Media bias comes out of the closet

There was a time in America when the Media's Leftist bias was subtle. It would show only in the way stories were reported, but it didn't stop the news from flowing. If there was a Democratic Party scandal, it still got reported, even if it was given short shrift. 

Then Fox News came along with their "fair and balanced" take on the news, which was really just reversing the bias in the opposite direction. Think of Fox News as the affirmative action program for Republican-biased news.

Now, journalists openly advocate, even as the Media has become split into Democratic and Republican echo chambers. Now, everyone can get their news with spin which doesn't offend their world views.

The New York Post's Michael Goodwin brought up this issue in his editorial, "American journalism is collapsing before our eyes":

Donald Trump may or may not fix his campaign, and Hillary Clinton may or may not become the first female president. But something else happening before our eyes is almost as important: the complete collapse of American journalism as we know it. 

The frenzy to bury Trump is not limited to the Clinton campaign and the Obama White House. They are working hand-in-hand with what was considered the cream of the nation’s news organizations. 

The shameful display of naked partisanship by the elite media is unlike anything seen in modern America. 

The largest broadcast networks — CBS, NBC and ABC — and major newspapers like The New York Times and Washington Post have jettisoned all pretense of fair play. Their fierce determination to keep Trump out of the Oval Office has no precedent. 

Goodwin is right, even though he is only looking at it from one side.

The problem comes when stories get overlooked on one side while the other side is propping them up. Consider this editorial from The Hill's Joe Concha, about the recent Louisiana floods:

2005: President George W. Bush's presidency is basically declared over after he waits two days to cut a vacation short to return to the White House to directly engage in relief strategy around hurricane-ravaged Katrina.  On Day 3, he would visit the Gulf Coast to survey the damage. 

The headlines at the time and since have included, A compassionate Bush was absent right after Katrina, The 7 worst moments of George W. Bush’s presidency, Kanye West Rips Bush at Telethon, What If They Were White?, Jesse Jackson lashes out at Bush over Katrina response, Katrina thrusts race and poverty onto national stage: Bush and Congress under pressure to actand An Imperfect Storm - How race shaped Bush's response to Katrina. 

So it's clear how the narrative went from "Bush waited three days to visit the Gulf Coast" to "Bush is a racist who would have acted faster if white people were victims of Katrina."

You will notice even Fox News got into the Bush bashing frenzy. And now:

Fast forward to August 2016 — several storms hit Louisiana, not just a hurricane — the floodwaters have created the biggest natural disaster to hit the United States since Hurricane Katrina. 

...A very simple question, if George W. Bush was president right now and playing golf with celebrities in one of the richest zip codes in the country, would the headlines again be everywhere that portray him as insensitive, out-of-touch, even a racist president be the same now as they were 2005? Of course they would. 

Instead, President Obama continues his vacation that includes fundraising events for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and the relative silence is deafening.

Obama did not even cut his vacation one day short. Heck, he isn't even going to Louisiana until Tuesday.

Mind you, this is not an indictment of President Obama. In my opinion, this should be a matter for the state of Louisiana and not the federal government (although I am sure there will be federal disaster relief heading in Louisiana's direction). The truth is the Media's Bush-bashing was overdone, and it was only because he was Republican. If Al Gore or John Kerry had been president, the Media would have been silent.

On a personal note, this is why my "Today's news" posts try to include news from multiple sources, both Right and Left. The days of objective news reporting are gone, and it is left to "We the Readers" to mine the biased news stories for what is "truth". Hence the name of my blog.