Straight news

Is it just me, or have the major news outlets simply looked at the demographics and tried to carve out a market for their product, rather than just covering the news in a straightforward way? By any measure, this is not a new phenomenon. Before our nation was conceived, we can see how ideology was the driving factor in the newspaper business. Before the Declaration of Independence had been written, there were loyalist newspapers and pro revolution newspapers. Each paper would print stories 180 degrees apart from the other while covering the same story. As I am always fond of saying, you are entitled to your own opinion; you are not entitled to your own facts.

I am just old enough to remember when almost every local newspaper and local television station received most of their content from news wire services. The Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, they had the reporters on the ground in every major city and when a story broke, the local reporter would write it up and send it over the wire to news outlets who paid for the service. You had to trust the wire story because there was no real way to fact check it in time to make your deadlines.

That is not the case today. With the interconnection of the news, there are multiple sources, multiple reporters, and the almost infinite information that can be researched, and sourced on the internet. Just as the centerpiece document of Dan Rather's report on George W. Bush in the Texas Air National Guard was proved a forgery within hours; it doesn't take much research to find the truth, or at least the other side of the story. Unless you are not looking to find it.

Never has the mainstream media put its blinders on as they have for President Obama. They just do not want look under the hood. The scene from Star wars comes to mind. "These are not the droids you are looking for", says the President. "These are not the droids we are looking for," says the New York Times.

We understand that President Obama is their guy, it is not a secret, but can we at least have someone in the Washington press corps do the job they are being paid for? That job is not going to cocktail parties and taking free tickets to the Kennedy Center, that job is to be the eyes and ears of their readers and viewers. Maybe they forgot this principle, or it simply is no longer being taught at Columbia’s journalism school. Less than a year ago, any statement coming from the White House or the President was treated as a lie that needed to be proven true. In this task, the mainstream media were tireless, and I say, good for them. Under President Obama, the administration’s message is indisputable and any attack on the President’s message is treated as a lie.

Take the recent resignation of green jobs czar Van Jones. While everyone else who was paying attention knew the facts surrounding Obama’s friend being a “9/11 Truther”- you may not want to actually sign those petitions if you want to hold higher office Van- and his radical Communist past. Most in the media were willing sit on the story to protect the President from any further damage, especially with the President taking the heath care debate into a full court press.

If you think I am just making this stuff up, I am not. Read the 2005 piece by Eliza Strickland titled “The new face of environmentalism.” Van Jones is a self-confessed Marxist, Socialist, whose participation in fringe left-wing groups reads like Fidel Castro’s resume, minus the political executions and oppression.

Which brings up the question, did anyone in the mainstream press bother to look at the mountains of information available on Jones? It certainly doesn’t seem like it. For those who think Fox News and Glenn Beck are the Devil, know this; if the media did their job, Glenn Beck would not have one. The reason conservative news outlets exist is the fact that people are tired of hearing only one side to the news. I know I am. When I see the byline of AP or Associated Press, I know the story I am about to read will be slanted to the left. Every once in a while I find an AP story that strikes me as straight down the middle, just presenting the facts without an agenda. Those stories are striking because they are the exception rather than the rule. What a shame.

If you read the white washing of the Van Jones’ resignation today, you will hear term like “Swift Boated.” How laughable. If by Swiftboating you mean telling the truth about a radical, Marxists, 9/11 Truther appointed by the President to the higher circles of government, then yes, Van Jones has been swiftboated. If you mean he was slandered by unfounded rumors and innuendo, then no, he was not.

Before you comment, please do a little research, and I don’t mean on the Daily Koz.