Waldman Says Press Gives Bush a Free Ride

[deek]

Conservatives have long complained about the media's "liberal bias." Increasingly, liberals claim that much of the media actually tilts right. Whatever the truth, political and media analyst Paul Waldman declares a fundamental difference: liberals in the media tend to at least pursue objectivity while conservatives rarely bother. And President Bush (news - web sites), he told E&P, effectively exploits this gap. "Most reporters who are liberal," he said, "will bend over backwards to prove that their work is not biased."



In fact, Waldman's new book, "Fraud: The Strategy Behind the Bush Lies and Why the Media Didn't Tell You," published by Sourcebooks Inc. on Thursday, was inspired, he said, by e-mails he sent (as early as 2000) to friends and family asserting that the media was letting Bush get away with so much.


Waldman, the former associate director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, now works as executive editor for The Gadflyer (gadflyer.com), a politically progressive Web magazine which will make its debut in March. He left Annenberg earlier this year because he felt it was "inappropriate for me to be there" considering the large amounts of non-partisan scholarly work he did for the center, as well as his wish to focus more on The Gadflyer.

<snip>
"I'm not trying to bash the press," Waldman added, especially when he takes into account deadline pressure. But to him, "What looks like objectivity is giving him the path to lie."


--Sonya Moore


It's a Yahoo News article--you know what to do......
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ep/waldmansayspressgivesbushafreeride

[papau]

1. I thought there was a non-paycheck reason - but now I'm convinced whoring

for the right wing of the GOP is just the easiest path to get to the end of the work day.

[dennis4868]

2. I started reading the book last night

I started reading the book last night any stayed up until 1am until I could not longer keep my eyes open....not because it was not a good book....I was tired!

I posted about this book in the GD Room....here is what I had to say about it.

I have never heard of Waldman before. Never seen him on any of the Cable shows. There is good reason for that....he is liberal and backs his point up with facts so why would the corporate media put him on TV, right?

Basically the theme of the book is one we have been preaching for a long time here at DU. That is, Bush lies time and time again and the media gives him a pass on it. He starts with the 2000 Election comparing Gore's statements that were twisted and turned around by the media to make it a lie and Bush who flat out lied (i.e., Bush saying during the election that he pushed for a Patients Bill of Rights in Texas) and the media gave him a pass. And then he starts in with Bush policies as President compared to what he says in public during photo oportunities. He also gives a good history of Bush crimes while at Harkin and how his father stopped the SEC from investigating him....whereas the tax payers spent 70 million dollars investigating Clinton and a 30 year old land deal.

Waldman says that if the media did its job during the 2000 Election and asked Bush the tough questions, we would not be in the mess we are in today. He also copmpares the media coverage of Clinton's military history to Bush's....what a joke!

There is much more to the book. I am 2/3 of the way through it. It feels good knowing that there are other people out there who know the truth about Bush and are not afarid to speak out about it.

I highly reccomend this book.

[mrdmk]

3. The Right Wing has been working on this for a while

Here are a couple of links to the same story:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0116-11.htm

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/departments/newsroom/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=2071018

This next link is a site about to be started up.

http://gadflyer.com/

A link to the book in a previous post

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1402202520/commondreams-20/102-9895024-0535360


We all know the media is giving Mr. Bush Jr. a pass on his uprising to the presidency and to the presidency itself along with his staff a Republicans in general. This is because of the media laws that were passed during the Clinton years with the Republican congress. A major problem from this era, which we all know, is Clear Channel Communications. We need to repeal these 1996 FCC laws and reinstate Federal Funding for PBS. Another words get the corporate manipulation out of the information process. Next will be the internet, just watch!