Making "Earthquakes" for Romney
After watching the national media’s performance since the party conventions, one can only hope that journalism students are out on summer safari or some Third World Peace Corps mission. Anything to avoid this mess of a profession. Sean Hannity is right. The establishment news media are dead. Whatever remains has only one standard. If it helps Obama, it’s “news.” If it doesn’t, reporters should move on; there’s nothing worth covering.
Our media don’t just report “news” unfavorable to Romney. They obsess over it, complete with repetitive and thoroughly unnecessary incantations that Romney’s campaign is hopeless. On September 17, perhaps not accidentally after Team Obama started to struggle over their handling of the outrageous and deadly attack on the American consulate in Libya, the hard-left Mother Jones magazine leaked a secret tape of Romney talking to donors.
Ka-boom.
But
what did he say? He told them Obama can count on 47 percent of the
voters who will vote for him no matter what, “who are dependent upon
government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that
government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they
are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.” He
added: “My job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince
them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their
lives.”
Impolitic? In a private campaign briefing with donors, no. Untrue? Again, no.
I will wager a million dollars that Barack Obama has told his major
donors in private that strategically he is not concerned with the 47
percent of greedy right-wing rich Republican voters who will never vote
for him. Impolitic? No. It’s the way politicians talk to donors in
private. Untrue? They'd deny it.
The news media know this, which is why they ignore it. That’s why their assault on Romney is so disingenuous.
Four years ago, in April of 2008, Obama was caught by The Huffington
Post telling donors in San Francisco that small town Americans are
"bitter" people who “cling to their guns or religion or antipathy
towards people who aren’t like them.” This drew a few negative stories
for a couple of days, but it quickly vanished from the media’s campaign
narrative as Obama secured his party’s nomination.
This Romney tape was recorded in May, but the activists who recorded it
obviously wanted to delay its release until the fall campaign. Once the
radicals at Mother Jones posted it, on cue, the network carnival
barkers erupted with the chants of “bombshell” and “earthquake” on a
“seismic day” for the Republican campaign. A viewer might imagine the
Earth would open up and swallow Romney whole.
On CBS, Bob Schieffer was handing out the shovels to dig a grave for
Romney. “I just can’t think of anything that he could have said that
could have hurt his cause more.” I can. Another million-dollar wager
here. Before this one's over there are going to be one, or two, or three
or more “earthquake” moments for Romney. It could happen while he’s
brushing his teeth if these reporters decide that constitutes a new
“earthquake.”
There were 88 minutes of TV morning and evening news on this Romney
tape on ABC, CBS, and NBC. The networks were right. There was an
earthquake -- of their own making.
In response, the Romney team directed the networks to a 1998 tape of
Obama where he professed his love for redistributing other people’s
money, solidifying the socialist world view Obama has so zealously
denied. The networks gave this real bombshell six and a half minutes of
attention.
That’s “fairness” to these TV people, a 13-to-1 advantage for Obama. So
you say Obama's comments were logged 14 years ago, and don't constitute
"news"? OK, then consider the coverage of Obama’s “Fast and Furious”
scandal. On September 19, the Justice Department’s inspector general
released a scathing report detailing the government’s incompetency that
resulted in the death of an American border agent. The same networks
that devoted 88 minutes to Romney talking about government dependents
voting for Obama gave this scandal just six minutes and 40 seconds of
air time.
As usual on this scandal beat, CBS gave it most of the play, three
minutes and 59 seconds. NBC allowed one minute and 44 seconds. ABC
included a mere 61 seconds of anchor blather.
It must have been a joke over at ABC when morning anchor Amy Robach
announced: “And now to the big story in Washington” as she gave it a
grand total of 26 seconds. We know by now that to these “news”
manufacturers, nothing can be a “big story” unless it makes Obama look
good and helps him win a second term.
