Here are two excellent articles. I'm sometimes astounded by the degree of media bias that exists. Professional, objective fact-based news indeed...
Media bias can influence what is reported as well as what is not reported. Here are two articles that list what was vastly under-reported by the MSM (Main Stream Media) in 2009.
It's a great topic, fitting for the "big stories of the year/Year in review" type of thing the TV networks used to do around New Year's. I'm just learning what buttons to press, and finding my way around typepad, so bear with me. Here are the top ten, it's worth reading the original articles.
‘Clueless’ Clark Alert: The Top Ten Undernews Stories of the Year, Part IMore from OldHardHead: Safe Schools – The Education Czar10. “Fistgate” Why it’s important: Because Obama’s “Safe Schools Czar,” Kevin Jennings, appears to be the kind of guy parents used to warn their kids about, and his elevation by Obama to a position of national prominence shows how far and how fast the culture has changed. Jennings’s views – alien to most of America, but perfectly normal in his Harvard-educated social circle – are only now beginning to sink in, as his at least tacit approval of teaching various gay sexual practices to children has come to light.
9. Van Jones Why it’s important: Because a self-identified communist, “Free Mumia” radical and 9/11 “Truther” nut became, however briefly, Obama’s “Green Jobs Czar,” a bogus position addressing an imaginary issue that turned out to be just another way to get Hussein’s camel’s nose under the tent in the president’s continuing end-run around the Constitution.
More from OldHardHead: Another Czar in the White House
8. Anti-Americanism as official State Department policy Why it’s important: Because Foggy Bottom – long regarded by sensible policy-makers as “Indian country” – has now fully embraced its inner Kim Philby and has gone completely over to the other side. Yes, an institution so penetrated by enemy operatives that it makes porn star Jenna Jameson look like Bernadette of Lourdes, came down squarely on the side of the mullahs as protesters battled the evil Iranian regime during the recent “elections” and, via its lapdogs at CNN, barked at the Hondurans about an illegal “coup,” as they, perfectly constitutionally, removed a Chavez-wannabe from office and, in an orderly transition, replaced him and then held free elections.
7. The National Endowment for the Propagation of Obama Why it’s important: The White House and the National Endowment for the Arts were recorded during a conference call encouraging pro-Obama arts types to create “art” on the theme of health care (among other issues) at a time when health care reform legislation was heading toward hot-button status. This shameless attempt at propaganda was abruptly halted after the appearance of the story on Big Hollywood, and the revelations led to the resignation of the NEA Communications Director, Yosi Sargent, and the issuance of conduct guidelines by the White House to deal with the “appearance” issues of the call.
‘Clueless’ Clark Alert: The Top Ten Undernews Stories of the Year, Part II
6. Andy Stern and the SEIU Why it’s important: Return with us now to those glorious days of yesteryear, when the labor movement ruled the roost and “collective bargaining” was often negotiated at the point of a gun, one way or the other. It was a time when labor and capital were at each other’s throats, and every right-thinking, soon-to-be-the-parent-of a red diaper baby knew whose side the Engels were on. Because, if your cause is just, it’s OK to beat the crap out of Kenneth Gladney, a conservative African-American selling patriotic gear, and call him a “nigger.” After all, in the ongoing struggle between labor and capital, the ends justify the means, and if a black guy gets in the way of Hope and Change, tough.
5. Hide the Decline: “Climategate” and the CO2 ruling Why it’s important: The unauthorized release in November of 61 megabytes of confidential files and emails hacked from the computers at the East Anglia Climate Research Unit – Ground Zero of the “anthropogenic global warming” racket – shocked nearly all sentient people into the realization that scientists could be just a corruptible as your average politician or, worse, your average “environmental journalists” as they sought to “hide the decline.” While each country’s capo di tutti capi was gathering in Copenhagen to hatch yet another scheme to beggar the industrialized West in the name of collective guilt, the scandal burbled along under the radar as rational people finally had the proof they needed that the Chicken Little alarmists were, well – crowing capons. For years, skeptics had been derided by such barking lunatics as Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., as “deniers” – the word was deliberately loaded to evoke the Holocaust – even as the Man Who Flunked Out of Divinity School did his best to dodge all challenges to his newfound religion:
Meanwhile, with AGW going up in smoke like a fruitless sacrifice to a god that failed, and the Waxman-Markey “cap and trade” extortion bill faltering in Congress, along came the EPA, right on schedule, with its “endangerment finding” that carbon dioxide – you know, the stuff you breathe out when you exhale, and the same stuff that makes the good green plants happy, healthy and wise – is, of all things, a “pollutant.” Still, the news for the Karbon Krazies just keeps on getting worse.
How could the media miss this story? (I think they are they complicit, and that's my opinion.)
More from OldHardHead: Climategate Gateway
4. Death Panels Why it’s important: Because Sarah Palin, the woman who rules the world from her secret redoubt somewhere in the bowels of Facebook, said it. What else do you need to know? In one pithy phrase, the Woman Who Drives the Left Nuts drove them nuts yet again by summing up all that is wrong and monstrous about Obamacare.
3. The “Army Psychiatrist” and other Muslim plots against America. Why it’s important: Because, eight years after 9/11, the ongoing jihad against our country continues, whether we want to recognize it or not. And yet, whenever there is an incident, the authorities, led by the FBI, immediately assure us that “there’s no evidence” it has anything to do with terrorism, and then slowly have to back away from their politically correct stupidity. Recall the “Beltway sniper,” John Allen Muhammad, who recently met his Maker at the hands of the people of Virginia for murdering ten people in the Washington, D.C., area in 2002. Or Najibullah Zazi, the “Denver man” who turned out to be an al-Qaeda-trained Afghan terrorist who wanted to blow up the New York City subways. And then, in a class by himself, is Nidal Malik Hasan, the “Soldier of Allah” who (allegedly) shot and killed 13 real American soldiers last month at the Fort Hood army base in Texas. And what was the MSM’s first reaction? Why to describe him as an “Army psychiatrist,” of course! Here’s the Christian Science Monitor’s take: note the scrupulous omission of the “M-word”:
2. ACORN Why it’s important: Let’s let Hannah Giles, who played the “prostitute” in the now-famous videos, explain:Back in early September ACORN, one of the most established community organizing groups in the United States, found itself involved in an undercover video scandal involving a pimp, a prostitute, tax fraud, the smuggling of underage girls from El Salvador and a brothel used to fund a congressional campaign. Within days of releasing footage of ACORN employees assisting the pimp and prostitute with their business plans, the Census declared it was severing all ties with ACORN. The Senate voted 83-7 in favor of de-funding the controversial group. The House voted 345-75 to cut ACORN’s funding, and more than 20 states have demanded either a full investigation of ACORN or that they lose their funding. The IRS also ended up cutting their connections to the group.
More from OldHardHead: I thought ACORNs were nuts!
More from OldHardHead: Holder, ACORN, and InJustice
More from OldHardHead: ACORN – Nuts Crack Don’t They?
More from OldHardHead: ACORNs are Nuts
Media demise
1. It’s the End of the Media as We Know It And We Feel Fine It’s only fitting that the last word goes to Andrew Breitbart:Why it’s important: The absolute admission by the reigning media class that they are not objective journalists and earnest gumshoe reporters is cause for celebration. The cabal that made sure George W. Bush became a toxic name to the body politic had even greater plans in 2008 when it offered up one-term senator and former Punahou School benchwarmer, Barack Obama, as the candidate of the millennium. Now that the deed is done, multiple scandals that would have felled mere-mortal presidents have gone completely unreported. Who needs Teflon when it’s not you who’s frying in the pan? Problem for the ostriches, however: the undermedia — the Internet, social networking, talk radio — has grown to become a formidable checks and balances for the traditional media. The current paradigm bodes ill for those rooting for ABC, NBC, CBS, The New York Times, Time Magazine, et al. As their readership and viewership plunges with every missed megastory, so do those eyeballs transfer to the more reliable and democratic new media now being fueled by citizen journalists testing their abilities in groundbreaking investigative journalism.
http://is.gd/5xvbp
Thanks for viewing!
