Media Bias and the Democratic Primaries

It wasn't until Senator Obama won the Iowa caucuses that the media began to take him seriously, and gave him more than a snowball's chance at winning his party's nomination. A chink had been found in Hillary's armor of "inevitability," and only then did the mainstream even start to consider that she might not win the nomination, and really give her the examination she had theretofore avoided.

Perhaps that is the reason for the claims of media bias. When something previously to your benefit swings to a more neutral stance, of course it seems biased against you.

The claims of media bias are present in my articles before Iowa. They were so prevalent that MSNBC required Chris Matthews to make an apology, and it has changed the way he has treated Hillary Clinton. One can listen even today to the media and their comments are continually biased.

This had nothing to do with Iowa. It had everything to do with the objectives of the press in fighting against another Clinton. Many of the old guard had institutionally developed a bias against the Clintons because they sold copy. And because they hated them.

So they ginned up stories in the 1990s, and worked on this again beginning in 2006. Real Dowd on NYT. Read almost any article on the Clintons since the race began. Most are not truthful or laudatory. Then read all on Obama. From the Rezko affair to many others, none were pursued. Racism claims were regularly repeated. And entire "disenfranchisement" argument against th Clintons was made up from whole cloth.

There is so much more. Perhaps you missed these many articles. My experience is that we do not see or listen to contrary positions. I do so much more today in large part due to Newsvine. It has made me a better listener. For that and many other reasons, I believe in Newsvine. And I certainly do not believe that the media or the Democratic establishment have ever been biased in favor of the Clintons.

Your comment about Gravel is exactly what I mean. The fact is that MOST people still rely exclusively on TV and newspapers to tell them: 1) who is running 2) who has a chance to win 3) where those candidates stand on issues 4) if there's any dirt on any of the candidates that are running.

I think it's really important for us as CITIZENS to start researching ALL the candidates on our own.

I don't think that Kucinich's positions were really all that far from mainstream thought or desire on the part of the public. The issue is that his message was so hidden by the mainstream media that no one knew what his positions were unless they bothered to research for themselves and learn about the candidates positions. I don't bother too much with the mainstream news anymore, but the few times I check in, I have heard hardly a word about what the candidates stand on issues really is but rather what their political strategy is or should be in order to win this state or that. That is simply unacceptable.

I'd like to know who reading this blog is aware of Gravel's background at this point?

Do you all know that he:

1) was singularly responsible for ending the draft during Vietnam with a one-man 50 day fillibuster?
2) read the Pentagon Papers into the senate record so the people would have access to them?
3) was responsible for nearly every environmental law passed in the 70's?

We need to end the media repression of candidates that truly represent us.

I'm a Gravel fan as well.

He's a wonderful example of how far to the right this country has gone, and especially his home state of Alaska, where everybody gets an annual check from oil companies.

The system gives us choice between tweedle dee and dumb. The issues are removed from the public's mind as more and more of the person is shredded by the entertainment driven scandal sheets.

We have a country of 8 second sound byte, fashion driven, TV brainwashed, passive aggressivists, democracy means vote once every two years, living in the Matrix zombies.

The real issues need years of re-education for most citizens who have know conception of the larger world other than as it is painted on TV.

We all should have jumped off with Cliff, but then we should have landed with a new system of parties that could really evolve into representing us rather than the corporate machine.

Did they do enough damage or should we rub their nose in a full scale dictatorship?

I had the pleasure of living in a dictatorship in Taiwan 35 years ago.

We are just a few months from letting the system continue on with its big plan.

It doesn't matter who they vote for. They are all now corporate shills.