[Rhodes22-list] Politics - Journalism

[Brad Haslett]

Who is Rashad Khalidi and why does he matter?  Oh, he's just another
garden variety former terrorist sympathizer (PLO) in education from
Chicago. Sound familiar? This information is out there in both Corsi
and Fredesso's book.  The LA Times did a story on him this past April
-

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-obamamideast10apr10,0,1780231,full.story

The LA Times reporter also has a video tape of the event that he won't
release (refusing as late as yesterday).  How much harm could there be
in watching a tape of a going away party?  None, unless you want to
hide hanging with Bill Ayers at a "Jew bash".  Nothing to see here
folks, keep moving!

I've been following this story for months and not one MSM outlet shows
any interest.  In the tank?  Naaaaah!

Brad

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Election 2008: Objective journalism the loser
By Michael Graham  |   Tuesday, October 28, 2008  |
http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Letters to the Editor

Did you see that amazing video obtained by the Los Angeles Times of
Sen. Barack Obama toasting a prominent former PLO member at an Arab
American Action Network meeting in 2003? The video in which Obama
gives Yasser Arafat's frontman a warm embrace, as Bill Ayers look on?

You haven't seen it? Me, neither. The Los Angeles Times refuses to release it.

And so an incriminating video of Obama literally "palling around" with
PLO supporters becomes one more nail in the coffin of "objective
journalism."

Alas, the obit for objective reporting has been buried - along with
the stories about Obama's 2001 support for court-imposed
"redistribution of wealth" and Joe Biden's latest gaffe.

For the record (that's J-school talk for "I actually know what I'm
talking about for a change"), I am not a journalist. I'm an opinion
writer and talk show host. But I admire reporters tremendously. I
married one. My oldest son is named for the great H. L. Mencken.

So it is particularly heartbreaking for me to see the death of
objective journalism. And believe me - it is stone cold dead.
Sacrificed on the altar of service to Barack Obama.

Former New York Times [NYT] columnist and veteran newspaperman Michael
Malone knows it.

"I've begun - for the first time in my adult life - to be embarrassed
to admit what I do for a living," he said.

Malone is disturbed by the "shameless support" journalists have been
giving the Obama campaign. Where's the hardball coverage for Obama
they give McCain? Instead, journalists are "actively serving as attack
dogs for the [Obama/Biden] ticket."

"That isn't Sen. Obama's fault," Malone points out. He blames the
media, whose job it is to give Obama a thorough vetting "and has
systematically refused to do so."

This is hardly news to regular readers of the Boston Globe-Democrat,
or viewers of MS-We-Hate-Bush. But when the Associated Press starts
adding Kool-Aid at the water cooler, we readers are in real trouble.

Jay Newton-Small, a longtime AP reporter, points out in a column in
the Washington Post that her old employer has begun practicing
"accountability journalism," which is a media euphemism for "picking
the good guys and the bad guys."

"Some of the most eyebrow-raising stories this presidential-election
cycle have come from a surprising source: the stodgy old AP,"
Newton-Small wrote.

The AP, once the gold standard of unbiased "hard news," is now just
another voice in the Spin Room.

Newton-Small asks:

"When the news organization entrusted with calling elections sets off
down the slippery slope of news analysis, it's hard not to wonder: Is
the journalism world losing its North Star, the one source that could
be relied upon to provide 'Just the facts, ma'am' ?"

Facts? Who needs 'em, when we've got Obama's magic tax plan to promote
and an uppity Alaska governor to trash?

At the risk of violating union rules, allow me to do a bit of
reporting: A new study by the Pew Research Center found that, while 71
percent of Obama's recent media coverage has been "positive" or
"neutral," almost 60 percent of McCain's coverage over the same period
has been "decidedly negative."

And how much positive coverage did the media give McCain? Fourteen percent.

The American people have figured this out.

"By a margin of 70 percent to 9 percent," another Pew study reported,
"Americans say most journalists want to see Obama, not John McCain,
win on Nov. 4."

The percentage of Americans who rate reporters as objective and not
favoring either candidate? Eight percent.

My friends in the Partisan Press, your reputation has now fallen lower
than both President Bush (25 percent) and the Democratic Congress (18
percent). Journalistic integrity now ranks along side communicable
diseases and nuclear mishaps.

Obama will likely be the next president. He will use that power to do
things both good and bad. But when Americans look for tough, honest
journalists to challenge him, where will we find them?

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/letters/view.bg?articleid=1128260