That’s true, as long as the media outlet does not cut up the speech and seamlesly splice phrase together his words into a new order! The BBC just got caught doing just this with Obama’s inaugural address.

BBC admitted to us, a media ethics site, StinkyJournalism dot org, that they made a “montage” of Obama’s words on the environment. The problem was not all the words were even about the green policy (one was, in fact on health). Moreover, splicing words together Obama’s words without disclosure as if it were “magnetic poetry” is just plain wrong.

BBC thus far refuses to acknowledge their error. Read more at http://www.stinkyjournalism.org/latest-journalism-news-updates-143.php#comment

This was futile, because elections are far less about the so-called ‘swing’ voters than they are about turnout. The Democrats were motivated in both the last two elections, their voters came out, while many in the GOP voting ranks were angry and disgusted at their own party over a variety of issues.

In 2008, Barak Obama elevated black turnout, while John McCain insisted on replaying Bob Dole’s 1996 campaign, same themes, same fundamental assumptions, and he got essentially the same results.

McCain was so ineffective a candidate that he actually managed to lose States in what should have been the GOP heartland, while gaining nothing in the northeast, where he and his fellows had wild hopes of gains.

The GOP is not nearly as ‘damaged’ as the MsM is portraying, they could easily make a major comeback in 2010…but only if they take a hard look at their own voters, and listen carefully to what THEY are saying, and respond.

For example, no matter the merits of the matter as a policy issue, the GOP base is implacably opposed to the idea of a ‘comprehensive amnesty’. Their reasons are cogent and straightforward, it’s no use trying to dismiss them as closet racism, and the effort to do so is poisonous. The Bush/McCain/Kennedy immigration efforts in 2006 and 2007 did the GOP more political damage than the Iraq War and Hurrican Katrina combined. Yet the GOP leadership seems utterly blind to this.

Just read the link from Glen about the Star Tribune Bankruptcy. How bad was the business?

“Like most newspapers, the Star Tribune has experienced a sharp decline in print advertising. Its earnings before interest, taxes and debt payments were about $26 million in 2008, down from about $59 million in 2007 and $115 million in 2004.”

Do they get it? What do you think after reading their statement?

“Chris Harte, the paper’s publisher, said the filing would have no impact on home delivery, advertising, newsgathering or any other aspects of the paper’s operations.”

Nope they still don’t.

And yet…

My first inkling that this argument may be wishful thinking on my part was the mid-term elections 2 years ago. My second was the presidential election 2 months ago. What happened?

The MSM still defined the story. I had thought that people were smart enough to not get their information from those fools: that other information sources ended the monopoly on information that the MSM has enjoyed for, say, the last 60 years. But I think I was kidding myself. The number of people that get their information off the internet (that form their worldview off of that information) is, unfortunately, still very very small. The vast majority form their worldviews from the MSM-maybe not from CBS news, but from the whole media-which includes the big three, and CNN, and Jon Stewart, and E! entertainment, and the Golden Globes ceremony, etc etc.

I had thought polls weren’t capturing the real views of alot of people-the ones that don’t answer unsolicited calls, the ones that don’t trust polling, yada yada. I was wrong. The polls were basically dead on in the last two elections. The populace, widely defined, is still shaped by the mainstream (even if not specifically by Catie Couric). The polls can still capture the views of the country as a whole.

And that means the stranglehold on information hasn’t been broken. Just because a few of us surf the internet for our worldview, and choose to surf the out of the mainstream sites (instead of E! online, or CNN on line, and so on) doesn’t mean the country as a whole does.

I wish I was wrong.

Sk

This is the essence of the primary problem with journalism in America. Journalism schools (silly concept, that) and the people in the trade teach and believe that they are capable of unbiased reporting– that there is such a thing. They ignore the gatekeeper problem of what news gets reported, and they tend not to notice the echo chamber they’re in, and they don’t believe in the sampling error created by the type of politics that leads students to pursue journalism.

This silly notion of lack of bias is a modern, particularly American one. We must kill it.

Blogs are opinion pieces for sure, but facts are so easily cross checked. Right then, right now if I want. Depend on a newspaper or television for your information and what you get is what you get.