Dick Morris: Bias-mongers on rocks as viewers taste straight news

The Hill ^ | August 13, 2003 | Dick Morris

[Timesink]

	Dick Morris
	The Political Life

Bias-mongers on rocks as viewers taste straight news

I am sure we were all surprised to learn in the Aug. 11 issue of The New York Times that people are " burned out on serious news." How else could the bastion of establishment journalism account for the falloff in network news viewership and, unnoted in the article, the newspaper's own decreasing circulation?

Yet the evidence is all there. People don't care anymore. That must be why The Times' circulation has fallen 5 percent and 1.1 million fewer households are watching network television news compared to last year at this time!

Jim Murphy, executive producer of the "CBS Evening News with Dan Rather," attempting to spin why his show has lost 600,000 viewers, notes patronizingly that we poor dears have been through " two years of very heavy-duty, stressful news, from Sept. 11 through the war with Iraq." In his opinion the loss of one-tenth of his show's audience is part of "a little bit of a break-taking going on across the spectrum."

Shaking their heads in sympathy, cable news networks CNN (down 22 percent) and MSNBC (down 25 percent) bemoan the lack of compelling news to cover. Jack Wakshlag, head of research for the Turner Broadcasting System, which manages CNN for AOL Time Warner, said that the falloff was because none of this year's news had sufficiently " broad appeal" or " emotional tug."

Nonsense.

Don't these folks realize that it is their coverage, their bias, and their slanted news that is leading viewers to turn them off! Fox News, during the same period that caused such clucking by the establishment, had no difficulty adding 200,000 viewers during the news period and many more during prime time.

The Iraq War marked the beginning of the end of network news coverage. Viewers saw the juxtaposition of the embedded correspondents reporting the war as it was actually unfolding and the jaundiced, biased, negative coverage of these same events in the network newsrooms.

While U.S. and British troops advanced without serious opposition and with a minimum of casualties, the media worried loudly about disaster scenarios that never came to pass. The Turks weren't letting our troops through. There would be no two front war! Our supply lines were over-extended! Guerrilla attacks would leave our troops without food or ammo! Saddam would blow up the oil wells and trigger an eco-disaster from which it would take decades to recover! We were being sucked into house-by-house, street-by-street fighting in the capital! We didn't have enough troops! And, when the war was won, the networks and the newspapers fixated on the priceless artifacts that had been looted from the Baghdad Museum!

None of it happened. Now with the embedded correspondents withdrawn, these same networks and news sources tell us we face a quagmire in which we will lose dozens of soldiers each month for years and assure us that President Bush lied when he said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. When the weapons are found and the killing slows or stops, the networks will have moved on to other stories.

The reason people aren't watching network news and are canceling their subscriptions to establishment press organs is that they are fed up with the manipulation and deliberate juggling of the news they see and read each day. An increasingly educated electorate can spot bias with greater acumen and astuteness than ever before.

Nor is the bias just tilting toward the left. The failure of news organs to cover the concerns of the left wing of the Democratic Party has triggered a disenchantment among those voters every bit as deep as on the right. The ability of leftists like Bill Maher and Michael Moore to attract an audience attests to the alienation of the left from the establishment.

Americans are refusing to be spoon fed anyone's idea of the news. They no longer care to dine on the meal served by Rather or Peter Jennings (Tom Brokaw seems to fare better) or by CNN or MSNBC. They want to make their own choices in the marketplace. The Internet lets them do just that and they are voting with their remote controls to turn off the party line they get on the networks.

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Dick Morris is the author of Off With Their Heads: Traitors, Crooks, and Obstructionists in American Politics, Media, and Business.

[myheroesareDeadandRegistered]

".....will not acknowledge their problem until after they have hit "rock bottom,"....."

True, but some folks just go on drink their selves to death. I hope CNN won't make it to rehab. :)

[eggman]

Why are people tuning out the establishment media? I can sum it up in one word...Truth.

People have stopped believing all of the hype coming from the network news. When people see time after time what the liberal media is saying doesn't ring true, they stop listening. All of the negative reports coming from them are being revealed to be nothing but sensationalism and outright lying.

They can be as biased as they want. People will only pay attention if they are believable.

[sauropod]

Fox Rules (esp. Kiran Chetry and Laurie Dhue ;-).

[sauropod]

Reminds me of the blind men and the elephant joke...

[sauropod]

Not a good screen name. Now their heads won;t fit on the forum ;-)

[Bluntpoint]

If ex-president Bush was living apart from ex-first lady bush, do you not think that would be a topic of discussion on ABCNBCCBSCNNMSNBC?

Funny how they have not noticed the Clinton situation.

[.cnI redruM]

I was watching straight Fox ever since it became available in my area. Except to substitute.

[Plutarch]

Once you get used to the likes of Fox News, it becomes jarring to turn to the the likes of CNN/MSNBC/ABC/CBS/NBC, because the liberal bias is so apparent.

This isn't just because Fox News is biased conservative. The proof comes with Tim Russert, who is relatively evenhanded, and is no conservative. If all the news sources were as tough with both liberals and conservatives as Tim Russert we would have much less bias to complain about.

[Cobra64]

I've been watching Dick Morris whack the Clintons for the last two years. He hates the Clintons. Because he was Stainman's political adviser, he has a lot of inside knowledge on Stain.

[eggman]

Also funny how they, just like Hillary claims she did, believed (and continue to believe) all of Bill's lies yet call Bush, acting on the best intelligence information available to do his job and defend the country, a liar.

[Cobra64]

GOOD GRIEF!!! And this is DICK MORRIS saying this??!!!

Yes. Morris did a complete 180 a few years ago. He's been whacking the Clintons for years!

[ggekko]

"None of the major media -- not even Fox News -- meets this criteria for me, but at least Fox makes more of an effort and is much more honest about the distinction between hard news and editorializing in the phony guise of hard news, or between facts and opinions or speculation...."

The editorial board of the NY Times and the editorial staff for the three major networks are so mired in the Georgetown cocktail party circuit that thay lack any perspective outside of east coast liberal politics. Or as writer Joan Didion said after Regan's 1984 landslide "I don't know how Regan won, none of my friends voted for him." .

Bernard Goldberg's book "Bias" gives a sense of how culturally isolated most of the editorial personnel in the "elite" media truly are. The idea that taking the daily DNC talking points from the Fax machine and repackaging it as news is biased would not occur to most of these people.

[Uncle Fud]

How many hours of Kobe, Ben & JLo, high school hazing, Scott and Laci can you show per day and still qualify as "serious news".

Fox has long since crossed that particular threshold, for all that I love the coverage provided by Brit Hume and Tony Snow.

[Timesink]

Bernard Goldberg's book "Bias" gives a sense of how culturally isolated most of the editorial personnel in the "elite" media truly are. The idea that taking the daily DNC talking points from the Fax machine and repackaging it as news is biased would not occur to most of these people.

I've worked in two network news divisions. This is absolutely the truth. Most of them really do think they're being fair, and don't have a clue how slanted their work is. (Which is not to claim there are not sizable numbers of them who know their work is slanted and insert such liberal bias 100% intentionally, because there are.)

[Only1choice____Freedom]

Reminds me of the blind men and the elephant joke...

It's more like the blind leading the deaf.

[gaijin]

marking

[ALOHA RONNIE]

...DICK MORRIS has now twice admitted on the air on...

..'The Judicial Watch Report' Radio Show at..

.. http://www.JudicialWatch.org ..

...that the CLINTONS did refuse 3 Offers to extradite our No. 1 Terrorist Enemy OSAMA bin LADEN from the Sudan to the custody of a U.S. Jail & Trial during the 1990's that would have prevented the Attacks on us all on September 11, 2001.

.. http://www.Newsmax.com ..Columnist & 'HILLARY's Schemes' ..Author CARL LIMBACHER has BILL CLINTON on audio tape admitting early last year to refusing one such OSAMA Offer and HILLARY saying in person to him that there were none made or refused.

...Seems like a great CLINTON conflict for the 911 Investigating Commission to look into under oath for both..?

[KarlInOhio]

He's been whacking the Clintons for years!

In the name of all that is holy, buy a thesaurus and choose a different word than "whacking" when dealing with the Sinkmeister. :-)

[Jen]

Please add me to the ping list. Thanks!

[Cobra64]

In the name of all that is holy, buy a thesaurus and choose a different word than "whacking" when dealing with the Sinkmeister.

LOL. Sorry 'bout that. Ya got a good point.