Chipping Away at Bias

By Sara Pentz

As John Adams said more than two centuries ago:

"Facts are stubborn things, and whatever may be our wishes,

our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions,

they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

Faint in the background I hear the chip-chip-chip of a tiny pickaxe as it begins to expose the bias in the media. It is a fragile sound, but nevertheless it is there in response to the increasingly open criticism of the media from all sides of the spectrum. Taken collectively there is evidence to indicate that the end result may open a crevice into which those who do not report with objectivity and integrity will fall—unless they find it absolutely necessary to listen to the whittlers in the forest.

There are reasons to hope for a more fair and responsible media. For one, the expansion of Internet sites devoted to demonstrating biases has taken the lead. Sites like Townhall.com and Spinsanity.org (“Countering Rhetoric with Reason”) cut to the chase analyzing biases. For another, some book publishers looking at the bottom line have finally discovered that books critical of media bias actually sell.

Former CBS correspondent Bernard Goldberg’s books “Bias” and his newest one “Arrogance” have exposed bias on a first person basis making Goldberg a highly reliable source. When Goldberg revealed that, “…his network—and all the others—were liberal,” it came as a shock to his colleagues. He wrote, “…the liberal press had been talking to themselves for so long, they all believed that every other sane person shared their views, and that Republicans, the NRA and pro-lifers were all wackos.” The response from Liberals was to flail him over a hot stake. His books have sold very well.

There are other small fissures exposing media bias which, when taken as an overview, seem to reflect the general appearance of an anti-bias uprising. At NBC, Today Anchor Katy Couric is said to be losing popularity with viewers and The Today Show is losing ratings. For example, sounding like a good Liberal, she claimed that the capture of Saddam Hussein was only symbolic. Not that Couric is the only one who colors her reports and interviews. Maybe that’s why the public is voting with a remote control.

Meanwhile, across the pond, the BBC is in trouble. Recently, an independent inquiry looked at the BBC’s report about supposedly “sexed up” information regarding weapons of mass destruction in order to sway the British public against the Iraq war. The inquiry found all allegations entirely unfounded, vindicating the government—but not before the tragic suicide of the reporter’s source. The report precipitated the resignation of the BBC chairman, the director-general and the reporter responsible for the debacle. Later it was reported that the British government was considering a plan to break up the BBC and remove its independent status.

Early this year ABC News made an amazing confession of sorts about its own bias. On its own website the Network published “A Note” written by the political unit:

* Like every other institution, the Washington and political press corps operate with a good number of biases and predilections.

* They include, but are not limited to, a near-universal shared sense that liberal political positions on social issues like gun control, homosexuality, abortion, and religion are the default, while more conservative positions are ‘conservative positions.’

* They include a belief that government is a mechanism to solve the nation's problems; that more taxes on corporations and the wealthy are good ways to cut the deficit and raise money for social spending and don't have a negative affect on economic growth; and that emotional examples of suffering (provided by unions or consumer groups) are good ways to illustrate economic statistic stories. ...

* It still has a hard time understanding how, despite the drumbeat of conservative grass-top complaints about overspending and deficits, President Bush's base remains extremely and loyally devoted to him – and it looks for every opportunity to find cracks in that base.

The fact that ABC posted this information on its own website for all to read deepens the chipping by a considerable margin. But then along comes The New York Times with a brilliant new idea. The solution to a Liberal bias, they determined in a formal announcement, was to examine “…conservative forces in religion, politics, law, business and the media...” by giving a new Conservative beat to a former media correspondent. Here now would be reports from one man about all the conservative views on Earth while the rest of the staff would continue to write from their own Liberal viewpoint. It was typical Times politics to pretend that this was the answer to bias, but—still—it was an admissions of sorts.

The top people at The Times, and others, surely have not changed their politics or philosophy—or even acknowledged their bias. But The Times, even in this convoluted manner—by implication—has admitted that it is publishing slanted material. That act alone might convince us that the faint chipping away we hear might one day lead to the non-objective stalwarts in the forest falling one-by-one upon their swords—ending the monopoly of media bias. Just maybe!

Sara Pentz is a professional journalist living in Corona del Mar, California. She has been a TV reporter/anchor and has written for local, regional and national magazines and newspapers.

This article was published in April 2004.

Don Hewitt's Biased Spector Haunts Us By Lowell Ponte Don Hewitt, who created the popular CBS news show “60 Minutes” and controlled it for 36 years, died Wednesday at age 86. It is customary in our culture to speak no ill of the dead, but as William Shakespeare wrote: “The evil that men do lives after them.” The specter of Don Hewitt continues to haunt both the network news he shaped and American politics. Whatever part of Hewitt's soul was an honest journalist would want us to report his shortcomings and his liberal legacy truthfully. Hewitt boasted that he elected two presidents. The reporters and executives he put in charge of “60 Minutes” prior to his retirement in 2004 went on to help elect a third, President Barack Obama. After serving as director for ultra-liberal CBS newslord Edward R. Murrow, Hewitt became producer-director of America's first televised presidential debate, which happened in 1960 between Republican Vice President Richard Nixon and Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy. Nixon won the debate handily, according to those listening on radio. Kennedy won among those who watched the slanted images Hewitt contrived to put on national television. In his book "Presidential Debates: Fifty Years of High-Risk TV," Northeastern University Journalism Professor Alan Schroeder described how Kennedy and Nixon together had refused makeup, but before the debate began, “unknown to Nixon, Kennedy got a touch-up [i.e., makeup] from his own people.” Nixon, years later, recounted how he and his staff were misled about the debate stage lighting, the color of its background (lightened by repainting on debate day), and hence the color of suit, shirt, and necktie he should wear. On that set, wrote media historian Erik Barnouw, Nixon appeared “haggard; the lines on his face seemed like gashes and gave a fearful look.” Kennedy's makeup and clothing somehow were perfectly coordinated to make him look like a star on Hewitt's suddenly-changed stage set. Hewitt’s camera shots during the debate outraged a Nixon aide in the control room. Whenever Kennedy spoke, the camera tended to stay on him. When Nixon spoke, the cameras often cut away to show Kennedy’s reaction, distracting viewers from what the Republican was saying. Hewitt gave Kennedy 39 percent more time in such reaction shots than he gave to Nixon’s reactions while Kennedy spoke, and this made Kennedy appear to dominate the debate. In 1992, Hewitt helped another Democratic presidential candidate win. Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton was sinking when Hewitt offered him and his wife Hillary an interview to air moments after that year’s Super Bowl on CBS, the primest of prime airtime worth more than a million dollars per minute. Then-Clinton hatchet man George Stephanopoulos, who now anchors ABC’s Sunday show “This Week,” recounted in his memoir "All Too Human: A Political Education” what he witnessed at this “60 Minutes” videotaping: “Don Hewitt. . . told the Clintons how he’d made John Kennedy president by producing the debates in 1960 and said he could do the same for them.” In this interview, America heard suburban Chicago-raised Hillary in a fake Southern accent speak loyally at her husband’s side. This Oscar-worthy performance enabled Clinton to eke out a second-place finish days later in New Hampshire, proclaim himself "the comeback kid," and go on to win the White House. What Americans were not told was that the Clintons knew in advance the questions they would be asked. Hewitt had also promised the Clintons that if they disliked the way a "take" was going, they, like prima donna Hollywood stars, could halt the videotaping and do a new take — or three, four, whatever the Clintons needed to sound and appear the way they wanted to. Don Hewitt gave the Clintons their own free $20 million TV commercial. CBS dishonestly broadcast this Clinton infomercial to the nation disguised as an honest news interview. And in the 2008 elections the “60 Minutes” that Hewitt shaped and staffed was up to its old dirty tricks, pretending to be even-handed while smearing Republican moderate candidate John McCain and promoting the Chicago’s Democratic machine’s far-left candidate Barack Obama. In CBS’s softball Obama interview by Steve Kroft — the same lapdog reporter Hewitt had used in the 1992 Clinton infomercial — Obama was repeatedly pictured before adoring, cheering crowds. CBS even showed him embracing an African-American woman who “wanted to tell Obama that she had just lost her husband of 70 years, and that he tried to live long enough to vote for him.” Whenever Obama spoke, Kroft let him orate almost uninterrupted. After merely mentioning that Obama had “never run anything,” Kroft left unchallenged Obama’s dishonest retort that “if the question is executive experience, then Senator McCain and I are on equal footing.” In fact, McCain commanded the largest fighter squadron in the U.S. Navy, but viewers would never know this from CBS. By contrast, the McCain interview was conducted by attack dog Scott Pelley, notorious for his one-sided alarmist global warming reporting. When asked why he unethically refused to interview anyone with contrary views, Pelley snidely dismissed warming skeptics as “Holocaust deniers.” More than 22,000 scientists, including MIT’s chief atmospheric scientist, have signed a petition expressing skepticism about Al Gore-like, Pelley-like climate alarmism. CBS showed McCain not with friendly crowds like Obama, but alone facing a bright Hanoi Hilton-like interrogation light that made him appear white and pasty, and made him blink or look away. Pelley repeatedly interrupted McCain’s answers with accusatory statements. “Can you see [your running mate Sarah Palin] as president of the United States?” he demanded repeatedly in a haughty, incredulous tone. Palin was governor of America’s largest state and commander in chief of Alaska’s National Guard, with 80 percent popularity among voters who know her. Why didn’t Kroft similarly press his question about Obama’s utter lack of executive experience? The specter of Don Hewitt will haunt America for a long, long time. Lowell Ponte is co-host of the radio show “Night-Watch,” heard live nationwide Monday through Friday, 10 p.m. to midnight Eastern time, on gcnlive.com. © 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Sara Palin: The 'Cap And Tax' Dead End

By Sarah Palin
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Washington Post


There is no shortage of threats to our economy. America's unemployment rate recently hit its highest mark in more than 25 years and is expected to continue climbing. Worries are widespread that even when the economy finally rebounds, the recovery won't bring jobs. Our nation's debt is unsustainable, and the federal government's reach into the private sector is unprecedented.

Unfortunately, many in the national media would rather focus on the personality-driven political gossip of the day than on the gravity of these challenges. So, at risk of disappointing the chattering class, let me make clear what is foremost on my mind and where my focus will be:

I am deeply concerned about President Obama's cap-and-trade energy plan, and I believe it is an enormous threat to our economy. It would undermine our recovery over the short term and would inflict permanent damage.

American prosperity has always been driven by the steady supply of abundant, affordable energy. Particularly in Alaska, we understand the inherent link between energy and prosperity, energy and opportunity, and energy and security. Consequently, many of us in this huge, energy-rich state recognize that the president's cap-and-trade energy tax would adversely affect every aspect of the U.S. economy.

There is no denying that as the world becomes more industrialized, we need to reform our energy policy and become less dependent on foreign energy sources. But the answer doesn't lie in making energy scarcer and more expensive! Those who understand the issue know we can meet our energy needs and environmental challenges without destroying America's economy.

Job losses are so certain under this new cap-and-tax plan that it includes a provision accommodating newly unemployed workers from the resulting dried-up energy sector, to the tune of $4.2 billion over eight years. So much for creating jobs.

In addition to immediately increasing unemployment in the energy sector, even more American jobs will be threatened by the rising cost of doing business under the cap-and-tax plan. For example, the cost of farming will certainly increase, driving down farm incomes while driving up grocery prices. The costs of manufacturing, warehousing and transportation will also increase.

The ironic beauty in this plan? Soon, even the most ardent liberal will understand supply-side economics.

The Americans hit hardest will be those already struggling to make ends meet. As the president eloquently puts it, their electricity bills will "necessarily skyrocket." So much for not raising taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year.

Even Warren Buffett, an ardent Obama supporter, admitted that under the cap-and-tax scheme, "poor people are going to pay a lot more for electricity."

We must move in a new direction. We are ripe for economic growth and energy independence if we responsibly tap the resources that God created right underfoot on American soil. Just as important, we have more desire and ability to protect the environment than any foreign nation from which we purchase energy today.

In Alaska, we are progressing on the largest private-sector energy project in history. Our 3,000-mile natural gas pipeline will transport hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of our clean natural gas to hungry markets across America. We can safely drill for U.S. oil offshore and in a tiny, 2,000-acre corner of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge if ever given the go-ahead by Washington bureaucrats.

We have an important choice to make. Do we want to control our energy supply and its environmental impact? Or, do we want to outsource it to China, Russia and Saudi Arabia? Make no mistake: President Obama's plan will result in the latter.

For so many reasons, we can't afford to kill responsible domestic energy production or clobber every American consumer with higher prices.

Can America produce more of its own energy through strategic investments that protect the environment, revive our economy and secure our nation?

Yes, we can. Just not with Barack Obama's energy cap-and-tax plan.
The writer, a Republican, is governor of Alaska.

Barry Farber

Honduran Coup Exposes Liberal Hypocrisy

Monday, July 13, 2009 4:34 PM By: Barry Farber Article Font Size

Let me try to make this riddle sufficiently agonizing. It's a straight riddle. No tricks. Liberals have long nourished a dream with an intensity not even social equality and the end of racism and poverty could equal. More "What ifs." More "Why nots." More breasts were bared and beaten and more prayers frisbee'd upward toward Heaven on behalf of this dream than any other. Suddenly, in mid-2009, dramatically and unexpectedly, that dream came true. And, not only did the liberals not like it. They hated it. Question: What was that dream? This is a blazing example of failure to recognize what you've always dreamed about and prayed for. An old joke illustrates. A rabbi in the Pennsylvania flood-lands is dispatching his congregation to safety during the rising of the flood waters. As the last of them are carried to safety he goes to the roof of his synagogue to escape the rampaging waters. A motorboat with rescuers comes along and the crew says, "Jump in, Rabbi. It's getting bad." "No, thanks," replies the rabbi. "God will save me." The waters rise to the rabbi's knees even up there on the roof and another motorboat comes along and a yell issues forth, "Come on, Rabbi. It's still rising." "I choose to remain here," said the rabbi. "God will save me." As the water rose beyond the rabbi's hip yet another motorboat appeared and the rescuers beg the rabbi to hop aboard to safety. "Thank you," he gently replies. "But I'll stay here. God will save me." By the time the water had risen to the rabbi's neck a helicopter took up position directly over his head and a voice through a loudspeaker said, "Rabbi, we're going to lower a rope ladder. Just put your foot in the stirrup and grab hold and we'll lift you up and you'll be okay." "Thank you very much," said the rabbi. "I'm remaining here. God will save me." The waters rose higher still and engulfed the rabbi and he drowned. When he arrived in heaven and faced God he said, "Lord, God of the universe. Forgive my impertinence, but I'm confused. I spent my entire time on earth believing in you and spreading your word among my flock. And at the end I had faith you would save me. Why, dear Lord, did you not save me?" "What do you mean, why didn't I save you?" thundered an irritated God. "I sent three motorboats and a helicopter for you!" Didn't the Bible tell us the big flood started with a cloud "no bigger than a man's hand?" The great liberal dream started materializing in the Central American nation of Honduras, geopolitically no bigger than a "man's hand." The Liberal Dream was always as follows: "Why didn't and why don't the great capable powers move in and stop a leader somewhere between his initial grab of dictatorial powers and his first aggression against neighbors and his first political murders, genocide, or holocaust? Why, oh why, for instance, didn't the civilized nations jump in and stop Adolf Hitler at some point between his burning of the books, torching the Reichstag, officially persecuting Jews and sending German troops into the Rhineland in 1936; a biggie, that one, because that was a blatant violation of the Versailles Treaty that ended World War 1? Better yet, if the outside world isn't going to do anything more than sit there and watch and wait and complain and offer limp protest resolutions, why don't forces inside the country threatened with dictatorship save themselves? I mean, after all, any dictator is just one guy! Ah, big problem. So many dictators are "democratically elected," including Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Liberal DNA paralyzes any move to overthrow a democratically-elected dictator. Or, it did until Honduras! Honduras got it right. The minute a democratically-elected leader shuts down the opposition, dismisses his parliament or, as in the case of Honduras, contravenes a direct order of his supreme court, that leader is no longer kissed by the radiance of democratic election. He becomes a fully-qualified candidate for removal. Please don't waste your life-force trying to convince your liberal friends anything this virtuous is what happened in Honduras. The liberal imagination can no more imagine anything but a strongman-military takeover in Latin America than they can imagine Icelandic wine, Norwegian suntan lotion, or a book entitled "Irish Gourmet Recipes," or "Ten Thousand Years of German Humor." The rest of us can rejoice that when democratically-elected Honduran President Jose Manuel "Mel" Zelaya decided to stage a referendum on whether he could remove the Honduran constitution's limit of a single term for president, his supreme court said no. When the ballots, printed in Venezuela, continued to arrive and Zelaya ordered the army to distribute them, the head of the army refused to obey this illegal order. When Zelaya ordered the military chief arrested, soldiers arrested him instead and, in a refreshing break from Latin American tradition, did not shoot the president dead on the spot, but rather ushered him in his pajamas to a plane and exile in Costa Rica. No shot was fired during this dictatorship-prevention procedure. The man who sits in the president's chair for the time being, Roberto Michelleti, is not a colonel or even a corporal, much less a caudillo. And he belongs to the same party as the ousted Zelaya. Some classic Latin American coup! Meanwhile, certain American news channels are showing footage of the "crowds" of Hondurans who want Zelaya back, ignoring the fact that the anti-Zelaya crowds total many times (some say 10) as large as the pro-Zelaya crowds. Any newsroom chief who knowingly does that should be banned from newsroom-type employment for life. And America — beginning with President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — ought to be ashamed of bringing Zelaya to the United States to "show support." Instead, they should make a donation to the new Honduran president's military — a package consisting, maybe, of three motorboats and a helicopter. © 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.