news coverage. Not wanting to give the MSM a victory, hard-core Republicans turned out also. The result in this Republican District was to be expected, a victory of the Republicans.
I think the MSM is now their own worst enemy. They can no longer push candidates or causes any longer (motivating their liberal viewers) without producing an equal disgust of their bias (which motivate the conservative viewers). Now, for each action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The days of the MSM being a power broker in the US is over.
