Media Bias = Liberal Democrat Propaganda

Don’t believe what they tell you

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson

I was always curious and inquisitive. At a very young age these traits led me to question the veracity of adults because sometimes things just didn’t seem to add up. The most troubling discrepancies usually had to do with contradictions between the ethical values I was being taught and dishonest adult behavior. For example, if I read a newspaper report in which some politician claimed this or that, only to be contradicted by another politician who seemed to have different “facts,” I would ask my parents how that could be. After all, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that one of them was either ignorant or dishonest. In time, it was clear that some of our elected so-called leaders lie—and that realization was not easy to accept. Did their parents not teach them the same values that mine were teaching me? Did they not know it was wrong to lie? Even more baffling was that if they were liars why did the newspapers print their lies and why did other adults vote them into office? Had they completely fooled the voters with their lies? That didn’t seem likely since even I—a naïve young boy—was able to catch them lying! Then there was the famous statement by Abraham Lincoln, “You may fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time." Didn’t they know this? 

 

When I discovered an outright falsehood printed in a newspaper and disguised as the truth, I would ask my parents how this could happen. Wouldn’t the readers soon catch on and stop buying that newspaper? Their answer was almost always the same: “Don’t believe everything you read.” Okay, but who and what and when can I believe anything for certain, I wondered. It was my age of disillusionment. It was troubling. It still is. 

 

Over the years I have found answers to those early questions, yet the answers trouble me even more than the questions did when I was a boy. For example, I have learned that most American voters that I’ve spoken with are not well informed about the candidates, the issues, our political parties, our government, or American history. This partially explains why and how dishonest politicians get elected. Their lies go unnoticed and unchallenged by the general public because they don’t know the facts. This unfortunate condition denies the inherent promise of great and good things for the citizens of an honest republic.* An uninformed or misinformed citizenry is not capable of rendering the kind of good judgment required to maintain a vital and healthy nation or government “… of the people, by the people, for the people.” Ignorant people are more readily "worked" by skillful propagandists than are the informed. They can be persuaded to a particular view by those with the desire and means to do so, and that is precisely what is happening in America today. 

 

The media are not what they would have us believe they are. Instead of being our guardians of truth who seek out and expose corruption in government, they are part of the corruption. Their bias is evident everywhere any serious observer cares to look. Among other things, they selectively report or withhold facts and slant their reporting so as to promote their political agenda. The majority of the American media today are propagandists. To be sure, the media does expose abuse and corruption in government, however they do that selectively, as well.

 

Countless studies by credible organizations have confirmed that both the American media and the American education system are predominantly left-biased politically and that their bias is actively applied to their work and their product. As recently as six days ago, the title of a new study reads, “Media Bias Is Real, Finds UCLA Political Scientist.” As countless studies before have shown, this new study confirmed that, “…almost all major media outlets tilt to the left.”

 

The following are just a few examples of biased media reporting:

• The media gave far more coverage to the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal than to the grossly worse abuses of terrorists, such as the videotaped beheading of Nicholas Berg. Even though the military itself had discovered the abuses at Abu Ghraib, had already begun an investigation, had informed the media of the abuses, and told the media that an investigation was underway, the media took the story and hyped it all around the world in a manner and with an intensity well beyond the actual significance of the story. The New York Times ran Abu Ghraib stories on their front page over 50 times—far more often than they ran stories dealing with the horrible atrocities being committed daily by al Qaeda operatives and other terrorists. In this one example, The New York Times and others made America look like the bad guys and the terrorists look good in comparison. Of course, precisely the opposite was true.
• Notwithstanding protestations from CBS to the contrary, I believe that Dan Rather's attempt to discredit President George W. Bush during the 2004 presidential election campaign is just one more blatant case of gross media bias. As we know, the Dan Rather/60 Minutes story about Mr. Bush's alleged misconduct during his National Guard Service was based on what credible analysts described as counterfeit documents. Without relating the entire list of particulars, it is my opinion that Mr. Rather lost his job as a direct result of his use of phony documents in order to influence a U.S. presidential election. Given the next two examples, it is extremely difficult to arrive at any other conclusion.
• Neither Dan Rather nor anyone else in the mainstream media seemed at all interested in doing a high-exposure story about Bill Clinton when he was running for president even though Mr. Clinton is a well-documented, bona fide draft dodger—which is obviously shoddier than anything Mr. Bush never did. For the record, we still haven’t heard that story from the "mainstream" media. To the contrary, they are currently in the process of resurrecting Mr. Clinton’s reputation and if they are successful, they will have millions of people around the world believing that Bill Clinton was a great president. Incredibly, a few months ago Esquire magazine actually named Mr. Clinton the most powerful man in the world. Do they know that he is not even president? Of course, we should never be surprised at these outrageous positions. After all, there were those who suggested that Tookie Williams should get a Nobel Prize.
• Finally, the despicable treatment by the media of the "Swift Boat Veterans" during the 2004 campaign was another manifestation of their grossly anti-Republican bias. In this instance, a very large group of veterans who had served with John Kerry did something which seems to be unprecedented in U.S. history: Based on their service with him in the Vietnam War, this very large group of veterans—many highly decorated—publicly denounced Mr. Kerry, asserting that he was unfit to be Commander In Chief of the military forces of the United States of America. Over sixty of these men signed affidavits in condemnation of Mr. Kerry's military service and his character in general. The “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” came from a variety of backgrounds and political affiliations. There were Democrats, Republicans, and independents among the over two hundred members. Despite the “political mix” of the group and the fact that many of them were war heroes, the media did their best to suppress news coverage of the story and (when that failed) to discredit the group. Here was an extremely well documented story presented by highly credible war heroes and the media did not want us to know about it because it could have hurt Mr. Kerry’s chances of becoming president. Instead, they produced a story based on lies to help prevent a Republican from becoming president. Any questions?

 

Multiply these few examples by thousands and you can get a sense of the magnitude of the deception—the incalculable number of distorted news stories being fed to us daily by the "mainstream" American media. A preponderance of our so-called reporters and journalists now seem like nothing more than well-dressed, highly paid propagandists promoting their personal and collective political agendas. They produce news stories that we cannot trust for objective reporting, honest content, fairness or balance. They are con artists all dressed up to look like legitimate professional newsmen and women. So, what is to be done? Fortunately, the Internet offers some hope. If more people speak out with articles like this, it is entirely possible that we can bring about change. Meanwhile, make no mistake about it: What the American media are doing every day is very dangerous to all American citizens at home and abroad. Their anti-American output in print, radio, and television portrays our government and our military in such a dishonest negative manner that it divides our nation, weakens our resolve, and at the same time emboldens our enemies and provides them with propaganda material to turn millions of people around the globe against us. 

 

To use the Abu Ghraib example once more: With the distorted and thereby dishonest reporting of the Abu Ghraib story, The New York Times managed to convince millions of people here and abroad—people who were not informed enough to know better—that the abuse was a direct result of Bush administration policy, which they claimed encouraged such abuse. They offered no proof because they found none. Yet the damage was done, which most certainly must have been what they had wanted to accomplish because they are neither stupid nor naive. I believe they knew exactly what they were doing. Did they consider the global implications of their behavior? I must conclude they did. How inept would they have been if they had not? Therefore, I not only believe that The New York Times knew their Abu Ghraib stories would inflame Muslims throughout the world who would then use the exaggerated and hyped up stories to stir up anti-American hatred—I also believe that as a direct result of their stories, their irresponsible (treasonous?) stories, Americans died. I repeat; this is just one example of a preponderance of politically motivated media bias. 

 

The undeniable truth that we need to accept if we aspire to the high standards of truth and decency we teach our children is that the majority of our current media are propagandists and we cannot trust them to inform us honestly. It means that my parent’s advice to not believe everything one reads (or hears) is more appropriate than ever and that it applies to all media outlets. This has been called “The Information Age,” yet with the media factored in, it would be more accurately described as “The Misinformation Age.” 

 

The major media outlets have refined and perfected the art of propaganda well beyond anything imagined by past propaganda practitioners. It is not difficult to imagine that well-known fascist propaganda masters of recent history would have marveled at how effective our American media propagandists are in a free society. They would have been very impressed at the ease with which our media successfully manipulate the American masses on a daily basis without so much as a passing glance of recognition, least of all protest, from us—the manipulated. 

 

There is much more to this story than I describe here. Our education system, from public schools to our colleges and universities, are at least 90% left-biased and over the past several decades they have chosen to de-emphasize the teaching of honest, comprehensive American history and national civic literacy. Add that to widespread dissemination of media misinformation and we now have perhaps the most ignorant American electorate in our history. What should be clear though, and what we need to address, is how very much this problem affects us, and how important it is to begin immediately to formulate ways to protest and to demand the changes necessary to ensure a different future for our children, one in which they can be certain of honest, unbiased, fair and balanced media information and reporting. We need to shake off our apathy and rid ourselves of the belief that the problem of media bias is bigger than we are. Once again: An uninformed or misinformed citizenry is not capable of rendering the kind of good judgment required to sustain a vital and healthy nation and government “… of the people, by the people, for the people” and, notwithstanding protestations to the contrary, presently the vast majority of Americans are critically ignorant on such matters as American history, current affairs, and politics. I offer an oft-repeated slogan of a large clothing chain. It goes like this: "An educated buyer is our best customer." It is a good slogan and the message is clear: The more you know about clothing and value, the more you will appreciate what we sell. The analogy is obvious. An educated voter is our best citizen. Conversely, an ignorant voter is our worst citizen, and, in the majority, ignorant voters pose a threat to our national security and the future of our nation. To summarize, the liberal left dominates our educational system and our media, and they have an agenda. Therefore, is it not rational to suspect that when our reporters and journalists betray the trust we have vested in them through the First Amendment to our constitution (behind which they so often hide) and our educators fail to properly educate our children on the fundamentals of American history and current affairs, perhaps their slogan goes something like this: An ignorant voter is our best mark? What else can explain the steady, insidious decline of a once well educated, informed American electorate? Keep them dumb and keep them voting for Democrats, because for Democrats, it is always all about power. You need look no further than the events of the last six years to see how they so often and so easily put party before country. 

 

America is the first ever great hope for people all over this planet and if we fail to properly grow and protect it, it might never appear again. Our founders had it right, so right that America has become the most free and powerful nation in the history of the world. But our founders warned that it was fragile and that our very existence would require "eternal vigilance." Yet the liberal Democrats are attempting to change the essential nature of our political system. What they envision is far different than what our founders designed and what has worked so well for so long. If they succeed, it is more than likely they will set into motion the slow but inexorable decline and fall of America. I urge you to reread Mr. Jefferson's cautionary quote at the top of this article. If you understand the once-in-the-history-of-the-world phenomenon that is the United States of America and you want it to survive and evolve for those who follow, then you must take this message seriously.  

*Republic: A state in which the sovereign power resides in a certain body of the people (the electorate), and is exercised by representatives elected by, and responsible to, them.

 

Copyright © 2005 Robert D. McKinley All rights reserved.