Thursday, November 13, 2008

The Washington Post issues a disingenuous 'mea culpa'

I think I made it quite plain during the course of the election cycle that I was thoroughly disgusted with Big Media (the BM for short) and their relentless campaign to see to it that their lord and savior Barack Obama would be elected as our next president. I guess their consciences must be bothering them now that the election is over. The Washington (Com)Post has printed the first of what I believe will be many articles in which the BM admits the obvious.

The Post provided a lot of good campaign coverage, but readers have been consistently critical of the lack of probing issues coverage and what they saw as a tilt toward Democrat Barack Obama. My surveys, which ended on Election Day, show that they are right on both counts.

The op-ed page ran far more laudatory opinion pieces on Obama, 32, than on Sen. John McCain, 13. There were far more negative pieces (58) about McCain than there were about Obama (32), and Obama got the editorial board's endorsement.

Stories and photos about Obama in the news pages outnumbered those devoted to McCain.

McCain clinched the GOP nomination on March 4, and Obama won his on June 4. From then to Election Day, the tally was Obama, 626 stories, and McCain, 584. Obama was on the front page 176 times, McCain, 144 times; 41 stories featured both.

Obama was in 311 Post photos and McCain in 282. Obama led in most categories. Obama led 133 to 121 in pictures more than three columns wide, 178 to 161 in smaller pictures, and 164 to 133 in color photos.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Spare me the numbers. Where's the beef? Where's the admission that (a) you were in the tank for BOH, as your own readers decried?; (b) How many of the overwhelming number of stories on BOH were journalistic fellatio and how many of the stories on McCommie were hatchet jobs?; (c) What about the glaring difference between your handling of Sarah Palin vs. your handling of "Hairplug" Joe Biden? Ah, they're glad I asked.
One gaping hole in coverage involved Joe Biden, Obama's running mate. When Gov. Sarah Palin was nominated for vice president, reporters were booking the next flight to Alaska. Some readers thought The Post went over Palin with a fine-tooth comb and neglected Biden. They are right; it was a serious omission. However, I do not agree with those readers who thought The Post did only hatchet jobs on her. There were several good stories on her, the best on page 1 by Sally Jenkins on how Palin grew up in Alaska.
"Several" good stories on Palin. Uh huh. Don't try to sell that manure to this Vulture. I'm not buying. Your readers are right, again. You set out, like every other organ of the BM, to destroy Sarah Palin, because she doesn't worship at the shrine of abortion and isn't part of the New York-Washington elites club.

As 'mea culpas' go, this one was lame. "We sorta admit we were biased because the numbers are skewed" doesn't go far enough. The truth is the (Com)Post and most other BM fish wrappers weren't "reporting" on the election, they were trying to influence its outcome.

But that's one admission you're not going to get out of anyone in the BM.

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