As a former journalist, I'm amazed at what passes for journalism today. Although I admit that I strongly support Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney, I don't pretend to be a journalist in this blog. Often through this blog, though, I have pointed out the obvious bias of those in the mainstream news media who are paid to report the news fairly and accurately.
In recent blogs, I wote about a recent revelation that would be covered extensively by the news media -- if a Republican President were in the White House. According to information uncovered by the ACLU, the Obama Administration has quadrupled the use of warrantless wiretaps.
Another story that seems to be developing almost by the hour is alleged attempts by the administration to cover up what it knew about the attack on our Libyan Embassy and when it knew it. Recent reports seem to indicate that although the administration attempted to frame the attack as the result of a "spontaneous" demonstration, others within the administration knew in the hours following the attack that it was well-planned and highly-coordinated. Reports are also now indicating that additional security for the embassy and the ambassador was requested in the days prior to the attacks, yet additional security was not provided.
But Barack Obama is President and it's clear that the vast majority of the left-leaning news media want him to win reelection, so we haven't seen as much coverage about these issues as we would if a Republican were in the White House. I thought I'd do some research to see just how biased the coverage has been.
I did an internet search using Google as my search engine to see which news media organizations have reported on these two major issues.
For the first search I entered the words, "Obama quadruples use of warrantless wiretaps," to see what I would discover. The first page I pulled up contained nine hits, only one of which was from the regular news media, Fox News. I also did a search using the same words, but omitted the word, "Obama," thinking that it might provide me with slightly different results. Again, the only regular news media hit was from Fox News.
While Fox News apparently found a story newsworthy about how warrantless wiretaps have been expanded, potentially infringing on the rights of millions of Americans, ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN apparently did not find the story important enough to report. Even after searching on the first three pages, I did not find a single instance of coverage by these mainstream media companies. Not one.
Next, I entered the words, "Libya cover up" to see what I would find. Again, going three pages deep in the search, I found extensive coverage by a wide variety of news organizations, including the Huffington Post, the Wall Street Journal and the National Review, but I did not find a single instance of coverage by ABC, CBS, NBC or CNN, other than one story by ABC News. That ABC News story popped up in my search only because a reader commenting on the story used the words, "cover up." Sadly, the only American daily newspaper that showed up in this search was the Washington Examiner, a conservative-leaning newspaper.
I was astonished at the lack of coverage by the mainstream news media on two major issues with national significance.
One other fact that amazed me was that I did not find a single instance of coverage by the nation's two leading newspapers, the Washington Post and the New York Times. The two mainstays of journalism that broke the Watergate story and the Pentagon papers, respectively, are apparently sitting on the sidelines regarding the vast expansion of surveillance powers by our federal government, the bungling of embassy security and a subsequent potential cover up to help a President win reelection.
The vaunted Fourth Estate, the watchdog for the American people, is sound asleep when it comes to watching this President and his administration.
No comments:
Post a Comment