Liberal media bias: Where it ALL begins
If you want to explore the roots of leftist bias in North Carolina’s mainstream media, look no further than The UNC School of Journalism — which has trained a great number of the granolas you see gracing the pages of your local newspapers.
Well, some of the young skulls-full-of-mush — in the midst of their indoctrination at the J-School — have launched a blog.
I jumped into journalism after working for the late Senator Jesse Helms on Capitol Hill, as well as for some other conservative organizations in the DC area. I put this stuff on my resume when I went looking for reporting jobs. Editors saw this, and counseled me strenuously about making sure I stayed objective — that not a drop of my conservatism made it into my reporting. Fairness and objectivity were the buzzwords they threw at me.
Well, looking at this UNC J-School blog, I can safely say that NOT A DROP of conservatism (nor fairness nor objectivity, for that matter) has made it into their reporting. Let’s check out some of the little proletariats’ work:
- The blog includes a section on the topic of fracking. In that section, there is a man-on-the-street piece done in downtown Chapel Hill. Wow. I can’t imagine what the consensus on that issue was on the main drag of The People’s Republic of Chapel Hill. Another piece in that section is headlined “Fracking Bill heads to Senate Floor despite of 200 person protest.” (They were nice enough to include a photo of said protest.) You get a whole lot of bleeding heart liberalism, and not much input from ACTUAL CREDIBLE scientists or energy industry representatives.
- The kids also tackled the campaign regarding the marriage amendment to the state constitution. That section gave a lot of attention to a self-professed “gay man” who walked 90 miles to Raleigh to deliver a letter protesting the amendment to his legislator. The blog also regurgitates the leftist anti-amendment talking points about possible harm to the business climate, and comparisons to Jim Crow laws of the 1960s.
- One of the little darlings wrote up a screed about the US Senate voting down something called “The PayCheck Fairness Act.” Basically, the Republicans are a bunch of meanies who don’t want girls making as much as boys. (The author was NICE enough to include ONE sentence at the bottom of the post explaining the GOP position on opposing the legislation. )
- The section on education parrots all of the talking points made by leftist activists and Democrat politicians.
And these folks wonder why newspaper circulation and TV news ratings are down. They wonder why more and more people are turning to blogs and other social media to get their information.
Media bias is revealed by the concentration of 90% of mass media under just 6 companies.
I remember in 1988 as a Senior in High School the local reporter for a weekly paper was wearing his Dukakis button getting the election results from the town clerk. The Mayor of the town was a Republican who was just elected a year earlier. I asked him how can you be objective in your reporting. This is local and I am objective. I pointed out that the Chairman of each of the parties in town went as delegates to the National Convention, so that alone puts bias. He just said he was objective. I can assure you he was not. I also always thought that the press was bad in Jersey, but down here they are worse.