Monday, October 29, 2007

What Leftwing Bias in News has brought us.

During the Reagan years conservative's frustration over bias news coverage was teeth gritting. Reagan learned to bypass the media and speak directly to the people, but most politicians don't have the savvy Reagan had. But it wasn't just politics. The media drove all of us who are conservative nearly batty with their spin and nonobjective reporting in the 80's and the 90's.

Rush Limbaugh was our lone source for the "other side" to any story. Which is why Rush became the phenomenon that he is now.

With the onset of cable news we found Fox News. Fox promised us "fair and balanced." We on the right were thrilled to have both sides of the story represented. The opinion shows are decidely to the right and that was nice too, since we had had to listen to network news pretend to be unbiased, and in reality be completely biased to the left.

But what I see now is beginning to bother me. It bothers me that Fox News has become exclusively leaning to the right and CNN has become exclusively leaning to the left. I fear we will become completely divided in our news. With half the country hearing the left spin and half hearing the right spin.

The network news still is biased against conservatism, but with the new media and cable and radio we are better able to offer the other side as well.

What we need, and what we should expect from reporters, journalists, and news organizations are the facts and the truth. If there are two sides, then show those two sides. Every single time.

It seems to me that journalistic integrity is a thing of the past. Reporters are more interested in putting their own personal agendas forward than just reporting the story.

The difference in Fox News is that with people like Hannity or O'Reilly, you know where they are coming from. They make it clear what their political leanings are. You can take their shows for what they are, their opinions from a more conservative view. Dan Rather is the poster boy for what drove us all crazy. Newsmen/women hiding who they are. He, like the other network anchors, pretended (and pretend) to be unbiased, when in reality they were/are putting their own leftwing spin on the news.

People were sick of it, which is why Fox News is so popular.

But we are divided enough as a nation. We don't need our news to be.

What can be done about it? You tell me.