16 Comments Add your own

• 1. Menlo Bob  |  August 9th, 2008 at 3:33 pm

  The New York Times says they investigated but came up with nothing. What they didn’t say is that they refused to report on what others had previously said. If the only news they’re willing to go with is that which they independently come up with I expect to see a much smaller paper. The Times also comforts themselves by pointing to denials fo Edwards and Hunter–as if that were a standard adhered to in newsrooms. Edwards lied just like the Times is lying now.

• 2. steve  |  August 9th, 2008 at 5:36 pm

  Many news sources have a “spin” to their reporting. Sometimes liberal and sometimes conservative. Katey Couric’s interview was altered when one of McCain’s responses didn’t make sense, so they took a response to a different question and substituted it. New York Times spins liberal so they put items on the second page that should have been front page. There was probably a little sympathy for Mrs Edwards mixed in. To have terminal cancer and a husband who fools around is rough.

• 3. dave  |  August 9th, 2008 at 6:21 pm

  Well is is easy to understand. The main stream media are supportive of liberal policies and politicians. Therefore if something happens to a democrat that is questionable it is either not published or pushed to some small 2 or 3 line statement. Imagine if this had been Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee this would have been headlines for days, and weeks. I for one am tired of it, the rrstar is the same way, liberal leaning bias. Oh well, another potentional Attorney General bites the dust.

• 4. Pat Cunningham  |  August 9th, 2008 at 7:01 pm

  Dave: You must be referring to the time the media completely buried the Clinton-Lewinksy story. And how about the time they totally ignored Chappaquiddick? And don’t forget how they ignored Obama’s connections with the Rev. Wright? We didn’t hear a word about that, did we? And the media never said anything about Obama’s wife’s alleged lack of patriotism? Yeah, the media really covered up all that stuff. And another thing: They’ve never once raised any questions about whether Obama was brought up as a Muslim. Well, OK, Fox News has raised those questions, but none of the liberal media have had a thing to say about it. Yeah, those damn media, they give the liberals all the breaks. On the other hand, of course, the media have gone crazy with stories about McCain’s marital infidelities. It seems like I see that crap every day. And you say you’re tired of the bias? So am I? By the way, Dave, I wish you’d share with us those Democratic scandals that have been “pushed to some small 2 or 3 line statements”? I’d be interested in comparing your list with mine. And if you’ve collected any of those statements of just 2 or 3 lines, I hope you’ll pass them along. Oh, and keep up your excellent work in monitoring media bias. You’re doing a crackerback job. Really. You should be proud. You’re a great American.

• 5. Mr. Baseball  |  August 9th, 2008 at 9:17 pm

  The major problem with the so-called mainstream media is not bias. It’s incompetence. With news budgets continually getting slashed and the corporate bottom line the top priority, it’s easy to see why this occurs. We only tend to notice it when it goes against our own political bias. If the MSM is so slanted in favor of liberals, then how do you explain their blowing the story on our reasons for invading Iraq? The three major networks, CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post did not seriously question or investigate the Bush administration’s reasons for the invasion. There were, however, a couple of reporters for the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain that did and reported how the weapons of mass destruction claim had absolutely no basis in fact. The media blew it, just as they blew the Vietnam War and Watergate. Unless you believe that all three of these events were great liberal causes, the liberal bias assertion simply does not work. It’s incompetence, not bias.

• 6. Kaus  |  August 9th, 2008 at 9:50 pm

  Let me get this right Mr. Baseball… either the Mainstream Media is incompetent or they are left leaning…..perhaps an oxymoron ?

  How did they blow Watergate? Washington Post was all over that one.

  And Iraq? Maybe they should interview Sandy Pants Burger?

• 7. LD  |  August 10th, 2008 at 7:23 am

  Lets not forget ABC News repeatedly claiming that the anthrax used in the mailing attacks was from Iraq. ABC claimed that their “well placed sources” and the presense of bentonite in the anthrax was compelling evidence that Iraq was responsible for the attacks.

• 8. LD  |  August 10th, 2008 at 7:28 am

  Here’s a video of that non celebrity candidate talking about phase 2 and the anthrax coming from Iraq:

  http://thinkprogress.org/2008/08/01/mccain-anthrax-iraq/

• 9. Mr. Baseball  |  August 11th, 2008 at 7:44 pm

  Kaus, let me repeat. The media is not left-leaning. It’s just incompetent. Let’s also review Watergate. The Washington Post was not all over that story. They assigned two minor, local, inexperienced reporters to a story the editors thought was of little consequence. The story went nowhere for the longest time and didn’t get any significant national attention until long after Richard Nixon was reelected President. And the story would still have not gone anywhere had it not been for Judge John Sirica who refused to accept the premise that the Watergate burglars were acting on their own. The Post lucked out with Woodward and Bernstein being much more aggressive than their editors would have originally liked. If the mainstream media was so biased against conservatives, it would have jumped all over this immediately and Nixon would not have been reelected.

• 10. Pat Cunningham  |  August 11th, 2008 at 8:07 pm

  Right you are, Mr. B. In fairness, however, it should be noted that CBS made at least a few feeble efforts to deal with Watergate, and The New York Times took a stab or two, but the vast majority of the media paid the matter little or no attention until April of the following year. Sirica, as you say, was a hero, and so was John Dean. Still, it took until August of 1974 — 22 months after the Watergate break-in — for Nixon to fall. That happened only afer Barry Goldwater and several other Republican lawmakers paid a visit to the White House and told Nixon he had to go. To the end, however, there were die-hard GOP politicians who never conceded that Nixon and his gang had trampled on the Constitution.

• 11. Kaus  |  August 12th, 2008 at 6:30 am

  You both are smoking illegal substances. 1 month after break in Time Magazine was covering the story and within 2 months was calling it the “scandal of the year” WIthin 3 months of the break in, a grand jury made initial indictments.

• 12. Pat Cunningham  |  August 12th, 2008 at 6:59 am

  Kaus: You don’t know what you’re talking about. Neither Mr. B or I are saying that the Watergate break-in received no media mention. It was a scandal, but not a very big one until months and months after the break in. The Democratic National headquarters had been burglarized, and the media hardly could ignore that. But it was pretty sparse coverage. There was no media firestorm. The fact that the burglars were indicted within six months is no big deal. That’s what prosecutors do with burglars caught inside offices of a political party. Some of us suspected almost from the beginning that this break-in was tied to high-up muckety-mucks in the Nixon administration, but the media as a whole did not pursue the story with any zeal. Woodward and Bernstein had some good stuff, but this wasn’t a case of so-called liberal media generally creating a huge buzz. The story simmered at a relatively low level until the spring of the following year, and then, to borrow a phrase from John Dean, a cancer grew on the presidency, Haldeman and Ehrlichman resigned, Senate hearings began, the scandal grew far beyond the break-in and involved all manner of crimes. But remember, Nixon’s undoing wasn’t the break-in. It was the coverup, and it was all the other nasty stuff that preceded and followed the break-in. But there was not — repeat, NOT — this sudden media explosion following the break-in, or even following some of the early revelations by Woodward and Bernstein. It took a long while for the establishment media to get going on this story.

• 13. Pat Cunningham  |  August 12th, 2008 at 7:18 am

  One more thing, Kaus: Media coverage of Watergate was so spotty at first, especially outside of Washington, that a Gallup poll conducted in October 1972, four months after the break-in, showed that 48 percent of Americans could not identify the word “Watergate.” There was a buzz among media junkies and political types almost from the beginning, but there was no big national splash for many months.

• 14. Kaus  |  August 12th, 2008 at 7:50 am

  So…Time Magazine calling it the “Scandal of the Year” 2 months after the break equates to spotty news coverage. Right…..

• 15. Pat Cunningham  |  August 12th, 2008 at 9:00 am

  Yeah, Kaus. It was spotty news coverage. Four months after the break-in, and half of the American populace wasn’t even familiar with the word “Watergate.” Were you even an adult then? You are so damn obtuse. I have 15 books on Watergate, and I once had an encyclopedic knowledge of the matter (although lots of it has faded with age). And you’re going to tell me how media coverage of the case came down? Why don’t you stick to hunting for Marxists behind every tree, Kaus?

• 16. Kaus  |  August 12th, 2008 at 9:33 am

  If I’m obtuse, then TIME (a NATIONAL magazine) is an obtuse Magazine read by no one. You head is cluttered with too many facts.

  TIme Magazine July 1972 edition stated barely weeks after the break in…..”It was just a strip of masking tape, but it is fast stretching into the most provocative caper of 1972, an extraordinary bit of bungling of great potential advantage to the Democrats and damage to the Republicans in this election year”.

  Sure, Watergate major facts trickled out linking the man at the top…..but you are the one that said “it was a scandal but not a very big one’ four months later .

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