Emu
Apr 29th, 2005, 10:55 PM
This was in the opinion section of my local paper.
Columnist William Raspberry's April 19 excoriation of Fox News reaches a new level of illogic. According to Mr. Raspberry, Fox News' "in-your-face right wing partisanship ... debases the quality of the news" and "threatens to destroy public confidence in all news." He argues "that the mainstream media at least try to get it right -- even when they too grudgingly acknowledge their errors.
The facts differ from Mr. Raspberry's view that the mainstream media is at the center of the political spectrum. Foremost is their tradition of underreporting or frailing to report anything they disagree with, and making up stories when getting the real story is inconvenient or does not agree with their agenda.
When I read that, I got confused and thought he was talking about Fox.
Examples include William Randolph Hearst whipping up massive public sentiment to go to war over Spain's dubious sicking of the battleship Maine; mainstream media ignoring an ongoing stream of extramarital affairs carried on by President Kennedy; Jayson Blair of the New York Times simply making up stories about the D.C. sniper investigation; and Dan Rather of CBS News reporting and steadfastly defending a story that George Bush evaded military duty based on phony evidence.
While Fox News can be mind-numbingly repetetive and melodramatic, they are light years better than the mainstream media at reporting the truth.
Sadly, Mr. Rapsberry may never understand how half the country votes Republican as long as he continues to nestle undisturbed in the elite liberal womb of the Washington Post.
Columnist William Raspberry's April 19 excoriation of Fox News reaches a new level of illogic. According to Mr. Raspberry, Fox News' "in-your-face right wing partisanship ... debases the quality of the news" and "threatens to destroy public confidence in all news." He argues "that the mainstream media at least try to get it right -- even when they too grudgingly acknowledge their errors.
The facts differ from Mr. Raspberry's view that the mainstream media is at the center of the political spectrum. Foremost is their tradition of underreporting or frailing to report anything they disagree with, and making up stories when getting the real story is inconvenient or does not agree with their agenda.
When I read that, I got confused and thought he was talking about Fox.
Examples include William Randolph Hearst whipping up massive public sentiment to go to war over Spain's dubious sicking of the battleship Maine; mainstream media ignoring an ongoing stream of extramarital affairs carried on by President Kennedy; Jayson Blair of the New York Times simply making up stories about the D.C. sniper investigation; and Dan Rather of CBS News reporting and steadfastly defending a story that George Bush evaded military duty based on phony evidence.
While Fox News can be mind-numbingly repetetive and melodramatic, they are light years better than the mainstream media at reporting the truth.
Sadly, Mr. Rapsberry may never understand how half the country votes Republican as long as he continues to nestle undisturbed in the elite liberal womb of the Washington Post.