Gordon Barlow

When a presidential race rages out of control - Washington Times
This Washington Times article is a good one to start off this thread. Hillary seems to have the entire MSM behind her. That's no surprise, considering what's at stake for its sponsors, but it's fascinating to see just how vehemently (and viciously, sometimes) partisan it is.

RoadWarriorFromLP

I can see why you have such issues with the mainstream media. It apparently lacks the inaccuracy and absence of journalistic rigor that you prefer.

Do you know anything about the Washington Times' ownership? If so, perhaps you would understand why it is a dubious source on its best day.

Anian

I have never seen as many articles on guns and attractive women in one place as I just did on the Washington Times website.

That is an awfully written article, and by the "editor-in-chief emeritus" no less. It's just a load of random crap thrown together. I wonder what the term MSM really means when you take the Washington Times out of it. Let me guess: anything not rightwing.

amideislas

RI watch CNN, and I'm not a fan of either candidate, but they seem to give equal if not more airtime to Trump than Clinton.

What I do notice, however, is that many of the presenters on CNN do have some trouble containing their dismay and/or amusement at much of Trump's rhetoric.

You can see it in their eyes - they try to keep a straight face when reporting the latest Trump fiasco, but c'mon... it would be damn difficult for me to keep a straight face too. Kate Baldouin in particular seems to try, but she just can't hide it very well.

Is it "bias"? I suppose it's hard to be "unbiased" when the topic is so obviously such blatant neverending bullshit.

Nutmegger

Any article that disses David Gergen -- while misspelling his name, no less -- has to be total b.s. He is one of the fairest and most knowledgeable commentators around.

And as to "Clinton News Network," b.s. again. CNN always has representatives of both the major candidates on their panel discussions, which is far more than can be said for the other networks.

sir_eccles

*cough* Corey Lewandowski *cough*

Nutmegger

LOL -- that was indeed an incredibly dumb move on their part!

anotherlimey

Yawn, msm this, msm that. Move along.

morpeth

I have the same distinct impression that all the CNN presenters are blatantly pro Clinton, and are unprofessional in letting their bias show and determines the questions they ask visiting commentators- and even worse from their comments and questions my impression is most of them have limited knowledge of a lot of the topics they bring up. I doubt many have done much serious study of history, politics, or economics .

Yes but they are journalists pretending to be objective, always talking about people want to know this or that, when often it is just the media and the establishment raising issues for their own purpose.

While a majority of people they bring on are from the Clinton camp, I give them credit that they bring on Trump supporters. And I find that CNN does have a lot more to offer ( if one discounts the bias) than Fox this time around.

Jerseygirl

Even after 20 years...I am still amazed at the bias shown by the all the news networks' presenters. It really turns me off listening to them.

amideislas

I think you're reading a bit too far into it. I don't think it's as much about being "pro Clinton" as it is about being dismayed by Trump.

I mean, if the teleprompter says "Donald Trump today announced his intention to use nuclear weapons to remove wasp nests at his Florida mansion after becoming president", wouldn't anyone find that a bit laughable (or disturbing)?

That's really not much more ridiculous than many of his other claims. I mean, how do you keep a straight face on live tv when this stuff comes across the news desk? Every day...

morpeth

I think outside of media, the establishment and academia many average people are fed up with political correctness, and politicians such as Clinton or Obama or Bush and things just seem to continue the same. So get a kick pf Trump. I admit many of his comments that the media gets all up in arms I often don't take seriously.

My impression though is they are pro-Clinton, and even in coverage of Sanders appeared that way too.

amideislas

So, it's sunday, and I'm doing a bit of housework. Have the TV on, not reaally paying attention.

The on comes another one of those Political programs on CNN, you know, where they have a couple of Democrats and/or Hillary supporters face off with a couple of Republican and/or Trump supporters debating various election stories of the day. This one was Hosted by Erin Burnett.

So, the topic is the ongoing email scandal, and the latest emails that have emerged. Yes, same old same old, but what I noticed is that Burnett wasn't the slightest bit soft on this, and was actually quite scathing of Hillary, providing all kinds of past and present news footage of Hillary on one day claiming this or that, and later denying this and that, hard evidence that the state department has refused to answer certain key questions and all of that. In general, pretty scathing of Hillary.

Ok, fine. She probably deserves it.

But then, another programme comes on, I wasn't really paying attention. But again, another panel of Hillary pundits pitted against Trump pundits. Again, debating topics of daily interest.

Somewhere, the subject comes up about Trump's accusations that the press is entirely biased toward Hillary. And the discussion begins. And the Hillary-ites make their case and so on. The usual stuff.

Then one of the Trump pundits pipes up and says something like "well, all the media is slanted toward Hillary and against Trump. Especially CNN. You guys give Trump hardly any airtime, and never, ever air anything good about Trump, and then talk about Hillary all day 24 hours, and everything you air about Hillary makes her look like mother teresa.

For example, Trump made a little sarcastic comment about Obama being the founder of ISIS, and then you spent three whole days doing breaking news on that! But Trump gave a very impressive economic speech the other day, and you guys never aired any of it! But you broadcast Hillary's speech live!

The camera pans across the room, and virtually everyone for a moment had dead-pan faces, astonished. The host calmly said "Well, I have the numbers here, and beginning with the republican convention, CNN has broadcast 20% more coverage of Trump than Hillary".

interrupting..."Well you say so but you only run the same Trump stories over an over again and you never cover anything he says of substance, like his economic speech!". Again, astonished, host answered "Yes we did, we aired the whole thing". interrupted..."No! you edited it and only broadcast what the Hillary campaign wanted you to". Perplexed look, "No, we broadcast it live in its entirety". Then the whole table went into a chaotic fiasco, all talking over each other...

In the end, the host had to say "Sorry, but we have to move on now", but not before the Trump pundit getting in the last word, "So, yes, you guys are completely biased towards Hillary and Trump has no chance on your network".

Next...

I'm pretty astonished at the licence that the politicians and their pundits seem to think they have. That you can just say any bullshit you want, and its supposed to not only be regarded as "credible", but if you disagree or prove it wrong, you're "biased".

And worse, people walk away believing it. They really do. They actually believe this stuff, even if the proof otherwise stares them right in the face.

Here's an article which sort of points out how completely unprepared the media is at handling this type of astonishingly blatant form of ridiculous bullshit. And while this article is obviously anti-Trump biased, it makes a very good argument about how this new form of insane propaganda has the media rather stumped.

How ABC’s Trump Interview Shows the Modern Media is Ill-Equipped to Deal with Pathological Liars

And here's another one that's just blatant obvious bullshit. You'd expect these "experts" and spokespeople to at least have a slight clue about what they're saying. But they just don't seem to care at all.

Trump Spokesperson Says Obama Invaded Afghanistan. He Didn’t.

Nutmegger

What do you consider to be political correctness? Being decent to people who are in some way different to you? You get a kick out of someone whose basic strategy is to call other human beings unpleasant names? Too many people DO take what he says seriously. An Islamic cleric was murdered in NYC yesterday, but Trump turns a blind eye. This NYT article describes the kind of atmosphere of distrust that Trump is fostering among people who aren't bright enough to be in on what you seem to think is amusing:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/14/op...aner.html?_r=0

morpeth

Thanks for the excellent observations. While I still have impression CNN commentators are pro-Clinton, I prefer watching CNN than FOX.

The Trump surrogate you mention really was something else. Watching the interview she had a chance to just say she misspoke, but kept going with the silly comments about Obama starting the war in Afghanistan.