The big media votes

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen
• Videos

By

The Big Media -- by which I mean the three major broadcast networks and the "most influential" newspapers (i.e. the New York Times and The Washington Post) -- have been "voting" for the next president for much of the last two years. In their news pages and on their news broadcasts, the Big Media have backed any Democrat over President Bush, and now the long-awaited mystery of which candidate they would officially endorse is over.

May I have the envelope, please?

The winner of the editorial endorsement of both the New York Times and The Washington Post is: John Kerry. What, you're not surprised?

Reading like a script from Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," The New York Times claimed in its Oct. 17 endorsement of Mr. Kerry that the Massachusetts senator is "a man with a strong moral core."

For a newspaper that recognizes no morality except that which it writes for itself, the Times might have disclosed its "moral code" and the basis on which it can be deciphered. It certainly isn't rooted in anything related to what has traditionally been known as morality, for the Times consistently backs ideas, behavior and opinions that would have scandalized the once immutable moral code that comes from an Authority higher than its editorial boardroom.

Regardless of who wins Tuesday's election (and no matter how long it takes to get the results following expected lawsuits and challenges to ballots cast by ineligible voters), this may well be the last election cycle in which the Big Media are taken seriously or regarded as influential.

The Big Media (let's abbreviate and call them BM) have gone over the top with this election. They have ripped off their final layer of faux objectivity, revealing their ideological nakedness for all to see in a desperate effort to get John Kerry elected.

No good news from the Bush administration is treated kindly by the BM. Is employment up? They're not the "right kind" of jobs. Is most of Iraq being pacified, and do many Iraqis speak well of the United States for ridding them of Saddam Hussein? It doesn't matter, because pockets of Iraq are unstable and Iraqis can be found who don't like the "occupation." Any moral convictions held by anyone in this administration are dismissed as right-wing fundamentalism by the BM as if the only convictions that matter are their own.

CBS News, which has a credibility gap wider than the Grand Canyon after it stood behind fake documents pertaining to Mr. Bush's National Guard service, broadcast a report Friday night by Anthony Mason questioning whether most Americans are better off financially than they were four years ago. Mr. Mason claimed that while, on average, Americans are making more money than they were in 2000, they are "in fact, worse off." Mr. Mason's proof: "Median household income ... is now $41,550, $30 lower than it was four years ago."

So, while Americans have more money than they did four years ago, median household income is down $30, proving to the BM that Mr. Bush's economic policies are a failure?