ACHTUNG: This is not a “fair and balanced” article. It is an editorial by the editor.
“I’m looking over a four-leaf clover, I overlooked before
One leaf is sunshine, the second is rain,
Third is the roses that grow in the lane “— Mort Dixon, 1927
Many people likely saw that awful assault Thursday night by Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett on Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph, but there was something overlooked in this televised melee.
The victim was indeed doing something awful before he got hit, he was acting like a jerk and taunting the opponent. But, of course, that does not excuse Garrett’s assault. With his suspension, he got what he deserved.
It’s just that too often in the public arena we have a media that overlooks things and doesn’t let us in on “the rest of the story.” We may not, at times, get the complete picture that helps us develop proper perspective.
Another good recent example has been all the ballyhoo over President Donald Trump’s perceived threat of withholding weaponry from Urkraine unless it very publicly announces an instigation of Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. I don’t think there’s any question Trump committed an impeachable offense here, but lost in the ozone is the culpability of Hunter Biden.
The former vice president’s son very clearly used the fame of his father’s name to get a cushy ($50,000 a month) job sitting on the board of an energy company in Ukraine. What he and his dad did was not illegal, but it certainly is unethical and calls into question the character of both men. Yet the media rarely discusses it and Republicans make the huge mistake of equating it with Trump’s more serious behavior.
Once again, what the Bidens did was unethical, but not illegal.
The media is imperfect, as the GOP likes to maintain. And in this case, it didn’t tell “the rest of the story.”
Earlier this week Rachel Maddow on MSNBC introduced the 1973 NBC-TV opening coverage of the Watergate hearings with striking and ominous music. She didn’t elaborate. She should have because it was the fourth movement of Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, titled “March to the Scaffold,” in which the hero is taken to his beheading for killing his lover.
Somebody could have argued that the music was a bit heavy-handed, but prophetic in suggesting the demise of Richard Nixon.
Another example came with CNN’s reportage of a recent poll on the New Hampshire primary. Bernie Sanders was clearly in the lead, but their headlines were about the tie for second between Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden. Even worse, there was a headline crowing that Pete Buttigieg was fourth in the poll, but “a very strong fourth.”
One of the most puzzling examples of sweeping aside what might be important information occurred in 2004 when CBS newsman Dan Rather lost his job, along with a producer, because a secretary insisted a document about George W. Bush avoiding Vietnam service wasn’t original or authentic, however, she said was accurate.
That last part was overlooked. Rather lost his job and Bush won re-election.
It is difficult for a career community journalist to determine whether these examples of overlooking information were deliberate or just understandable mistakes. But I can’t get over the notion brought up more than a decade ago by comedian George Carlin:
“The game is rigged… but nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care.”
COVER PHOTO: An artist’s rendition of Hector Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique” for an album cover.
As a father, I sympathize with Joe Biden whose son traded on his father’s reputation to get a cushy job. Joe Biden’s long time reputation as being a blunt straight shooter should not be sullied by behavior of his grown offspring, unless he actively supported unethical acts. We will not likely discover if there was any negative result to the USA until long after the next election.
Thanks for posting this David. Though I believe you are still missing some critical facts on the topics you cite, you are spot on to be troubled that what ought to be fair and responsible proclamations of truth by the media are either completely or largely absent and/or speculation substitute and are represented as facts, and facts are manipulated to distort them and the reality. Some may think that half-truth is at least better than no truth at all, but for many if not most they may never know which half they received and which half they missed. Half-truth is not the truth. It is a distortion of the truth and is thus anti-truth. As one who on more than one occasion has personally lived with outright media lies, major errors, along with the manipulation and denial of facts to accommodate an established political and/or philosophical agenda, and now daily seeing it constantly displayed by media on virtually every topic and story, I wouldn’t trust most media outlets in the least to be fair, truthful, balanced, honest, honorable, thorough, objective or professional. According to a September Gallup poll only 13% trust the media “a great deal,” and 28% “a fair amount”, with 69% of Democrats, 15% of Republicans, 36% of independents trusting media (see https://news.gallup.com/poll/267047/americans-trust-mass-media-edges-down.aspx). It’s a saving grace that we have the internet and other media and data available to sort out the truth from the trash as best we can. Even then there is no assurance we are actually encountering the truth on so many subjects. It takes time, effort, diligence, skepticism and objectivity to hope to find and embrace the truth and be confident it is the actual honest stand-up truth about anything.
You watch two different news shows about the same topic and they are 100% different . The news is financed by advertisement so they tell you what you want to hear to gain viewers. We all need to shut it off till they clean it up.Changing one word in an interview can change the whole point trying to be expressed . Use common sense when watching the news. Only for your own sanity.
I know that I tend to harp on this valuable resource by which to judge our news sources, but, once again, I would encourage readers to consult the Media Bias Chart 5.0 and its interactive companion for guidance in their news consumption.
This resource is the product of nonpartisan research by qualified experts into the validity, reliability, and biases of a broad range of news sources and quasi-news sources.
Ratings are reviewed and re-evaluated on an ongoing basis so as to stay current with any changes that may take place in editorial philosophy or ownership.
NPR (National Public Radio) and PBS (Public Broadcasting) continue to lead the charge in accurate, nonbiased reportage. Though they are often lampooned as being bland and boring, that may be the nature of accurate reporting.
Advertising supported news reporting does, indeed, subscribe to the adage “if it bleeds, it leads.” And shorter segments pander to the short attention spans of news consumers.
If seeking the “boring” reportage of news from its most reliable sources isn’t your thing, you can at the very least check your facts at reliable sources like snopes.com and PolitiFact.