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WELL, YES….I DID SUGGEST THAT THE MEDIA IS BIASED TO THE LEFT IN THE LAST ENTRY…...

And, I’m sure that SOMEONE out there is screaming at the screen, wanting to know where the evidence is!! After all, if you listen to enough NPR, you’re going to hear someone being interviewed who expresses the opinion that the media are all in the hands of big corporate conservatives, and the liberal side of the political spectrum just can’t get its message out. They refer, of course, to The Big Guy and his cohorts on the most popular talk shows in America, failing to note that every one of these is a commercial enterprise, dependent on pleasing the customers, and not sucking up government money or annoying its listeners with Pledge Weeks, like SOME networks we might mention….... My point was about the NEWS outlets of the Main Stream Media - radio, TV, newspaper, newsmagazine, etc.

And…....there is evidence for my thesis, actually.

How many angry soap opera fans are there in the U.S. today, October 28, 2005? Plenty, I’d imagine, because it’s being reported that all three networks broke into their broadcasts to air the announcement of Scooter Libby’s indictment “live”.....

But, surely that’s standard operating procedure when someone important is indicted by a Federal Grand Jury seated by a Special Prosecutor…...? You’d think so, wouldn’t you? However, Scooter Libby is an aide to the Vice President. An important position, surely, but if he gets live coverage from all three networks, what do you suppose a Cabinet Officer deserves…...?

Luckily, we don’t have to guess—go back one administration, and you will be treated to the spectacle of not one, but TWO, Cabinet Officials being indicted. And what do we find the news coverage was…...? Well, perhaps you can guess. Scooter got VERY special treatment, indeed. Apparently, his indictment was much more newsworthy than the Agriculture Secretary’s, or even than the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development’s.

In September 1997, we reported in Media Watch that when former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy was indicted on 39 counts, the networks aired a single evening news story. Three of the four networks—ABC, CNN, and NBC—underlined that the Smaltz inquiry had so far cost $9 million. None of them noted civil penalties originating from targets of Smaltz’s inquiry amounted to more than $3.5 million. The next morning, CBS’s morning show, called CBS This Morning, didn’t even mention Espy’s indictment. Months later, I noted in a Media Reality Check that on December 11, former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros was indicted on 18 counts for misleading the FBI about payoffs to a mistress, Linda Medlar. NBC Nightly News filed one story; ABC’s World News Tonight gave it 18 seconds. CBS Evening News didn’t arrive on the story until the next night, and gave it nine seconds, a fraction of the two minutes Dan Rather gave the nightly El Nino update, about the weather “giving a gentle lift to the monarch butterfly.” The morning shows were worse: NBC’s Today passed on two anchor briefs, and ABC’s Good Morning America and CBS This Morning ignored it….The news magazines weren’t any better in their December 22 editions: the Cisneros indictment drew 29 words in Time, two paragraphs in U.S. News & World Report, and a hero-brought-low story on page 70 in Newsweek headlined “A Star’s Fall from Grace.” Remember that both Time and Newsweek had Rove-in-trouble cover stories this summer.

Even more delicious, NPR pundits actually weighed in on the indictments:

“When you look at the charges, you can’t help but characterize them, if you see normal indictments how should I put this euphemistically slightly chicken-turdish. The amounts really are small, they are inflated. He may have been a real scuzzball soliciting tickets and plane rides for his girlfriend, but really, this is not the kind of thing we should have independent counsels doing. We ought to let the Justice Department do it.”
—National Public Radio reporter Nina Totenberg, August 30 Inside Washington.

“I’m sure he probably thought it was penny-ante stuff and that nobody would pay that much attention and was confident that none of these gifts, football tickets in the skybox, something else here, plane trips and that kind of thing, was enough to corrupt him because he was confident in his own character. I know Mike Espy and I know he is a man of character. I think this is a case of a very bright, good man having done some stupid things. He is not corrupt.”
—Gannett News Service reporter Deborah Mathis, same show.

So, Espy’s accepting gratuties and then not telling the FBI is penny-ante stuff because he’s just not that kind of guy….... But, Scooter Libby may go to JAIL…..just like Martha Stewart, and for the same kind of reasons—saying different things at different times to some official. In Martha’s case, she told the FBI officer she was innocent - about a stock deal for which she was never tried or convicted. She served time in prison for saying things allegedly untrue, but the underlying events never went to court and got adjudicated. Much as I don’t like Martha Stewart - this is a bit closer to tyranny than I like to be.

Scooter Libby is now in the same boat…..he’s alleged to have broken the law by tipping off a reporter (or someone) that Valerie Plame was an undercover CIA agent, in order to “punish” her husband, who did something the Bush Administration didn’t like. Yet, there has never been (and I’m betting there never will be) a trial on the issue of whether Scooter Libby ever actually did that!! The current charges are all about how he answered questions about what he said to whom. They’ve charged him with making false statements, and with perjury, and with obstruction of justice—but so far, there isn’t a finding that a crime was every committed!

If I worked for anyone the media deems “conservative” these days, I’d get me a lawyer EVERY time anyone remotely related to law enforcement asked me anything more serious than “Do you want fries with that?”

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/28 at 02:07 PM

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