I am no fan of Jon Stewart, but he certainly nailed it Monday night on his show.
I have long been a critic of the media, especially how they irresponsibly cover presidential elections. Media outlets certainly do not cover each candidate equally or even fairly. Oftentimes, a candidate is a front-runner simply because the media say that candidate is a front-runner.
While certainly the Framers believed in free speech, they certainly did not expect the media to act as some de facto vetting committee.
The case of Ron Paul is the perfect example, as Stewart deftly demonstrates in this hilarious video. Paul is the only candidate telling the truth about our fiscal crisis. He is the only candidate telling the truth about our military adventurism. And Paul has a very large following. Yet, the media blatantly ignore him because his libertarian views are beyond their ability to comprehend.
Along these same lines, an outfit called Public Policy Polling sent out a news release Tuesday concerning a presidential poll it took in Ohio. According to the company:
Obama’s pretty unpopular. But consider these favorability numbers for the Republican alternatives: Mitt Romney, 30% favorable/49% unfavorable, Rick Perry, 28% favorable/37% unfavorable, Michele Bachmann, 30% favorable/49% unfavorable, Sarah Palin, 34% favorable/59% unfavorable, and Herman Cain, 22% favorable/35% unfavorable.
Obama’s net approval is a -8 spread. Every Republican’s net favorability is even worse than that. Ohio voters don’t like Obama. They like the GOP Presidential field even less. So at least for now Obama’s up 2 points on Romney at 45-43, 4 points on Perry at 45-41, 7 points on Bachmann at 48-41, 8 points on Cain at 47-39, and 13 points on Palin at 51-38.
Can you spot who is missing from its analysis? Even Sarah Palin, who is not an announced candidate, was considered. Yet, Ron Paul, who took second place in the Iowa Straw Poll, is not even listed. Why is that?
Fortunately, the Internet is slowly but surely making inroads against this media hegomony. Twenty years ago, we would not even know Ron Paul’s name. Today, Paul has built his following using the Internet to bypass the Ron Paul media blackout. If the media do not change their ways, the 2012 election will likely be their last as the predominant source of election coverage for most Americans.
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Sadly, I thought MSM would be largely bypassed by Republicans after 2008 (Paul was similarly neglected in 2008 and look where the media punditry led the Republican ticket).
Apparently four years is long enough for the general populace to forget whatever they learned last time around…
Jon Stewart nailed it. That was awesome and true.
I’m surprised that Jon Stewart was able to recognize that issue. doesn’t seem like he’d be a RP fan.
Stewart has a personal liberal bias, as do many in the media, but he at least is aware of it and tries to minimize its impact on his show. The show’s primary goal politically seems to be to identify hypocrisy from anyone in the news. I think it is rare when they don’t hit near the mark, but they do have to push it ridiculously far sometimes.
Stewart discussed media bias with Chris Wallace of Fox News a while back: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwyUdBp-cck. Well worth 15 minutes of your time.
Hmm, the previous link is edited… not maliciously, but if you want to see the unedited version it is available (in two parts) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksZQyk8-md4. Total run-time around 25 minutes.
@Brian, I like watching Stewart take on people. Like the time he beat up on Tucker Carlson. Although I think Stewart likes to hide behind his comedian status when even he knows he is beginning to be taken somewhat seriously.
Stewart on CNN crossfire is classic. I would recommend it to anyone who spends more than
… Five hours a week consuming news.
I think Stewart’s error is he views the news media as the fourth estate, which is no longer valid. News media has to pay the bills, and the only way they have found to do it is to pander to various demographics. Once you realize this fact, comparing Fox News to Daily Show is no longer ludicrous.
My opinion is that this is a fundamental failing of news media, a failing that must be addressed through other news sources, so I am more empathetic to Daily Show, which I think provides a decent service by itself, than to news media, which has proven unable to meet the stated goal of fair and balanced without outside help. Al Jazeera is making a valiant effort, but I don’t know of any other large news outlet with visibility in the US that even appears to be realistically balanced – including useful assessments of the general populace faction opinions.
… and a real attempt to understand unintended consequences of political decisions (not just he said/she said politics).
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@ Brian, I agree except I’m not sure I’d even consider Fox real news. I used to love that channel 10 years ago. But like one republican said about Fox. They used to work for us, now we work for them. If Fox advertised as a 24 pundit Network that’s fine, but 24 hour news isn’t really accurate any longer. CNN who used to be the Clinton New Network seems neutral by comparison. Link TV & Current TV have some good stuff, but Current is owned by Al Gore so you gotta be careful with how they see things at times.
The two party option is killing this country. If you don’t fit the mold of extreme right or left (and purchased by those influences) and can’t be labeled then you don’t get a fair shot
Fox news is a great example of informing vs propagandizing. Where do you draw that line? There is no single standard that a majority of people will agree to, and it often is a matter of perspective. And if we believe in free speech, Fox news certainly has a right to exist, even if most of us perceive half of their TV programming as propaganda.
I think the power of the media is indicative of the over-complication of government in the US. Government was intended to be simple – at least simple enough for an intelligent citizen to understand and critique. This works relatively well because the majority of Americans know an intelligent citizen (they may disagree with them, but they know them personally and are clearly aware of their typical biases).
Instead we have a huge government that takes pains to over-complicate everything, making it difficult-to-impossible for a citizen to understand the likely impact of government action. So instead we rely on “talking heads,” all of which have some bias of their own. It is like triangulation, except there are no numbers, just your sense of “trust” in someone on a TV screen.
I tend to relate this to Richard Feynman, a Physics Nobel Prize winner. He contributed to many things from the atomic bomb to the Challenger shuttle disaster review commission, but (in my opinion) his greatest contribution is to re-evaluate the purpose and goal of higher education. Instead of expecting students to climb to his level, he actually tried to help them learn concepts, going so far as to try and teach in the native language of non-English speakers. If he couldn’t explain it in some form to younger, less-knowledgeable people, he believed he didn’t understand it well enough himself.
I fully agree with Feynman – and I believe the same policies should be applied to government. In the end, if we believe government is established and maintained by “the consent of the governed” (Locke) and is “of the people, by the people, for the people” (Lincoln), we need to make sure that the governed understands what their government is doing.
I can’t remember the exact quote but Colbert once said something along the lines that Fox News grows their female anchors on an island and makes them from the DNA of Hannity & Bratz dolls. lol. I do agree government is to complicated, but that’s how they can get away with unsavory stuff. Habing so many levels of BS makes it easy to hide. I still feel like corporations not people run this country. Fix that and maybe you fix the country.
Excellent discussion, this is why I like this blog.
I hope that I am wrong, but I believe that the mainstream republicans would rather see Obama win a second term, than for Ron Paul to move into the white house. If Paul wins the primary, I expect a full on frontal assault from Fox news and talk radio. “You know who they really mean when they say talk radio.”
I think you are right. I was recently in a debate with some conservatives and they were downright nasty toward Ron Paul and his supporters.
Irresponsible media election coverage, say it ain’t so…
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