Riverwood Presbyterian Church

Politics

This is CNNBiased.

by Clay Staggs

During Clinton’s terms, folks of my political stripe were fond of calling CNN the Clinton News Network because of its, well, friendliness toward an administration more to its liking than Reagan and Bush had been. Media bias is nothing new for conservatives to bemoan. I am firmly convinced that all major mainstream media (with the exception of Fox News and the WSJ) are hopeless leftwingers and cannot be trusted to report anything fairly.

Now, before I offer proof positive of such bias, l think I should clarify that I am not opposed to someone having a bias. In point of fact, we all have biases, and I think it’s a fool’s errand to go about purporting to be free of bias. That’s what infuriates me about the mainstream media (MSM). They prance about with the attitude that they are truly free of bias, when anyone willing to acknowledge the obvious can see that they are not.

It would be better for CNN, LA Times, NY Times, Washington Post, etc., to acknowledge that they are reporting the news from a politically liberal perspective (and for Fox & WSJ to do the same on the other side) and let folks choose with biases fully disclosed. However, the big names will never do this because it would admit something that they cannot allow, namely that they’re not the fair-minded referee in the game of politics. That role is still critical for them, because the independent voter is still massively influenced by them. This is a state of affairs that will not long endure, for various reasons, but the one pertinent to this post is that their sycophantic loyalty to Obama is getting in the way. It so consumes them that they are letting their mask of objectivity slip.

Consider CNN’s reporting on Wednesday’s TEA Parties. The latest counts that I saw put the number of participants nationwide at over 330,000 - and that’s on a work day. Clearly, this is a threat to Obama and the Democrats, not because the Republicans are innocent - they aren’t - but because the Democrats are the party in power and have so exceeded even the drunk sailor levels of spending by Bush 43. I think this is the official graph of the TEA Party protesters, showing Federal deficits:

So, clearly, CNN perceives - correctly - that there is political danger for their guy. If they were unbiased, they would have to report honestly the concerns of the protesters - which are completely legitimate even if one ultimately comes to the conclusion that this level of debt is a necessary evil. But to do so would give valuable air time to those opposing CNN’s guy, and allow them to make their (very valid) point against Obama’s runaway spending.

So, what does CNN reporter Susan Roesgen do when sent out to cover the event? See for yourself:

Now, let’s take this apart. Consider the guy with the Obama/Hitler sign. I find that to be out of bounds. There’s much to criticize about Obama without resort to such an inflammatory and unfair association. I think most folks would agree. How does one suppose that Ms. Roesgen selected him for confrontation? Blogger Michelle Malkin (on whose bad side I would not want to be) has done a little digging through the web and found a report by Ms. Roesgen from 2006 where she covered an anti-Bush protest where a guy was wearing a GWB mask with a Hitler mustache and horns added. Ms. Roesgen not only did not find this bothersome, her report even made the guy sympathetic. Video here. Compare and contrast. Double standard proved.

Then there’s Ms. Roesgen’s encounter with the guy with the baby. The man tries to make a point about the principles of Lincoln and, apparently forgetting that she’s not the Obama Treasury Secretary, her response is to lecture the man about how much money he ($400) and the State of Illinois ($50B) are getting in stimulus money. Ignorant, condescending, and pathetic.

Finally, there’s her closing rant against Fox and the protesters. “Right wing,” “not family viewing,” “anti-government,” “anti-CNN.” She’s not paranoid - everybody’s just out to get her. Maybe seeing the latest ratings got her off her game:

FOX RATINGS SURGE ON PROTEST COVERAGE
8-11 PM ET

FOXNEWS 3,390,000
MSNBC 1,210,000
CNN 1,070,000
CNN HEADLINE 909,000

FOXNEWS O’REILLY 3,980,000
FOXNEWS HANNITY 3,239,000
FOXNEWS GRETA 2,947,000
FOXNEWS BECK 2,740,000
FOXNEWS BAIER 2,401,000
FOXNEWS SHEP 2,185,000
COMEDY DAILY SHOW 1,777,000
MSNBC OLBERMANN 1,499,000
COMEDY COLBERT 1,446,000
CNNHN GRACE 1,336,000
CNN KING 1,292,000
MSNBC MADDOW 1,149,000
CNN COOPER 1,021,000

And, because this is a family-friendly blog, I won’t even go into the sex puns made by CNN and MSNBC in their derisive coverage of these protests. But you can go here for a summary.

Susan Roesgen and her superiors at CNN - indeed almost the entire MSM - are hopelessly biased. And to the extent that it hasn’t already driven them into the ratings cellar, it will eventually. No one likes a partisan hack posing as fair-minded neutral. And Susan Roesgen proved decisively on Wednesday that that’s what she and her employer are.