<http://doctorbulldog.wordpress.com/2010/07/22/journolist-emails-convince-fr
ed-barnes-that-yes-there-is-a-vast-left-wing-media-conspiracy/> JournoList
Emails Convince Fred Barnes that, Yes, there is a Vast Left-Wing Media
Conspiracy
<http://doctorbulldog.wordpress.com/author/doctorbulldog/> doctorbulldog |
22 July, 2010 at 8:21 am | Categories:
<http://doctorbulldog.wordpress.com/category/abuse-of-power/> Abuse of
Power, <http://doctorbulldog.wordpress.com/category/media-bias/> Media
Bias, <http://doctorbulldog.wordpress.com/category/obama-sucks/> Obama
Sucks, <http://doctorbulldog.wordpress.com/category/politics/> politics |
URL: <http://wp.me/p1NPg-6jP> http://wp.me/p1NPg-6jP
We didn't need the JournoList emails to tell us that the Lefturds were
running the show and dishing out the talking points. After all, for years
Rush Limbaugh has been playing clips of supposedly unaffiliated news outlets
all over America using the exact same words and phrases when slamming
Conservatives and the Right Wing. However, having a hunch is one thing, but
having the actual proof, as provided by the JournoList emails, is a
slam-dunk in any court of law.
Now that JournoList has been shut down, don't expect things to change. I
hear that the Lame Stream Media has already set up a JournoList 2.0 which
will be even harder for Conservatives to infiltrate:
<http://doctorbulldog.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/press-clubhouse.jpg>
The Vast Left-Wing Media Conspiracy
Everyone knew most of the press corps was hoping for Obama in 2008. Newly
released emails show that hundreds of them were actively working to promote
him.
By FRED BARNES -
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704684604575381083191313448.h
tml#printMode> The Wall Street Journal
When I'm talking to people from outside Washington, one question inevitably
comes up: Why is the media so liberal? The question often reflects a
suspicion that members of the press get together and decide on a story line
that favors liberals and Democrats and denigrates conservatives and
Republicans.
My response has usually been to say, yes, there's liberal bias in the media,
but there's no conspiracy. The liberal tilt is an accident of nature. The
media disproportionately attracts people from a liberal arts background who
tend, quite innocently, to be politically liberal. If they came from West
Point or engineering school, this wouldn't be the case.
Now, after learning I'd been targeted for a smear attack by a member of an
online clique of liberal journalists, I'm inclined to amend my response. Not
to say there's a media conspiracy, but at least to note that hundreds of
journalists have gotten together, on an online listserv called JournoList,
to promote liberalism and liberal politicians at the expense of traditional
journalism.
My guess is that this and other revelations about JournoList will deepen the
distrust of the national press. True, participants in the online clubhouse
appear to hail chiefly from the media's self-identified left wing. But its
founder, Ezra Klein, is a prominent writer for the Washington Post. Mr.
Klein shut down JournoList last month-a wise decision.
It's thanks to <http://dailycaller.com/> Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller
website that we know something about JournoList, though the emails among the
liberal journalists were meant to be private. (Mr. Carlson hasn't revealed
how he obtained the emails.) In June, the Daily Caller disclosed a series of
JournoList musings by David Weigel, then a Washington Post blogger assigned
to cover conservatives. His emails showed he loathes conservatives, and he
was subsequently fired.
This week, Mr. Carlson produced a series of JournoList emails from April
2008, when Barack Obama's presidential bid was in serious jeopardy. Videos
of the antiwhite, anti-American sermons of his Chicago pastor, the Rev.
Jeremiah Wright, had surfaced, first on ABC and then other networks.
JournoList contributors discussed strategies to aid Mr. Obama by deflecting
the controversy. They went public with a letter criticizing an ABC interview
of Mr. Obama that dwelled on his association with Mr. Wright. Then, Spencer
Ackerman of The Washington Independent proposed attacking Mr. Obama's
critics as racists. He wrote:
"If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no
matter what we choose, we lose the game they've put upon us. Instead, take
one of them-Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares-and call them racists. . . .
This makes them 'sputter' with rage, which in turn leads to overreaction and
self-destruction."
No one on JournoList endorsed the Ackerman plan. But rather than object on
ethical grounds, they voiced concern that the strategy would fail or
possibly backfire.
Among journalists in general, there's always been a herd instinct. Eugene
McCarthy, the Minnesota senator and Democratic presidential candidate, once
described political writers as birds on a telephone wire. When one bird flew
to the wire across the street, they all did. In Mr. Ackerman's case, I'm
glad none of the birds joined him across the street.
We've often seen media groupthink in campaigns. In 1980, most of the media
decided that President Jimmy Carter was being mean-spirited in his
re-election effort with his harsh denunciations of Ronald Reagan, his
Republican opponent. The media turned the meanness issue into major story.
In 1992, journalists treated the economy as if it were dead in the water,
though a recovery from a mild recession had begun early the previous year. I
could go on.
I think JournoList is-or was-fundamentally different, and not simply because
one of its members proposed to make palpably false accusations. As best I
can tell, those involved in JournoList considered themselves part of a team.
And their goal was to make sure the team won. In 2008, this was Mr. Obama's
team. More recently, the goal seems to have been to defeat the conservative
team.
Until JournoList came along, liberal journalists were rarely part of a team.
Neither are conservative journalists today, so far as I know. If there's a
team, no one has asked me to join. As a conservative, I normally write more
favorably about Republicans than Democrats and I routinely treat
conservative ideas as superior to liberal ones. But I've never been part of
a discussion with conservative writers about how we could most help the
Republican or the conservative team.
My experience with other conservative journalists is that they are loners.
One of the most famous conservative columnists of the past half-century, the
late Robert Novak, is a good example. I knew him well for 35 years. He
didn't tell me what stories he was working on nor ask what I was planning to
write. He never mentioned how we might promote Republicans or aid the
conservative cause, nor did I.
What was particularly pathetic about the scheme to smear Mr. Obama's critics
was labeling them as racists. The accusation has been made so frequently in
recent years, without evidence to back it up, that it has little effect.
It's now the last refuge of liberal scoundrels.
The first call I got after the Daily Caller unearthed the emails involving
me was from Karl Rove. He said he wanted to talk to his "fellow racist." We
laughed about this. But the whole episode was also sad. I didn't sputter at
the thought of being called a racist. But it was sad to see what journalism,
or at least a segment of it, had come to.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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