Media reformer Josh Silver's "Look at Media in 2009" (Huffington Post, 11/13/08) necessarily surveys the dire record of corporate news in '08:

The real problem is not the media favoring one candidate
over another, but rather its utter failure to practice critical journalism. Turn on your television or radio, and it's 24/7 horserace political coverage, partisan shouting matches and salacious crap. There is no effort to tell voters the difference between the candidates' rhetoric and reality, how their proclamations match their voting records, and what their policy proposals would actually do. While there were a few notable moments when news outlets actually did this during the campaign, they were few and far between.

"Now that the champagne has been put away," Silver cautions us to keep in mind that "the disastrous members of mainstream media remain firmly in place. Ignore the problem at your--and the nation's--peril."

For more review, check out the FAIR study published in our magazine Extra!: "TV's Low-Cal Campaign Coverage: How 385 Stories Can Tell You Next to Nothing About Whom to Vote For" (5-6/08) by Jon Whiten

NPR Check's Mytwords finds it (11/13/08) particularly "telling that on the day after the release of a report on the 'shattered lives' of released Guantànamo detainees," National Public Radio's Morning Edition was "doing the awful work of convincing listeners that closing the prison camp will be a lot more complicated than they might have thought":

Listen in vain to NPR's report for anyone mentioning torture, war crimes, violations of international law at Guantànamo. Conveniently, with such acts unmentioned, the issue of accountability and restitution never comes up. For [the segment's reporter, Jackie] Northam, the only important issue is the difficulties that closing Guantànamo will present for the U.S. government, "specifically what to do with the roughly 250 prisoners still held at Guantànamo."

To articulate the quandaries of the poor, befuddled U.S. government, who better to turn to than U.S. government/military insiders such as Scott Silliman... Commander Glen Sulmasy (of the Coast Guard Academy), and Matthew Waxman (of the Pentagon, State Department and Hoover Institution)?

Mytwords noticed just "one outsider" in the story, and he was only permitted "a very brief comment on favorable international attitudes to the new Obama administration."

See FAIR's magazine Extra!: "Failing to Use the First Amendment to Defend the Bill of Rights" (5-6/08) by Cynthia Cooper

Speaking out again now that the U.S. presidential election has been decided, Bill Ayers tells Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!, 11/14/08) exactly why his family "actually didn't pay a lot of attention to" the ongoing media controversy over him:

We recognized that there was this cartoon character kind of thrust up on the screen, and I was an unwitting and unwilling part of his presidential campaign. We tried not to watch it, because, pretty much, it was distracting and kind of crazy-producing.... There's so much that's dishonest in it that it's kind of impossible to kind of know where to enter it.

First of all, the idea that Bill O'Reilly says, you know, that I was in hiding. I wasn't in hiding.... What I wasn't doing was commenting on the presidential campaign to the media...because we couldn't figure out a way to interrupt what we took to be a profoundly dishonest narrative.... We had no way into it.

The idea that the Weather Underground carried out terrorism is nonsense. We never killed or hurt a person. We never intended to. We existed from 1970 to 1976, the last years, the last half-decade of the war in Vietnam. And by contrast, the war in Vietnam really was a terrorist undertaking. The war in Vietnam was terror on a mass scale, with thousands of people every month being murdered, mostly from the air. And we were doing everything we could to stop it.

And so the government-friendly media version of that war--going strong to this day--continues to influence national U.S. politics, and has Ayers proclaiming "again, it's hard to know where to start to interrupt that narrative."

In the upcoming December 1 issue of the Nation, Fatin Abbas extensively quotes Kenyan author Binyavanga Wainaina on "The Traps of Safari Journalism":

In his eloquent diatribe "How to Write About Africa," published several years ago in Granta... Wainaina offers the following advice: "Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: Use these." He continues, "In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country.... Don't get bogged down with precise descriptions. Africa is big: 54 countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book." Wainaina's sarcastic suggestions point to a truth about writing on Africa: more often than not, it depicts the continent as nothing but a modern-day heart of darkness, where poverty, violence and disease overshadow the rest of human life and experience.

For more on U.S. news' "typically cursory treatment of subjects and emphasis on the visual," read the FAIR magazine Extra!: "Bono, I Presume?: Covering Africa Through Celebrities" (5-6/07) by Julie Hollar

Observing (Creator's Syndicate, 11/14/08) that "overall, the news media like winners, and an incoming president is the biggest winner of all," Norman Solomon knows "the period between his opponent's concession speech and the swearing-in has traditionally been a time of many media upsides without the burdens of actual incumbency." As a result,

despite the vast amount of media analysis and commentary occurring between election and inauguration, the new president's actual policy outlooks aren't likely to receive a lot of tough scrutiny during that period.... While news coverage is focused elsewhere, there are some very important points being made right now by progressive commentators who are warning that some Obama positions will be--or at least should be--on a collision course with substantial portions of his political base....

[Author Tom] Engelhardt has some good advice about how to approach the substance of Barack Obama's policy proclivities: "Pitch your own tent on the public commons and make some noise. Let him know that Washington's isn't the only consensus around, that Americans really do want our troops to come home, that we actually are looking for 'change we can believe in,' which would include a less weaponized, less imperial American world, based on a reinvigorated idea of defense, not aggression, and on the Constitution, not leftover Rumsfeld rules or a bogus Global War on Terror."

But Solomon is savvy enough to realize that's "not exactly the kind of assessment we're liable to encounter as we click through the network channels or turn the mass-media pages."

Interesting catch by digby from Broadcasting & Cable (11/10/08), which was talking to Fox News chief Roger Ailes about what happens to Fox's ratings post-election: "I think cable numbers overall will drop, although there is a fascination with Obama," says Ailes. But he sees light at the end of the tunnel:

Historically, the dawning of a new administration brings a renewed level of scrutiny from the media and interest from viewers—something Ailes is looking forward to.

"I remember when Bill Clinton took over and within a very short time he had to get rid of a couple of appointees," he says, referring to Zoë Baird and Lani Guinier. "And then he got into gays in the military, and suddenly issues became critical and our ratings started to climb back up. I expect a dip over the next couple of months and then a big return to our numbers in late January, early February."

In other words, the Murdoch bottom line will do fine--as long as Fox can find or invent some Obama scandals to keep the right watching.

digby notes that Ailes "goes back to Clinton rather than discussing the more recent transfer of power from Clinton to Bush." That's because that transition was treated by Fox as an opportunity for renewed scrutiny of the old administration--even if they did have to make things up.

After giving a dubious account of the causes of the Democrats' 1994 electoral disaster, Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson (11/14/08) provides an inaccurate description of the Fairness Doctrine, which he calls

a federal regulation (overturned by the Reagan administration in 1987) requiring broadcast outlets to give equal time to opposing political viewpoints. Under this doctrine, three hours of Rush Limbaugh on a radio station would have to be balanced by three hours of his liberal equivalent. This may sound fair and balanced. But it is a classic case where the "unintended consequences" are so obvious that those consequences must be intended. It would destroy the profitability of conservative talk radio and lead other outlets to avoid political issues entirely--actually reducing the public discussion of controversial issues.

I have to say--if that's what the Fairness Doctrine was, then I would be against it. But it was never an equal-time rule; instead, it required broadcasters to provide some coverage of controversial issues and to make some provision for opposing views. In practice, the FCC would accept roughly a 5-to-1 ratio as providing adequate balance. Far from making conservative talk radio impossible, a talkshow format in which the host occasionally takes calls from listeners who disagree was an easy way for stations to fulfill their Fairness Doctrine obligations.

The genius of the Fairness Doctrine was that it balanced the broadcasters' First Amendment right to express their point of view with the reality that the government is granting a monopoly to license-holders to broadcast on a particular frequency--in effect saying that they and no one else has a right to express themselves on that particular street corner. The Fairness Doctrine says that every once in a while, you have to let someone else share the soapbox. I wonder why right-wing pundits find that so threatening?

Today's Washington Post (11/14/08) explains that Obama's economic advisers "span the policy spectrum:"

They include free traders and "fair traders," deficit hawks, Wall Street executives, corporate moguls and labor advocates.

Why the different typographical treatment of free trade and fair trade? The implication is that "free trade" really is free, whereas "fair trade" is just what its supporters call it. This treatment of so-called "free trade," as economist Dean Baker has long explained, "reflects deeply held biases in the media. The most important point, which I unfortunately have to keep repeating, is that these are not free trade agreements. They do not free all trade and, in fact, increase some forms of protectionist barriers." But in the corporate media, "free trade" does not generally require any sort of qualifier or explanation.

One interesting post-election story has been the treatment of Rahm Emanuel, a center-right Clinton Democrat who will serve as Obama's chief of staff. While some Republicans claim Emanuel is too "partisan," some media defenders argue that he's not, since his politics are not all that liberal. Time magazine's Karen Tumulty explains:

The strongest signal of how that White House will operate has been Obama's pick of Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel to be its chief of staff. Emanuel is a win-at-any-cost partisan but not an ideologue; in his earlier White House stint as a top aide to Clinton, he was a key figure in shepherding through the North American Free Trade Agreement, a crime bill and welfare reform--none of them popular with the Democratic Party's liberal base.

Apparently pushing for a corporate "free trade" pact and gutting public assistance for the poor are not "ideological"--they're just the sort of common sense the media like to cheer. As for the idea that pushing policies unpopular with the party base is evidence of a "win-at-any-cost" outlook--well, that depends on your definition of "win." When FAIR founder Jeff Cohen examined the Democratic Party's electoral performance in the Clinton years (L.A. Times, 4/9/00), here's what he found:

Let's do the numbers. When Clinton entered the White House, his party dominated the U.S. Senate, 57-43; the U.S. House, 258-176; the country's governorships, 30-18, and a large majority of state legislatures. Today, Republicans control the Senate, 55-45; the House, 222-211; governorships, 30-18, and almost half of state legislatures.

In his Unclaimed Territory feature at Salon (11/13/08, ad-viewing required), Glenn Greenwald has more on mainstream journalists' affinity for those "urging the new Obama administration to avoid any investigations or prosecutions of Bush lawbreaking":

This is what has been advocated by everyone from David Broder to top Obama adviser Cass Sunstein. There are few things more difficult than finding someone of prominence in the establishment that disagrees with this view....

Nobody believes that "policy differences" should be criminalized. That's a strawman--an obfuscating term--erected by those who are defending presidential lawbreaking license without having the intellectual honesty to admit they're doing that. This is about having laws in place that clearly and explicitly say that "X shall be a felony," only to then watch as the President does X, and thereafter have our political establishment announce that it's more important to avoid partisan anger than it is to hold high political officials accountable under the rule of law.

This contradiction is summed up nicely in Greenwald's headline: "Post-Partisan Harmony vs. the Rule of Law."

Corporate media gave the same counsel the last time a Democratic administration replaced a Republican one; see Extra!: "Iran/Contra: Sweep It Away" (3/93)

A Tiny Revolution blogger Jonathan Schwarz quotes (11/12/08) Iraq War booster Michael Hanlon writing on the Politico website that "it is important that Senator Obama hear from centrists on Iraq, and Susan [Rice] may not be such a person on that subject." In response to the Hanlon assertion that former Bill Clinton official Rice "is indeed a progressive," Schwarz gives us some examples of "Susan Rice, left-wing radical, expressing her views on Iraq":

"I think he [then-Secretary of State Colin Powell] has proved that Iraq has these weapons and is hiding them, and I don't think many informed people doubted that." (NPR, 2/6/03)

..."It's clear that Iraq poses a major threat. It's clear that its weapons of mass destruction need to be dealt with forcefully, and that's the path we're on. I think the question becomes whether we can keep the diplomatic balls in the air and not drop any, even as we move forward, as we must, on the military side." (NPR, 12/20/02)

Rice's war-mongering credentials also extend beyond current U.S. wars into lobbying for "military... preparation" to "stop the dying in Darfur"; see FAIR's magazine Extra!: "The Humanitarian Temptation: Calling for War to Bring Peace to Darfur" (1-2/08) by Julie Hollar

Dean Baker (Beat the Press, 11/12/08) wants to know "Where's the Ridicule?" since "Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced today that he had abandoned... his plan to buy bad assets from banks and other financial institutions."

Now that Mr. Paulson has himself decided that the Troubled Asset Relief Program is not a good idea (for which he deserves credit), why isn't the media doing some examination of this recent history? Obviously his claims about the necessity of the TARP were not accurate, and those who repeated them were mistaken.

There were many members of Congress who stuck their necks out to oppose the TARP at the cost of derision from the media and political elites. Even Secretary Paulson now acknowledges that the rescue plan that he presented to Congress was the wrong course of action. The media has an obligation to present these facts clearly to the public.

Baker reminds us that "opponents of the TARP were widely derided in the media as ignorant economic know nothings" at the time when "Paulson said [the plan] was absolutely essential for the economy's survival."

But again, financial journalists have largely been wrong on this from the start; see the new issue of FAIR's magazine Extra!: "Busted Bubble: The Press Fell Down on the Job on Housing Prices" (11-12/08) By Veronica Cassidy

Nick Turse offers (Nation, 11/13/08) the latest contravention of the standard myth of strongly anti-war corporate media during the Vietnam era:

"Pacification's Deadly Price," a joint investigation into the slaughter of Vietnamese civilians by U.S. troops during Operation Speedy Express, was the crowning achievement of [Newsweek Saigon bureau chief Kevin Buckley's and stringer Alex Shimkin's] working partnership. But the potentially explosive story was held for months and finally published only in gutted form [in the issue of] June 19, 1972. Further undermining their investigation's impact, Newsweek allowed a former top U.S. official in Vietnam, who had secretly learned of the existence of "hundreds" of examples of the very kinds of killings Buckley and Shimkin sought to expose, to critique the story in its own pages, without allowing for a full rebuttal.

Crediting such "editing that excised... an entire sidebar of Vietnamese witnesses," Turse relates how, "in the end, military officials were never pressed on the findings of the investigation and were able to ride out the minor flurry of interest it generated."

Read of a modern corollary in this FAIR Action Alert: "60 Minutes: Shelving a Story to Boost Bush?: CBS Puts Niger Exposé on Hold as Boss Endorses Republicans" (9/28/04)

Washington Post ombud Deborah Howell (11/9/08) charged her paper with "a tilt toward Democrat Barack Obama." But her evidence for this pro-Obama bias was remarkably weak.

She presented some counts of stories and pictures, like "the number of Obama stories since November 11 [2007] was 946, compared with [John] McCain's 786." But she noted that much of this disparity was because of Obama's longer primary fight. Looking at the race since Obama captured the nomination, she had some less striking stats, e.g., "Counting from June 4, Obama was in 311 Post photos and McCain in 282."

She found bias on the opinion pages too:

The op-ed page ran far more laudatory opinion pieces on Obama, 32, than on Sen. John McCain, 13. There were far more negative pieces about McCain, 58, than there were about Obama, 32, and Obama got the editorial board's endorsement. The Post has several conservative columnists, but not all were gung-ho about McCain.

Blogger Matthew Yglesias (11/10/08) described this as a "call...for less intellectual honesty on the Post's op-ed page," and he's got a point. It's not clear what the point of an opinion page that would praise and condemn every politician in equal measure would be; you might as well just print the slogan "six of one, half a dozen of the other" and save yourself the effort.

The only really substantive passage in Howell's finding of pro-Obama bias in the Post was this paragraph:

Obama deserved tougher scrutiny than he got, especially of his undergraduate years, his start in Chicago and his relationship with Antoin "Tony" Rezko, who was convicted this year of influence-peddling in Chicago. The Post did nothing on Obama's acknowledged drug use as a teenager.

Actually, the Post did a front-page, 1,250-word article on Obama's use of drugs (1/3/07), but that was before Howell's survey period. During her survey period, I count at least 11 mentions of Obama's adolescent drug use (e.g., 12/14/07, 8/24/08, 10/10/08); it's not clear how many times it would have to be brought up before it would count as more than "nothing."

A Nexis search for "Obama and Rezko" turns up 54 stories in the Post during Howell's survey period. That seems like an awful lot, actually, given how little substance there really was to the Obama/Rezko "story."

And "his undergraduate years" and "his start in Chicago" needed "tougher scrutiny"? I think it's hard to make a case that what's missing from election coverage is more muckraking of the candidates' college years.

The "media bias" against Sarah Palin is a key ingredient of the conservative victimology of 2008, even though when you see negative reports about Palin these days, they're generally sourced to her erstwhile Republican colleagues--and corporate media sometimes go to absurd lengths to give the attacks a semi-positive spin, as in this Alessandra Stanley piece from the New York Times (10/11/08):

Ms. Palin could be turning to television to restore her tarnished image, jumpstart a 2012 presidential bid, or both. But so far, viewers have mostly witnessed some of the very traits--disarming candor and staggering presumption--that drove some McCain campaign aides to leak damaging accusations about her.