Repeat after me: there is no liberal media

by Liberal Librarian/The People's View

The previous President, after the attacks of 9/11, engineered a war with a state which, though abysmal to its own people, had had no direct or indirect link with any terror attack on the United States. It was, if anything, a mortal enemy of the group which carried out the attacks, as that group saw the ruling regime as corrupt and un-Islamic. As the history of that war is being written, the regime sought to stave off war, willing to give the previous President anything he wanted, save for the regime's destruction. Of course, the regime as it existed stood in the way of the grand plan to remake the Middle East; its destruction, not its containment, was the goal. Anything short of political—and literal—suicide would not suit the ultimate purpose. So the country and the world were lied into a war, which cost nearly 5,000 American lives, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths; a war which was supposed to last a few weeks and pay for itself instead dragged on for nearly a decade, costing over $1 trillion. And the Middle East, far from being remade into a collection of benevolent American satrapies, teetered on the edge of all-out war for the eight years of the George W. Bush administration.

That President, however, was never asked to apologize for the disaster he had wrought. And if ever had been asked to apologize in a face-to-face interview, he never offered one: no apology for the countless dead, for the treasure wasted, for the lives destroyed. It's just not the done thing.

Well, it used to not be the done thing.

Barack Obama's signal achievement was, finally, bringing health security to the world's richest, most powerful nation. A health system teetering on collapse due to the crush of uninsured is, finally, being put on a sounder footing.

Its roll-out this autumn has been laden with problems. Many of those problems involve Americans who bought subpar, almost worthless insurance on the private market, now being dropped from those plans because they don't meet the requirements of the American Care Act.

Mr. Obama's constant assurance during the run-up to the Act's passage was that if you liked your insurance plan, you wouldn't have to drop it. And as most Americans receive their health insurance from the workplace, that was an easy assurance to make.

But now insurance companies, which made quite tidy profits off of these junk plans, are throwing people off of them, and blaming Obamacare.

And the media has latched onto this subterfuge as some great promise broken, trumpeting the "broken promise" without reporting that the vast majority of those being dropped were in subpar plans, which were no longer legal under the ACA. These consumers would now have the ability to go on the exchange and purchase cheaper, better insurance.

But, for some people, better an awful insurance policy than a much better one brought about by "that man". And the media, in the form of an interview with Chuck Todd, finally got its symbolic pound of flesh, in which Mr. Todd asked the President if he wanted to apologize to Americans for his "broken promise".

George W. Bush: brought about the country's worse geo-political disaster, and has never been asked to apologize. Barack H. Obama: worked to ensure that Americans would never again have to face the threat of destitution because of medical bills, and has been tarred and feathered by our media.

We can be angry. We can be saddened. But what we mustn't be is surprised.

One can argue that there never was a "liberal media". But it's safe to say that there used to be a more balanced media, one in which factual reporting and accurate analysis were the linchpins of the industry. If the reporting on Vietnam was rosy at first, by the end of the war its full horrors were being reported on honestly.

But that was also in an era when media ownership was far more diffuse. NBC and MSNBC are owned by Comcast, one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world. ABC is owned by Disney Corporation. Fox News is owned by News Corporation. CNN is owned by Time Warner. CBS has remained "independent"; but it too is a large multinational.

Corporations may be many things. They may be the most efficient means to organize economic activity. They may give their employees a somewhat remunerative working environment. But one thing for which they can never be mistaken are altruistic institutions acting for the public good. By law, publicly held corporations must return maximum value for their shareholders. And when the political winds start to blow against that basic dictum, no one should be surprised if corporations direct their media arms to wage a scorched-earth campaign against a President who is trying to bring back some commonsense regulation to a capitalism run amok, a capitalism which almost brought the world to its knees in 2008-9.

Corporations are not altruistic. Corporations are not "liberal". They are engines of profit. And they will turn against anyone who wants to in any way curb or redirect that engine.

Of course, the humorous thing is that Wall Street has never seen profits as it has under the Obama administration. There is a very real possibility that the DJIA will close at over 16,000 to end the year. If Barack Obama is a socialist, he's a very poor one.

But what Barack Obama is is a believer in the American dream. Not the nightmare vision of a nation of John Galts, thinking they're world conquerors but actually under the heel of rapacious corporations, fighting for the scraps. It's the dream which has sustained this Republic for its entire history: that we can make progress, that we can continually work to perfect the Union, that the next generation will do better than the last, and that we are a community, bound together by common ideals and common goals, the greatest of which is to live a good, human life.

That dream has never been more imperiled. And the laughably named "liberal media" is handmaiden to the attempt to destroy it. People like the Koch brothers are the epitome of silent movie villains, tying the citizens of this country to the train tracks to be run over by the train they conduct. Any truly independent mass media could make massive profits by exposing them and those like them.

But the media is a loss leader. News has never made money. At one point in our history, that was fine. And it still is, but now the media serves to drive a narrative: America is in decline, Obama is a failure, we need a new direction. And as President Obama scores successes in spite of the media, and as the country continues to move in a direction which frightens the corporations, the attacks get more shrill, more vicious, more unhinged. George W. Bush wasn't asked to apologize for sending thousands to their deaths. Barack Obama was asked to apologize for, essentially, bringing good, affordable healthcare to millions who either didn't have it or were underserved by the existing system.

The media is not interested in truth, but in driving a narrative. The media is not interested in analysis, but in coming to predetermined conclusions.

But with every tweet, with every blog post, with every conversation we have, WE become the media. And we can be more powerful, because we retain something it has lost: trust. No one trusts it, and rightly so. There's a vacuum which we have to fill. If we do, then perhaps the American dream will continue for another generation.

New Study Shows U.S. Media Has Been More Critical of Obama than Bush

By: Sarah Jones/politicususa

The U.S. outlets were more critical of Obama and less critical of Bush than were Arab and European outlets, according to a study released by the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) at George Mason University. Yes, the U.S. press loved them some W.

They found that European and Arabic-language TV news shows were both more positive toward the Obama administration than were U.S. TV news shows. Fox News Channel had the most negative coverage of Obama (shocking). But also, all news outlets in the study except for Fox News were more negative toward the Bush administration then they were toward the Obama administration, which might seem confusing until you put into context the epic debacle that was Bush’s presidency. Even our corporate press couldn’t whitewash the stream of lawlessness that comprised the Bush administration.

The U.S. outlets were more negative toward Bush but less negative than the European and Arabic-language outlets. To make sense of this, consider the policy differences between Obama and Bush, and how they impacted the perception of each in international media. European news outlets were the most negative toward the Bush administration, even more negative than Mid-East outlets, which says that it wasn’t all about the the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but also about Bush’s cowboy diplomacy and the tendency of European news outlets to actually cover the news as opposed to U.S. outlets. The U.S. outlets were the least negative toward the Bush administration.

These findings are from a new book published August 16, The Global President, by CMPA Senior Fellow and University of Mary Washington Professor Stephen Farnsworth, CMPA President and George Mason University Professor S. Robert Lichter and Media Tenor President Roland Schatz.

Given the fact that European outlets are more likely to have real news than the Kardashian-obsessed, for-profit, cute-whale-sighting, shiny weapons-of-mass-destruction that passes for our “news” here, one might deduce that this means that the Bush administration did more negative things, like say lying about WMD, invading a sovereign nation on a lie, ignoring an entire region after a natural disaster, outing a CIA agent for political retribution, using U.S. attorneys for political retribution, politicizing the DOJ with evangelical partisan hacks in career, non-political jobs, ending his term with a global financial meltdown attributable to policies he and his party championed, and so much more.

Oh, sure, you’re thinking but Obama is responsible for Katrina! Only in the Republican Party, my friend, proving that they have given up on reality all together in order to justify their irrational hatred of Obama. And then there was Obama using the IRS for partisan political purposes! Oh, it turns out that was a Republican lie sold to you by none other than the US “news” outlets (see above). In fact, it was Republicans who used their power in the IRS and the House to manufacture a false narrative and provide false testimony to Congress in hopes of implicating Obama and Hillary Clinton. In other words, Republicans used their power to exact revenge on their enemies’ list.

The idea that the U.S. press is less critical of Republicans isn’t new. Being negative toward Bush was sort of impossible to escape in the reality based world, but did they tell the truth? If one side is so off that Constitutional scholars accused Bush of operating like a dictator (and they did), to be negative isn’t necessarily to be truthful. Instead, the press ran with the administration’s big lies, like their WMD lies, with the same fever and naivete that they now follow Republicans’ fake scandals about Obama.

The press give Romney three times more positive press during the campaign than the President. The U.S. press isn’t liberal, and facts do have a liberal bias these days. Follow the thought — the press isn’t always factual. They are trying to sell something, not trying to inform you. Gone are the days when TV news was the loss leader and could afford to inform you.

Today, our corporate for profit news must cater to the deregulators and that party is Republican. They are also always a few years behind reality, just like Hollywood, always chasing the last popular thing instead of looking forward. Fear and profit motives will do that. Republicans used to be the real Americans, but that trend died when George W. Bush sold WMD.

The press is supposed to be a watchdog, so it’s great that they are critical of Obama. It would be more helpful if they could manage to be critical over real things instead of chasing every Republican lie that comes from headquarters. It would be even better if they could find a modicum of that bravado when a Republican is in office, or even of the Republicans in Congress. It is not surprising that the U.S. press was less critical of Bush and more critical of Obama than were Arab and European outlets.

It’s painful to pay attention because things really are much worse than they appear on the surface. Meanwhile, the misinformed and barely-informed live in a happy bubble where both sides are the same and President Obama’s biggest error was his response to Katrina.

Thanks for nothing, Obama.

There is no liberal media. The U.S. media caters to Republicans, even misleading you on purpose in order to sell Republican lies with impunity.

“News” at 11.

Methodology and scope: The study examined over 200,000 statements on thirteen flagship TV news programs in England, Germany, the Middle East, and the United States (listed below) concerning the Bush and Obama administrations from January 2005 through June 2010. The outlets studied were: England – BBC1 10 O’clock News, BBC2 Newsnight; Germany – ARD Tagesthemen, ZDF heute journal; Middle East – Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiyah; Nile News, LBC, and Al-Manar; USA – ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news shows, Fox News Special Report.

According to CMPA, an outlet’s coverage was defined as mainly positive or favorable if positive statements about the Obama or Bush administration outnumbered negative statements. An outlet’s coverage was defined as mainly negative or unfavorable if negative statements outnumbered positive statements.

Media Goes Silent as Gas Prices Fall After Obama Crack Down On Oil Speculation

By: Jason Easley/Politicususa

The media and the Republicans were happy to blame President Obama for the high price of gasoline in March, but they are giving Obama none of the credit for the drop in gas prices today.

It seems like only yesterday that the GOP and their corporate media lackeys were telling us that gas prices would ruin Obama, but they have gone silent as gas prices have fallen since Obama announced his administration’s crackdown on oil speculation.

As recently as last month, Mitt Romney was still blaming President Obama for the price of gas, “He gets full credit or blame for what’s happened to this economy and what’s happened to gasoline prices under his watch and what’s happened to our schools and what’s happened to our military forces — all these things are his responsibility while he’s president.”

Speaker of the House John Boehner went as far as to claim that gas prices could cost Obama the election, “But if the economy doesn’t get better, I don’t think he’ll win. If people don’t feel better about government-run health care, I don’t think he’ll win. And if gas prices are $5 or $6, he certainly isn’t going to win.”

The media was happy to give the Republicans a free forum and plenty of airtime to use to blame Obama for gas prices, but on April 17 Obama called for a crackdown on oil speculation, “We can’t afford a situation where speculators artificially manipulate markets by buying up oil, creating the perception of a shortage, and driving prices higher, only to flip the oil for a quick profit. We can’t afford the situation where some speculators can reap millions (of dollars in profits), while millions of American families get the short end of the stick. That’s not the way the market should work.”

Since Obama announced his crackdown on oil speculation, gas prices have fallen twelve cents a gallon. The media response to this news has been total silence. (I guess if Republicans don’t have anything to say then there is nothing for the corporate media to report).

There are a couple of other factors at play that have also driven the price of gas down. Speculators had been running wild in February and March. They were betting that war with Iran was on horizon. When Israel or the international community did not take any military action against Iran, prices decreased. The other shoe to drop was that savvy U.S. drivers quickly decreased their consumption. When prices got too high, people started driving less. People have more fuel efficient vehicles that need less fuel. The hybrid has replaced the gas guzzling SUV as America’s car of choice. Better technology has made it easier for consumers to fight back against price gouging and speculation.

It is impossible to say whether President Obama’s announcement of a crackdown on speculators lowered gas prices on its own, or whether it was the president’s announcement and a combination of other factors, but if Obama was to blame for price increase, using the same logic, he also deserves credit for the price decrease.

Republicans try to blame President Obama for everything every day, but the media happily and unquestioningly acts a megaphone for the right’s talking points. The media amplified Republican blame of Obama for gas prices, but they have never given Obama credit since gas prices have fallen.

The media’s ability to skip the good along with their enthusiasm for reporting the bad when it comes to this president is one of the reasons why conservative media bias is so obvious to many Americans. There is a reason why Pew has consistently found that President Obama gets the most negative media coverage of any 2012 candidate.

Time and time again during the Obama presidency, we have seen the media behave in ways that debunk the liberal bias myth. Conservatives continue to tout their liberal bias cover story, all the while keeping the American people in the dark about who controls their media, and whose bias they really represent.

VIDEO: Corporate Media Shows Its Disdain for The 99 Percent Movement

By Jeff Spross/Think Progress

The 99 Percent Movement’s protests in Manhattan have entered their third week. As the movement continues to build momentum, sympathetic coverage has begun to come in fromjournalists, politicians, and even Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. It’s been a while in getting to this point, however. Initial coverage of the protests often featured good-natured disdain at best, and outright mockery and contempt at worst.

While the core of the problem has been, unsurprisingly, Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network, other major outlets such as CNBC and CNN often took the same approach as well. Just this Monday, CNN anchor Erin Burnett presented a noticeably obtuse and disrespectful piece on the protesters. And the reliably colorful Rush Limbaugh called the movement “tools” of the establishment and a “parade of human debris.” This attitude has extended throughout the mainstream corporate media. ThinkProgress has produced the evidence. Watch it:

On a related note, a Rasmussen poll was just released taking stock of Americans’ general attitude towards the Occupy Wall Street protests: 33 percent have a favorable opinion, 27 percent hold an unfavorable opinion, and 40 percent have no opinion.