Amerikansk mediekritik från vänster och höger

Media Matters gör upp med den feta myten om att de amerikanska medierna "missgynnar John McCain".
Tvärtom: när McCain ber journalisterna, "sin bas" som han kallat dem många gånger, att "hoppa" så frågar de snarast "hur högt?", enligt en skarp och arg Jamison Foser (vänsterskribent och en av dem som dragit igång Media Matters).

Läs The Right's Bias Charade (och fundera gärna över vilka konsekvenser detta har i svensk rapportering). Utdrag:

McCain and his allies were attacking the media back in the Spring, when reporters were obsessively scrutinizing Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton -- and openly acknowledging that they weren't giving McCain similar scrutiny. They attacked the media in late summer, when the media were breathlessly touting the "authenticity" of a Sarah Palin speech that was filled with falsehoods. And they have attacked the media throughout the fall, even as it has become clear that the scrutiny reporters promised back in the spring that they would eventually give McCain isn't coming. It isn't a coincidence that scrutiny never came: it is, in part, an obvious and intended result of the attacks McCain and his allies have been leveling on the media all year.

Via Karin Henriksson, som också länkar till konservative Victor David Hansons mediekritik med motsatt ståndpunkt (alltså att medierna inte granskat tillräckligt Barack Obama tillräckligt, och exempelvis inte ifrågasatt vad den enorma kampanjbudgeten innebär). Utdrag:

Imagine the reaction of Newsweek or Time had moose-hunting mom Sarah Palin [såsom Joe Biden, min anm] claimed FDR went on television to address the nation as President in 1929, or warned America that our enemies abroad would test John McCain and that his response would result in a radical loss of his popularity at home.
(– – –)
Imagine the reaction of CNN or NBC had John McCain’s pastor and spiritual advisor of 20 years been revealed as a white supremacist who damned a multiracial United States, or had he been a close acquaintance until 2005 of an unrepentant terrorist bomber of abortion clinics, or had McCain himself sued to eliminate congressional opponents by challenging the validity of African-American voters who signed petitions, or had both his primary and general election senatorial rivals imploded once their sealed divorce records were mysteriously leaked.
(– – –)
The media has succeeded in shielding Barack Obama from journalistic scrutiny. It thereby irrevocably destroyed its own reputation and forfeited the trust that generations of others had so carefully acquired. And it will never again be trusted to offer candid and nonpartisan coverage of presidential candidates.

/Gunilla