Posted on 07/23/2012 7:27:27 AM PDT by Kaslin
I try not to spend too much time complaining about media bias, mostly because it doesn’t do any good.
But I have had a couple of posts about the topic, usually when there’s a hopelessly outrageous example on an issue I care about.
I’ve also had a few posts where I hit the media for mistakes that probably don’t represent overt bias, but instead reflect no knowledge of economics and/or a cloistered worldview.
Now we can add another example to the list. But it definitely belongs in the first group, because this is clear, blatant, and deliberate bias. I’m talking, of course, about ABC News and its reprehensible decision to smear a member of the Tea Party simply because he had the same name as the Colorado killer.
The obvious question to ask is why the reporter who did the smear, Brian Ross, hasn’t been fired. But not just Brian Ross. The axe should fall on anyone involved in the ideologically biased and legally reckless decision to speculate that a 52-year old Hispanic Tea Party member was responsible for the Colorado shooting
Here’s a good cartoon from the Hope-n-Change website, which has an amusing collection of anti-Obama cartoons. This does capture the mentality of the establishment media.
P.S. Here’s another cartoon about media bias that is definitely worth sharing.
P.P.S. I get irked whenever anybody refers to the big networks and newspapers as the “mainstream press.” That’s a horribly misguided term, considering how far left they are. The Tea Party is much closer to the mainstream than those clowns. That’s why they should be called the “establishment press.”
Why hasn’t he been fired?
Because, according to the Left, he’s “on the right side of history.”
Because he did right by ABC.
Careful....
Don Imus,Jimmy the Greek,and Hank Williams Jr. wonder about that,too.....
Ross ain’t the one, or the only one...
ABC should be fired.
Because when he spews BS, rumors, and made-up nonsense it's a good thing.
What makes it a good thing is that he's advancing the suicidal agenda of the elites.
The new media and the blogosphere, on the other hand, is not pushing the state-owned media agenda, and - therefore - is a bad thing.
long ago
It may be less a matter of offense than a concern that it is somehow libelous. Do you think the mods should weigh in on this or am I out of bounds by suggesting this?
It’s been clearly established that parody is protected as free speech, and your creation is clearly parody (that Ross invited upon himself by his own flagrant actions).
My guess is, you’re OK from a legal standpoint, although I’m not a lawyer so FWIW.
Taste is a different question altogether. :-) Doesn’t bother me personally though.
The graphic CLEARLY is not libelous, just read it. It's the seriousness of the charge, not the actual situation.
Did you read what is in the little box on the left side from you, or did you miss that?
I don’t have any problems with it. Just asking.
I saw it. I was just speculating on why the other poster suggested to be careful.
Under the Rather Rules of Journalism, he should be promoted, not fired.
He hasn’t been fired because they agree with his initial statement and believe it whole heartedly.
It is obviously satire. If it’s legally acceptable to publish a cartoon showing Jerry Falwell in an outhouse having sex with his mother there is absolutely nothing offensive about or legally threatening about that picture.
Anything goes with a public figure. ANYTHING.
ABC News was just so DAMNED eager to tie the patriots of the "Tea Party" to an insane act of mass-murder, that Ross and Stephanopolous just couldn't stop themselves when they did a Google search and found a Jim Holmes on a Tea Party list.
Their wet dream is to connect "Tea Party" and "terrorist" as a permanent meme in the MSM. Turnabout is fair play. Please share this photo on FB and Twitter, and include "Brian Ross, the convicted child molester" and "tea party" in the accompanying text, so that the picture will be linked on Google to Brian Ross forever. This smarmy prick and ABC "news" deserve it, in spades.
LOVE IT!!! Great illustration of the idiocracy.
You should include the text transcript below it so Google can index it.
This guy belongs on MSNBC. That’s how they roll.
Thank you for your post - I hear Brian Ross helped supply James E. Holmes with weapons... oh, wait that was someone else...
OOOPS my bad.
(Brian Williams of ABC has been wrongly associated being multiple different criminal Brian Williams who are child molesters and worse.)
(Brian Ross of ABC has been wrongly associated being multiple different criminal Brian Ross 's who are child molesters and worse.)
Because it’s going to take some innocent person becoming the target of a revenge killing to force the media’s hand on this.
A libel charge cannot be applied when:
Bottom line is the poster of the cartoon is thus protected by both rulings, even if Brian Ross enjoyed the greater protections of a private person.
On that same show Huckabee hit on a great idea. Every time a crime is committed by anyone named Brian Ross it should be suggested that his network news was involved in the crime.
Thx for the info.
From the way the media behaves nowadays, I bet they don’t teach that “libel” course anymore. They probably dropped it as a required course when they added the course on “LBGT journalists — which bathroom should they use?”
>> A private person, which Brian Ross clearly is not, makes themselves a public person by “thrusting themselves into a vortex of a public controversy”.
I don’t know why but that description, apt as it is, really makes me chuckle. I know I’d like to thrust a few of them “urinalists” into the vortex of a public meatgrinder. :-)
It wouldn’t make any difference. ABC, CBS, CNN, PMSNBC are all the same
If you fired one you'd have to fire most (90%?) of them! That's why.
Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator by Ryan Holiday.
New book describes how mainstream media employees ("reporters") get their day-to-day stories. I fell asleep before the interview really got going but what I heard made a lot of sense.
Media employees are highly interdependent. Day-to-day stories are generated from within the tight-knit community; to wit, "reporters" do "investigations" mainly by scanning the MSM's favorite internet blogs. Not surprising that such places include mediamatters, dailykos, and ultra liberal celebs on social groups. BTW, celebs hire people to do their tweeting, and stuff.
(I complained to the TV networks back in the 1960's this is nothing new.)
Can’t a couple of the organized Tea Party groups hire one of the pro-America legal firms, like the American Center for Law and Justice, and sue ABC for slander, libel, etc.? Jay Sekulow and his group seem to do in these types of cases.
You look at the broadcasts of even Dan Rather from that era and he had to at least pretend to be fair. Within 20 years, he was able to drop all pretense.
As for “thrusting themselves into a vortex of a public controversy”, the phrase made us chuckle back when I took the course in 1980. That's why I clearly remember it to this day. I can't remember the name of the case, but those were the exact words which the judge used in dismissing the case brought by a private dentist who had his letter to the editor published.
*shrugs*
Depends on the judge, and proving that there was material harm done by the false comment, or proving malicious intent may be a sticky point.
From the article: “P.P.S. I get irked whenever anybody refers to the big networks and newspapers as the “mainstream press.” That’s a horribly misguided term, considering how far left they are. The Tea Party is much closer to the mainstream than those clowns. That’s why they should be called the ‘establishment press.’”
He makes a good point, though I don’t think “establishment press” is the right alternative. It would be helpful to have a term that clearly identifies the source as left-wing, and that often distorts facts to serve an unstated agenda.
Certainly, ABC and MSNBC should no longer be considered “mainstream” and “establishment” is too kind. Maybe just start referring to them as the “Ross Media” and the point will be made, plus Ross’s contribution to the effort will never be forgotten.
E.g., “ABC and other similar Ross Media outlets continue to pursue the Bain Capital story while ignoring the deteriorating employment situation.”
“MSNBC, considered a typical Ross Media news source, continues to hire commentators with questionable backgrounds such as....”
“You get your news from Jon Stewart? Even though he’s an acknowledged member of the Ross Media? Interesting.”
Or, from our perspective, “Here’s another misleading story making the rounds of the Ross Media today.”
I can see where an annual “Ross Award” could be a much-awaited announcement, along the lines of WI Senator Proxmire’s old Golden Fleece Award for the dumbest DC spending program of the year. Though perhaps it would be better to give one monthly, or weekly? Certainly there’s no lack of worthy recipients.
I use Lame Stream Media (LSM), State Run Media SRM, or Drive By Media (DBM
I've taken it to mean not that they supposedly represent the middle, but that what they report floods into the mainstream of society. In other words, you have to go out of your way to avoid the mainstream press, whereas the opposite is true for non-mainstream media.
Personally I am partial to the term "left-controlled media" or even "democrat-controlled media". No room for misinterpretation there.
I sent ABC an e-mail complaint about Brian Ross. They replied that I should complain to my local ABC affiliate. My local ABC affiliate did not hire Brian Ross.
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