Friday, October 31, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson: 'The End of Journalism'

Victor Davis Hanson is a well regarded scholar in military history, fellow at the Hoover Institution and a registered Democrat. I always love his columns because they are cogent and persuasive. In every single piece that I have read from him, he usually goes in detail through his arguments, providing solid evidence backing his points. That's why I find his piece about media bias in this Presidential election particularly interesting. Call it a "scholarly researched" version of Michael Malone's illuminating piece. Please read it here,
"There have always been media biases and prejudices. Everyone knew that Walter Cronkite, from his gilded throne at CBS news, helped to alter the course of the Vietnam War, when, in the post-Tet depression, he prematurely declared the war unwinnible. Dan Rather’s career imploded when he knowingly promulgated a forged document that impugned the service record of George W. Bush. We’ve known for a long time — from various polling, and records of political donations of journalists themselves, as well as surveys of public perceptions — that the vast majority of journalists identify themselves as Democratic, and liberal in particular.Yet we have never quite seen anything like the current media infatuation with Barack Obama, and its collective desire not to raise key issues of concern to the American people. Here were four areas of national interest that were largely ignored.
.....
Imagine the reaction of CNN or NBC had John McCain’s pastor and spiritual advisor of 20 years been revealed as a white supremacist who damned a multiracial United States, or had he been a close acquaintance until 2005 of an unrepentant terrorist bomber of abortion clinics, or had McCain himself sued to eliminate congressional opponents by challenging the validity of African-American voters who signed petitions, or had both his primary and general election senatorial rivals imploded once their sealed divorce records were mysteriously leaked."

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