Unbiased Journalists

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that the modern definition of media bias depends on your perspective.

What is media bias? There seem to be several definitions. Everyone who finds a media story that portrays them in a negative light believes it is slanted. Some people believe that media stories that include certain information to be slanted. Others believe that media stories that allow certain points of view to see the light of day are slanted.

Every definition depends mostly on the point of perspective of the opiner’s. The merits of this or that argument is superfluous. The perspective of the viewer is paramount. An example is the Chris Mathews Show today.

Chris Mathews emphasizes he is a journalist and had three other journalists on his show today. They all had the exact point of view regarding Obama’s attack on Fox News. They all agreed that it was Fox News that is being unfair to the President. They also chortled at the unbiased journalist Chris Mathews calling everyone on his right and those at Fox News “wing nuts.” Chris was also incensed that Palin would use a teleprompter! (Apparently no other presidential candidate has ever used one before). Chris’s unbiased reporting went on, when Palin’s book was brought up as a best seller, he mentioned that it was ghost written. Apparently from his demeanor Chris Mathews finds ghost writing a book extremely distasteful.

Andrew Sullivan (who claimed to be a conservative… but has absolutely no conservative viewpoints) claimed Mitt Romney will say anything… To what end? He didn‘t elaborate. Andrews the conservative also claimed that McCain picking Sara Palin was wrong, because it was caving to the right wing. (of which he claims to be part of). But Mostly he purports that Obama’s best forte is his ability to let the right wing destroy themselves. By giving them enough rope.

Kathleen Parker said that, in the republican party, publicly, the belief is that Sara Palin could win the Whitehouse, But privately…(Read Elite), the belief is, she cannot.

The most interesting point was by Helena, (they didn’t put her name or credentials on the screen), when she said that right wing media makes republicans look more centrist. I wonder if she even gets a whiff of the irony in what she was saying as an unbiased journalist?

Unfortunately Dan Rather was incoherent. He came out with sophist statements like “The megaphone of right wing media outweighs them.” Of course he is the only one on the panel who has been caught fabricating evidence, then reported it as fact, just before an election… So he can be certified an unbiased journalist.

So… if this is the case, how can we ever rectify the term media bias?

Like a carpenter uses a chalk line to find a straight line we need to use, find or develop tools to find the straight in “news” as well. Many tools exist now but are only selectively used. Ad Homonym attacks like wing nuts show a perspective that is not in keeping with actually being unbiased.

Rhetoric is effective at moving a crowd but appeals to emotion… not to logic. Political philosophers have made the determination that government must run on logic not emotion. To do otherwise is folly. Every mischief will follow. So empty rhetoric is not a fair tool to use to make a point. Phrases like “The megaphone of right wing media outweighs them.” are good examples of this sophistry.

Changing the subject is another sophist means of redirecting a discussion away from a loosing point. Things like when a book is on the best seller list the author is denigrated instead of pointing out some flaw in the logic of the book.

Many other rules exist regarding just discussion of a subject… Regrettably the unbiased media demonstrates knowledge of none of them.