Sarah Palin and the mainstream media

Yesterday in the New York Times Bill Kristol reported on a telephone conversation he had with Sarah Palin. Among other things he records that:

She doesn’t have a very high opinion of the mainstream media.

Now in the Washington Post, Richard Cohen says that he shares Palin's view. His reason? They are giving her too easy a ride.

Who is right? It absolutely doesn't matter a bit.

The Republicans have an obsession with the so-called mainstream media. They say it is biased to liberals, and they are plainly correct. It most certainly is.

But railing against this bias avails the Republicans of nought. Actually worse than that.

What happens when an outsider criticises a group for its collective mentality is that the group closes ranks. They use the criticism to help create their group identity. Calling the mainstream media liberal, in other words, makes them more liberal.

The illusion that this liberal bias is so engrained that it scarcely matters, and the "MSM" can be attacked with impunity because they are a cut-off elite, will be exposed by the election result.

But it is clear that Republicans, whatever they say, don't really believe the MSM doesn't matter. They know the MSM matters or they wouldn't go on about it.

And if it matters they should be seeking to woo it, and understand its perceptions and change their language, and even policy to receive a better shake.

The MSM itself, however, should be far more self-critical.

Richard Cohen's article is easy stuff. He doesn't like Sarah Palin! How daring! The fuss made over Bill Kristol even having an op-ed column illuminates the existence of a disastrous groupthink. If Cohen was challenging that, he'd be doing more of a service.

Sarah Palin and Richard Cohen have got it the wrong way round.

It's Palin who should be finding things worth liking about the MSM, while Cohen should be criticising liberal bias.

Comments

[Tom Freeman]

I'm not sure that calling the media liberal straightforwardly makes them more liberal. What seems likelier is that those in the media who think of themselves as centrists rather than liberals would react not by changing their self-perceptions leftwards but by changing their perceptions of the Republicans rightwards - which will result in worse coverage for them.

I think the only benefit from railing against the liberal media is that it tickles the party base. But that's a poor tactic outside a primary.

[Jean]

My main reaction to Sarah Palin's continued presence on the Republican ticket is that John McCain cannot care very much for the USA. He chose someone on the basis of votes she might bring in, ignoring the fact that the VP is next in line for the most powerful position in the world. Everyone knows Palin isn't up to that, yet he still selected her. This shows, I think, complete disdain for the American voter!

[Bob M.]

Uhmmm... waht did Sarah Palin lose? An earring? A heel?

BTW, Chuck Baldwin - Constitution Party, still has my vote! :-D

[elixelx]

Closing ranks in the face of criticism?

Are you talking about some esoteric religious cult or about a group of community leaders that, by its own self-policing ethical standards OUGHT to be self-examining and self-critical before, and certainly after getting criticism?

Only ideologues refuse to listen! by that standard the MSM as portrayed by both Palin and Cohen are a cult!

[Randolph Phillips]

The MSM is in the tank for Barack Obama, and they react viscerally against anyone who is a threat to him.

In addition, Sarah Palin represents everything they hold in contempt. She is not from a big city nor New England. She is conservative. She didn't go to Yale or Harvard. And she is a captivating example of bedrock America, including having the experiences and skills of individuals during the decades america was settled: she can shoot a gun, fish, even skin a moose.

To them, a Marxist is far preferable in Washington. Obaaamma!

[Jonathan Todd]

What about Fox News? Is that part of the MSM? Does this have a liberal bias? Quite the opposite, evidently. I fear, Danny, that you may not have been entirely the kind of “straight up guy” that Bill O’Reilly is so fond of.

[Oscar Miller]

This argument is rather like the women in short skirts causing rape fallacy. If there is bias in the media they should be held to account No ifs no buts and no faux pyschology. Danny your clever line on not provoking the 'batten down the hatches' groupthink in the MSM is more akin to appeasement than effective strategy. Where there is bias you have to say so. If there was a sufficient outcry the MSM would have to change. Simple as that.

[Neal]

When President Truman was on the Democratic party ticket for V.P., no one cared at that time even though his political experience was minimal. When he ran for President, U.S. newspapers assumed he would lose. Reminds me of predators picking on their idea of the weak. Luckily Gov. Palin is a strait shooter.

[Scott Redding]

Palin hasn't held a single press conference since being selected by McCain. She hasn't released her medical records either (McCain only allowed 3 hours access to 1200 pages worth himself). All the US will know about Palin before the election will be soundbites and media image.

[Guy Herbert]

"What happens when an outsider criticises a group for its collective mentality is that the group closes ranks. They use the criticism to help create their group identity."

Indeed. Which is why the McCain ticket rejoices in criticism of Palin by "smart people" - every word stokes support for MCain on the know-nothing populist right. She's not going to cosy up to the media establishment any time soon. That would be to lose her most potent appeal - to resentment.

[Judy in Oklahoma]

I wish McCain would let Sarah loose to go after Couric, Matthews and Olberman even half as hard as they've gone after her. Instead of making veiled comments about media "filters", she should come right out and say that Couric left half of her answers on the cutting room floor and then back that up with the complete transcript on an easy to remember site - something like JohnMcCain08.com.

CONCERNED IN OH - Don't really trust factcheck.com, it is funded by George Soros and WILL "fudge" anything they can in the Democrat's favor.

on this site you will find 5 fact checkers, check them all and make up your own mind. :)
http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2008/09/digging_deeperpolitical_factch.html

I look forward to you voting for McCain/Palin after getting all the facts. Have a wonderful day.

[Judy in Oklahoma]

I have much more respect for Senator McCain than I do for Senator Obama, so of course I will be voting the McCain/Palin ticket. I beleive Govenor Palin is more experienced than Bill Clinton was at the time of his first election, and I trust her a heck of a lot more than I ever did Bill. Shame on the people that think any candidate should be subjected to the kind of sexual, dehumanizing jokes and parodies that Senator Clinton and Govenor Palin have had heaped on them this year. It looks like Govenor Palin gave Senator Clinton more respect than many of the Democrat constituants.
Sic 'em Sarah!
McCain 2008

[Helena]

hahaha!! ... you nailed it Randolph.

[Dave Fleming]

This column is wholly a bunch of pap. The MSM matters less and less over time. As their product is judged increasingly and self admittedy as propaganda, people will accurately discount their message as simply opinion and look to other sources if they need the facts as conventional reporting provides.

[Desmond Taylor]

The MSM appeals to the 'inside the beltway' types. All the News programmes are so biased,they are laughable. Look at their ratings ! There are so many ways of getting news in depth these days, who needs them. In poll after poll over 90% of the newspeople say they are ' liberal'. They are not shy of showing their feelings. They editorialise on everything instead of reporting the news.

[Mike Carter]

Given the current rules about not mentioning Palin's pastor who thinks the End Times are coming any day so they need to pave Alaska over so it can function as a "refuge state" while clips of Jeremiah Wright still hit the airwaves with distressing frequency, I find it difficult to credit the "liberal bias" mantra. Were it so, Senator McCain's less-than stellar military career would have been mentioned by some MSM source, rather than being limited to blogs run by Vietnam Vets and to the relatively softball article in Rolling Stone.

When two retired generals, each with far more combat service than McCain, pointed out the obvious fact that his POW time was not a unique qualification for President, the uproar from the MSM forced Obama to distance himself from comments that were no more than the simple truth (and started with the obligatory praise of McCain as the-war-hero-who-has-never-stopped-fighting-against-his-country's-enemies).

McCain bamboozled the MSM for years,and called them his good friends. Now they are starting to ask embarrassing questions, they are the enemy.

[Mike Carter]

"And she is a captivating example of bedrock America, including having the experiences and skills of individuals during the decades america was settled: she can shoot a gun, fish, even skin a moose."

I can knapp a knifeblade from flint. Does that make me the next ruler of Europe? I can craft my own atlatl. Am I the best person to run the Western Hemisphere?

The American obsession with mediocrity never ceases to amaze. We finishing with one son of privilege who started out with every advantage and carved his path into failure while being rescued by his father and his father's friends time and again. Why is it bias to point out the McCain is cut from the same cloth?

Sarah Palin, who bounced through four or five (depending on who is telling the story) lower-middle ranked colleges to get a degree in journalism, browbeat the media into informing the public that Joe Biden, who paid for his own education and has a publicly available transcript, would be sexist if he tried to compare his background with hers. Liberal bias? Give it a rest!

[Hamish Marshall]

Daniel, you dont get it - the MSM are the enemies of McCain and Sarah Palin, and any half intelligent American that has a rational dislike of rampant PC and the Goebellian advocacy for "watemelon" marxism (Obama is green on the outside and red on the inside) that is the MSM's staple fare.
The worst thing you can do in life is to delude yourself that your enemies will treat you with a modicum of fairness if you are only prepare to be really, really nice to them. Winston Churchill tried to teach us that in the 30s, but the message was too uncomfortable to deal with (especially only 18 years after the end of WW1). We will learn this lesson, again, to our cost, with our cowering approach to the Iranian dictatorship. As somebody said recently, Winston Churchill bought us 50 years of time.

[George]

Remember the "mass action law" from chemistry? The rate of a reaction is proportional to the concentrations of the reagents. Picture voters John and Jane Doe, who are going about their daily affairs, exposed to a constant flow of mainly liberal opinion, praising candidate A, downing candidate B, with few opposite conservative voices. J&J D lack the spare time to search further and will be swayed by an accumulation in their heads of the liberal narrative. All of us have experienced this, and some of us may have endeavored to shake off the one-sided verbiage.

[Erich]

Judy of Oklahama - to compare Bill Clinton to Sarah plain is a heck of a stretch - no it6's more than that it's humdinga!

[Mander]

For all that republicans have whined about the "liberal media" for as long as I can remember, I certainly don't recall hearing much that was liberal on TV or radio in my parents' ordinary, mainstream, middle-class household. I had to seek it out in libraries, bookstores, and later the internet.

People like my parents will always vote republican, because all they ever hear from the likes of Fox or CBS is heavily biased toward the conservative viewpoint.

[John Sutton]

Without getting involved in issues of bias, I would note that Katie Couric did not dictate Palin's words. A dip into the nine-minutes report on the CBS News website carries enough raw Palin for anyone with a reasonable understanding of English to gain a fair impression of the candidate's ability to think clearly