The Last Word On The Liberal Media (For Now)

First of all, thank you my friends for your help regarding the firefighters efforts in Southern California. Sadly, it seems to take a tragedy for us to understand what a great country and what great countrymen we really have. This is a spirit we all need to try to embody daily. As my good friend Chris would say, it’s the Red Hog way.

Secondly, thank you for reading what I know have been somewhat long postings the last few days. I feel that this is an important subject, and there is SO MUCH data out there, that it is difficult for me to gloss over this stuff. While I will continue to hit on this subject in the future, I will stay away from the week-long series.

Recently I have discussed the liberal bias in the reporting of the homeless and the spread of AIDS. These are very serious and important issues, and I hope that I have shown how the left, in an honest effort to do a social justice, potentially end up doing more harm than good. For example, by focusing on educating and “saving” heterosexuals from AIDS, how many gay people lost their lives to this disease because the media focused on the wrong group.

Tonight I want to discuss the way the media reports on race. About 10 years ago President Clinton called for a “national dialogue on race.” As far as I can see, this never materialized, and personally I think it’s because of white guilt, and the fear of saying the wrong thing. Say the wrong thing these days, and you’re labeled a racist. Once that label sticks, anything else you have to say has no value.

Please know that in no way am I saying racism doesn’t exist. It does, and some of it is very, very ugly. The thing is, I don’t think that as a nation we have learned to separate “racial” from “racist”. “Racial” is when you make a remark based on race or generally based on a stereotype. Often, these kinds of remarks are based on ignorance, not malice. A “racist” remark is one which is meant to hurt or discriminate.

For example, the other night Halle Berry was on Jay Leno’s show. I didn’t see it, but apparently they were doing a bit where they were showing pictures of Berry that had been altered to accentuate certain features in a comical way. Apparently there was a picture that accentuated her nose, and she commented that “This is like my Jewish cousin.” Was this a mean-spirited comment meant to “get” the Jewish people. Of course not. Was it an ignorant comment? Probably, and to her credit Ms. Berry did apologize. However, read some of the blogs on this comment, and you would think that Berry called for all Jews to be put on an island and then for the island to be bombed.

When Don Imus called the Rutgers Women’s Basketball team “nappy headed ho’s”, was that racist? Well, that’s a little tougher. It was a horrible comment, and if that’s all you know of Imus, I’d probably say yeah, it’s racist. But if you had listened to Don Imus for a long time, you would probably know that Imus is not a racist. Should there have been punishment for that comment? Yeah, I think there should have. Should he have been fired? Whose to say – I say it’s overkill.

Interestingly enough, for the first eleven weeks of the Gary Condit/Chandra Levy story, Dan Rather refused to allow CBS news to report the story, claiming to take the “high ground” on the story. When the pressure from the brass finally got to much, and CBS was forced to join this particular media circus, Rather explained on the VERY SAME Don Imus program why he finally caved in and aired a report on the story: “What happened was they (CBS management) got the willies, they got the Buckwheats. Their knees wobbled and we gave it up.

“The Buckwheats”? For those of you who don’t know, Buckwheat was the timid black child on the “Our Gang” films. And the call for Rather’s head was ….. Oh wait, that never happened. But you can bet that if the phrase “they got the Buckwheats” tumbled out of Rush Limbaugh’s mouth, the elite media may have taken notice.

Like I said, there is still some very ugly racism in this country, and it needs to be reported on. Actually, racism is “sexy” to the mainstream media, and it usually does get reported on. And while the media is timid to take on racism from the left, such as when Jesse Jackson refers to New York as “Hymietown” or Al Sharpton refers to Jews as “Diamond Merchants” , in their rush to report on white on black (or brown, or…) racism, especially if a conservative is involved, they sometimes get it wrong. Take for example the “Jena Six” . When I first heard about this, it reeked of racism to me. It had all the “sexiness” that the media looks for, even Jesse and Al.

Now I’ve always considered anything that Jesse and Al were involved in is probably being misreported, and I have a lot of data to back that one up. But this one, Jena Six, looked to be exactly what it was being reported as, and it looked like justice was not being served. But before you make up your mind on that one, I want you to go to the following website: http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1024/p09s01-coop.html

This link is to a story by Craig Franklin titled “Media Myths about the Jena 6”. Now you can find reporting on both sides of ANY story. You can find pro-Bush reporting, and anti-Bush reporting, some of which (on each side) is straight reporting, some of it agenda-driven reporting. When I first saw this headline, I thought this was part of the latter. However, what gives this story some credibility, is that Craig Franklin actually LIVES in Jena, LA., and he is the only reporter to cover this story from the beginning.

None of this means that Mr. Franklins accusations in his story are true or not, but like I said, given his position, he has credibility. But don’t look for any of Mr. Franklin’s claims to be debated in the mainstream press, because to do so would be to admit that THEIR reporting was flawed.

In 1995 the state of Alabama resurrected the old chain gang, where prisoners were chained together and put in the fields to perform backbreaking labor while guards with shotguns watched over them. CBS sent a news team to cover this and to talk to Alabama Governor Fob James, who was a huge supporter of the idea.

Producer Larry Doyle oversaw the videotaping and reporting, edited the piece and turned it over to the senior producers at CBS news. They were concerned because all but one of the prisoners shown were black. Doyle was asked if this was a fair portrayal of the prisoners, and Doyle informed them that there were 20 men on the chain gang (reserved for repeat offenders and troublemakers), 19 of whom were black.

“Well, be more careful next time” Doyle’s senior producer Al Berman told him. “We don’t want to give the impression that the only prisoners down there are black.” He told him to get more pictures of white prisoners next time.

Al Berman isn’t a bad man, he’s just trying to be compassionate. But why does Berman choose to show his compassion by featuring more white faces and few blacks? Wouldn’t a REAL compassionate person ask if Alabama was unfairly rounding up Black Men? Are authorities labeling black prisoners as “troublemakers” to funnel them on to the chain gang? Are whites arrested for the same crimes convicted at an equal ratio? These are all very legitimate questions. Did CBS ask them or report on them? No. Why? Such a story would be hard, time-consuming, and expensive. Reporting on “Cons in Chains” is quick and fast.

Later that year CBS also sent Larry Doyle to St. Thomas to report on Hurricane Marilyn. During the report there had been looting, and Doyle and his crew happened to be there when police rounded up some looters and hauled them off to jail. The problem, according to CBS, was that all of the looters were black, and ultimately CBS did run the story, but without the video of the Looters being arrested. Yes, showing only blacks being arrested could be viewed as “presenting” an opinion that all looters are black, but what CBS didn’t take into account was that, yes, while all of the looters were black, so were the cops that were arresting them, and so was 95% of the island.

Once CBS refused to air a story because they referred to a victim – not the criminal, but the victim - as “black”. CBS told the producer to change the script to “African-American”. The problem was, the man was from Jamaica, he wasn’t an anything-American. “Change it to “African-American, or the story doesn’t get on the air.

Minorities in this country have suffered and continue to suffer some incredible racism, and in the end they are often getting sympathy, but no one is really addressing the REAL issues and asking the hard questions. The Liberal media distort the images not to ease the pain of oppressed black, Hispanic or other minorities, but to ease there own pain, to make themselves feel less guilty, and most important, to prove how good and caring THEY are.

Shame on them!