This should be upsetting to any American, democrat or republican. The news should be reporting news! It should not be reporting opinionated, pro or anti anyone headlines. Regardless, the most powerful, unchecked and unbalanced power in the land is at it again, publishing whatever it can to sway the electorates' minds into voting for Obama. The claim "the news media leans left" is an understatement. It should be "the news media IS left." If I spent all my time collecting and writing about how the media does this, I would have no life. To give some examples of this, however, I will simply share what I saw in a span of 10 minutes of news browsing this morning. Clicking on each of the following images will lead to the respective article. I will include a brief summary of each:
1. CBS News - I will start with a lower-level anti-Romney piece. The above headline appeared on CBS.com's front page and seems innocent, but it's not. It's "Romney is a big, bad rich guy" undertones are apparent with:
- "Of course, home state is a slippery concept: Romney was born and spent his childhood in Michigan and owns homes in New Hampshire and California. He also has strong ties to Utah."
Read the article further. You will notice a very anti-Romney tone throughout. As I said, this is a "lower-level" article, and it's rhetoric isn't as strong, but it's still there, and this is just the beginning.
2. MSNBC - This front page headline should surprise no one since it was on MSNBC. Mission Impossible in the same sentence as Romney? Come on. Granted, the text of the article itself does fairly point out that Obama has had plenty of failed campaign promises, but it's about the notion and the headline. As I have stated many times, the media does this frequently. It's called rhetoric, but I prefer to call it "headlining," and I have to give credit to writer 32slim32 for calling this out at the beginning of the year: http://loudmouthelephant.blogspot.com/2012/01/readers-post-3-headlining-how.html. In short, if someone is constantly bombarded with negative headlines about any subject, even without reading the articles themselves, their opinions will begin to be swayed due to the negative nature of the headline. Pay attention, and you will notice this. MSNBC is a frequent publisher of anti-Romney headlines.
3. CNN - This is from a news network that seems to have gone the way of MSNBC very rapidly. This anti-Romney headline was on their front page and lead to their "Ticker" blog. Yes, a BLOG. I doubt the regular news reader distinguish between a blog and the news, and I wouldn't doubt that CNN does this on purpose. Of course, anti-GOP and anti-Romney rhetoric is smeared throughout this blog, and this piece is no different. The Ticker's writers jump at the chance to publish something negative against Romney and this simple post about Rupert Murdoch's tweet is no different. It's really not news at all, but leave it to The Ticket to make a big deal about it. Just like the last one, pay attention and you will notice that CNN is doing this more and more.
4. Yahoo! (rehashed from ABC) - "Taking toll on Romney." That's all you need to hear. If you're an independent, undecided voter, and every day when you get to work you check the news and see negative headline after negative headline, you're more than likely going to be swayed. The negative Romney headlined article starts with a very pro-Obama line:
- "President Obama's unhappy June came to a happy close - and he had more than the Supreme Court to thank for that."
"Taking a toll on Romney" and "President Obama's... June came to a happy close." Hmmm...
5. ABC News - This article is actually the same article as the previous Yahoo! one, but the overall job by ABC News is my favorite of these five examples. The headlines/picture do three things. First, it displays a wonderfully nice picture of Obama next to a not-so-pleasing image of Romney (positive and negative imagery affect people profoundly). It's a good picture of Obama, I'm not going to lie. He is smiling cheerfully in front of an American flag. The case isn't the same for Romney. He doesn't look happy. He looks worried, and he's in front of a blueish-gray background as if he was Voldemort. If you think this is unintentional, it's my opinion that you'd be sadly mistaken. Secondly (and probably thirdly), the headline, of course, uses some pretty strong positive/negative word correlations in TWO separate headlines: "Obama HITS Romney in the states that matter," and "Obama uses Romney's strength against him (Romney)." Do you think this is an accident? Come on.
Keep in mind, I saw these five articles in 10 minutes of news browsing. Ten minutes! That's it. The mainstream media, Obama's most powerful surrogate, is starting to lay it on thick. They're not even hiding it any more. In ten hours, or a week, imagine how many of these I/you/we will see!
This made me think an additional thought: It must be easy to be a democrat. All you have to do is go with whatever you're told. Forget researching the truth behind Obama's claims against Romney, just swallow the regurgitated "truths" the mainstream news headlines about these cases. Don't worry about economically fact checking the claim that the "rich don't pay their fair share," just listen to MSNBC or ABC News and they will tell you repeatedly that they don't. And yes, this is targeted to all the Facebook posters and Twitter ranters that repeat left-leaning propaganda without realizing it's false. So for all those pro-Obama types (and yes, America's youth, who think they know everything, I'm talking to YOU) that are out there who feel they have the "facts" behind Obama's points, you should research the truth for yourself. It doesn't have to be an enlightening thing, but you should be award of the truth and how the mainstream media tends to distort it. If you understand the misdirection and the lies of the Obama campaign and you still spread the garbage, just remember: no matter how often you repeat liberal lies, they don't become true.
What do you think? If you have noticed this proliferation of pro-Obama and anti-Romney headlines, publish them below. If it's the opposite case, be sure the share those, too. This post will eventually contain a collection of these going forward.
Do you think the democrats will snap out of it? Do you think we can save America's youth? Or are they locked in as they cloud over their eyes and walk around like easily coaxed zombies following Obama without knowing a thing about him or democrats lies (let alone policies), simply because he is cool, hip and black? I doubt it, but keep up the good fight, LME!
ReplyDeleteTo quote one of your boys: You lie!
ReplyDeleteWhere? Point to one.
DeleteMove along, troll.
You lie!
DeleteHi again LME!
ReplyDeleteI think what you're pointing out here is part of a much bigger picture, in that news sells on sensationalism. Particularly lately, as news media has become more about attention-grabbing headlines and taking the smallest news to the most excessive levels of hyperbole.
Simply: News isn't news anymore; it's entertainment.
And that's because entertainment sells; plain old news of the past doesn't. It's all about attracting clicks, views, and subscribers... because that's how you make the money. And we’d all be kidding ourselves to believe that these massive media networks care more about honest, unbiased news than their bottom-line (and ultimately, their jobs). Problem being of course that most people don’t seem to realize this.
This applies for everything though; from the flavor of the month crime/case (Casey Anthony, Zimmerman), to technology articles (Apple and CNN), to science, to religion. If you scroll into any section of those sections of a given major news outlet, the sensationalism continues; it’s not unique in any way to politics.
This isn’t to of course say any of it is excusable or justified, but it’s just the unfortunate fact of the matter. The biggest problem of this being though, of course, that people still look at news as if it’s actual fact-based and not entertainment-based.
Unfortunately I doubt this will change anytime soon either, at least not on its own.
But, as far as whether the sensationalism has been favoring Obama or Mitt more, I don’t disagree with your assessment here. Though, I think you can find compelling evidence for both cases, depending on a large variety of factors (which news outlet you check, at what time, after what news, and what you look for).
WHAT?! This is how you write this off??? Sensationalism? How could you be so obtuse? Unless you think this article was a lie (it's not I saw this too), it points out these examples in 5 minutes. Are there any pro-Romney things out there? No. DOn't even try to say "both sides do it." This shows the biggest slate of online news centers. All that is missing is Fox News, so there, the score is 5-1. If you are seriously trying to say that this isn't the lean of the media, and is somehow just "sensationalism" you are just wrong. If the media didn't have an agenda, people like Andrea Mitchell wouldn't be twisting truth to make Romney look bad. There wouldn't be countless examplkes like the ones pointed out here. The score is definitely not even. What more do you need?
DeleteJoe, I think you misunderstand my sentiments. I repat, I’m not ‘writing anything off’ or making excuses for/attempting to justify it; I’m merely pointing out what at very least is part of the major motivation behind what we’re seeing.
DeleteI mean, do you honestly believe that revenues/profits aren’t a major motivation of these massive media networks? Which is directly, 100% tied to the viewership they attract; and the fact of the matter is that the attention-grabbing headlines and stories (aka, sensationalistic) get the most hits.
You might’ve jumped to conclusions a bit before getting through my whole post, but I even said I don’t disagree with what LME said here. I only made the follow-up point that if you really wanted to and looked hard enough, you could find compelling evidence for any side of this issue. Which I believe is a more than fair point to make.
And I honestly don’t believe you could prove to me that I couldn’t find that evidence.
Hi LME -
ReplyDeleteI'm 'a bit' older than most of you here... I came into this world when radio was king, t.v. was 'just a fad' (heck, even BEFORE transistor radios!!)
Back in 'my day' we had local news for an hour in the morning and national evening news for another hour. We had three channels to choose from ABC NBC (and later CBS). We also had two local newspapers (two liberal rags, now joined into one LasVegasSun!) - in the southern part of a state that KEEPS re-electing (Dirty) Harry Reid.
And - the biggie - we had NO internet.
I was not much more than a baby, and my family were died-in-the-wool dems/libs. All that said, I have to say looking back, that the liberal bias of the 'big 3' is really nothing new. They, along with the 'Hollyweird types' have always tended to lean left.
With the invention of the internet (AlGore?...lol) and the development of technology that allows for instantaneous 'news' reports, I believe the MSM has discovered that they no longer have a captive, sleeping, easily led audience, all to themselves.
They are now forced to expound on their 'spin' of the stories, and ramp up the rhetoric - in an attempt to remain relevant.
Fortunately, for us (conservatives) that same internet gives us access to unlimited resources by which we can 'unspin' their half-truths - and totally debunk their outright lies.
In the case of the MSM, they seem to buy into the old 'squeaky wheel gets the grease' analogy. The more heinous they make something SOUND in their reports, the less likely their die-hard viewers are to check it out - to see if it's factual.
The fact that they're LOSING viewership - in droves - leads me to believe that more and more people just might be getting wise to their tricks!
We can hope : )
Chalk this up to "The Elephant was Right": http://news.yahoo.com/chris-christie-weight-were-easy-id-already-fixed-100118802--abc-news-politics.html
ReplyDeleteTHIS is news? THIS?! The sickening nature of the liberal mainstream media is ridiculous. You were right, LME. Keep up the good fight in calling this out.
More conservative bashing any chance the liberal media gets: http://news.yahoo.com/conservative-wonderboy-grows-embraces-obamacare-philosophy-161334969.html just look at the headline.
ReplyDelete