“During the course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been leveled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of an institution so important to freedom and science are deeply to be regretted, inasmuch as they tend to lessen its usefulness and to sap its safety.” — Thomas Jefferson, Second Inaugural Address — 1805.
Nothing much has changed since 1805 when Jefferson made the remark quoted above. Rather than speak truth to power — one of the tenants of a free and unbridled press — we have a press that speaks power to truth. Most of our mainstream media and their blog partners are so loaded with “journalists” educated and steeped in progressive/socialist philosophy they truly believe that their job is to slant and twist the news to favor their progressive agenda and suppress news that might put their agenda at some risk. In essence they are dishonest whores of the progressive left.
The latest example is the reporting of the shooting at the Family Research Center in Washington, D.C. this week. On Wednesday morning A gunman entered the building housing the FRC, took issue with the work FRC does (no motive is known other than the gunman uttering a complaint about what FRC does), and began to shoot. A security guard was shot in the arm, but managed to get the shooter down. During his attack, the gunman stated the shooting was about "what this place stands for." The FRC strongly promotes traditional marriage and pro-life issues.
Shortly before 11 a.m. on Wednesday, 28-year-old Floyd Corkins, a supporter of the
As the day went on, the shooter was identified as Floyd Lee Corkins II. ABC reported:
“Leonardo "Leo" Johnson, 46, was shot in the left arm Wednesday afternoon at the Family Research Council offices near Chinatown. The Family Research Council is a conservative lobbying organization whose president supports, among other issues, Chick-fil-A’s public stand against same-sex marriage.
"I am not real comfortable with the hero thing, I mean, I was doing my job,” Johnson says.
The alleged shooter, Floyd Corkins, reportedly said he opposed the organization's politics and had 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches in his bag, federal authorities said Thursday.
Clad in a white jumpsuit and showing little emotion, Corkins, 28, was charged in federal court with assault with intent to kill and bringing firearms across the state. He told a judge that he only had $300 to his name and was assigned a public defender.
Corkins is currently being held without bond and faces a detention hearing next Friday. A mental evaluation is also being ordered.
“Sources say Corkins walked into the Family Research Council and said “It’s not about you, it’s about the policy,” and then shot the guard.
……
Corkins had been volunteering for about the past six months at The DC Center for the LGBT Community, said David Mariner, executive director of the community center, which is in Northwest Washington. He usually staffed the center’s front desk on Saturdays, and his most recent shift was about two weeks ago.”
I waited for the mainstream media to connect Corkins to the homosexual activist community — but this did not happen.
After all, to this day liberals link Scott Roeder, who killed late-term abortionist George Tiller in 2009, to Operation Rescue because authorities found a Post-It note with Operation Rescue’s phone number in Roeder’s car.
And Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards labeled Tiller’s murder as only one of “violent attacks by anti-choice extremists,” quoting from CNN.
And within hours of the Aurora, Colorado, theater shooting last month, ABC falsely linked the killer to the Tea Party.
So if Corkins actually worked at a homosexual organization, and it was during the time when that organization was actively promoting the defamation of Chick-Fil-A, and if on Facebook Corkins listed only two friends, one being David Mariner, executive director of The DC Center (who Mariner quickly defriended), well wow, surely MSM would promote Corkins as a poster child for homosexual violence, right?
And wouldn’t MSM then investigate for deeper connections? Were Corkins and his only male Facebook friend Mariner lovers? Why did Corkins stop working at The DC Center? Did officials at The DC Center notice abnormal behavior, or did Corkins threaten violence against FRC and/or conservatives The DC Center didn’t report to authorities?
No, of course not. Negative profiling by liberals and the media only goes one way.
And will Obama’s FBI charge Corkins with domestic terrorism, or with committing a federal hate crime?
And will Obama and liberals now call on their own, such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, which currently lists FRC as a “hate group,” to temper their inflammatory language against conservative groups?
It is not a political statement, but a fact that for years the left inside and outside the media has ridiculed the family values the Family Research Council defends. It is not a political statement, but a fact that had this been at an abortion clinic or the Human Rights Campaign’s headquarters instead of the Family Research Council’s headquarters, we’d be in for a week of handwringing in the media about homophobia and right wing nuts. But because the Family Research Council promotes the values shared by a majority of Americans, but only a minority of the left in and outside the media, this story will move off the radar very quickly.
Instead, the Human Rights Campaign, which aggressively supports gay rights, will go on calling the Family Research Council a hate group, which it did the day before the shooting, the media will give the shooting a passing reference, and it will all be forgotten until Brian Ross and ABC News can figure out a way to pin it on the tea party. It took only 20 hours for CNN to uphold the 'Hate Group' Label for FRC.
Imagine a volunteer for the Family Research Council marching into some gay group’s headquarters with a gun, and after shouting his opposition to the homosexual agenda, opened fire and wounded a guard before being subdued. Never mind evening news. This would be Breaking News! And for days there would be seemingly endless coverage of continued conservative hatred.
These networks are aiding and abetting liberal violence by refusing to identify it as liberal violence. Whether it’s vandalism at Chick-fil-A or rapes in Occupy Wall Street camps, these networks simply cannot find “news” in liberal violence of any kind.
One can easily imagine how the national media elite justify their decision to spike the story. No one was killed, or in danger of dying. There are dozens of shootings a day in the DC area; this is just one more. We have more important things to cover. According the Media Research Center both CBS and NBC spent more than two minutes promoting Team Obama’s “Dream Act” amnesty for students. NBC devoted two minutes and 45 seconds to a Chelsea Clinton story on orphaned baby elephants in Africa.
These same media outlets pounce on allegations of conservative hatred, even when there isn’t a scintilla of evidence. The Oklahoma City bombing was caused by hatred from right-wing talk radio. The Aurora killer was a member of the Tea Party. So too was the man who shot Gabby Giffords. On and on it goes, and over and over, it turns out not to be true.
ABC led “World News” with the story on the FRC shooting and saluted the heroic security guard for saving the FRC from a mass shooting in their offices. They were the exception.
Once again the MRC reported:
“Our taxpayer-funded media were silent. The “PBS NewsHour” offered nothing. It did have time to announce “About four million Bumbo baby seats are being recalled because infants can fall out of them.” NPR offered no story on “All Things Considered” on Wednesday night, but did find time to report on cheating at a national Scrabble tournament. NPR also skipped it on Thursday’s “Morning Edition,” but covered the riveting story of “inter-tribal cattle violence” in South Sudan.
MSNBC’s prime-time lineup, starting with Chris Matthews, said nothing about the shooting at FRC – except for Rachel Maddow, who offered a slightly longer brief than Brian Williams. This is the same network that went over the top and around the bend that someone at a Tea Party rally was carrying a weapon at a rally. So why can’t they produce one full story on an actual shooting at a conservative office?
On Thursday morning, the network pattern continued: ABC offered another full story (adding the LGBT volunteer connection). By contrast, NBC offered a tiny anchor-read update. CBS aired nothing, but did find the time for a story on the 40th anniversary of the movie “Deliverance.” Burt Reynolds in make-believe is somehow more newsworthy than a left-winger aiming to massacre up an office of conservative Christians.
CNN was the most offensive of all. Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage was interviewed on Thursday morning’s “Early Start,” and protested how the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “hate group” designation for several Christian conservative groups – including FRC – is obviously now causing real harm.
In reply, with zero sense of post-shooting decency, CNN anchor Zoraida Sambolin suggested the FRC absolutely deserved the SPLC’s “hate group” label, reading from a 1999 FRC pamphlet on the National Man-Boy Love Association and gay activists. She berated Brown: “It is spewing hate, isn't it? So it’s hate spewing hate.”
Within 24 hours of a gay-left activist shooting at the FRC, the world-class jerks at CNN are still demeaning FRC and social conservatives as “hate groups” that should be drummed out of the public conversation.”
Then we have Chris Matthews, the star anchor of MSNBC and probably the best example of left-wing bias in the media. It was Matthews, who previously linked Sarah Palin and Michele Bachman to the attempted killing of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, completely ignoring the shooting of the security guard at the conservative Family Research Council.
By Matthews' own past statements, wouldn't an examination of the possible root causes of the FRC shooting be warranted?
On January 10, 2011, Matthews said of the Giffords attack: "Sarah Palin using gun play language. What is she talking about crosshairs and reloading and Bachmann out there with her kind of talk." He hinted, "Why are guns talked about so much, especially on the right? Why?"
On June 10, 2009, Joan Walsh, one of Matthews' favorite guests, linked Rush Limbaugh to the Holocaust Museum shooting. She bloviated:
“There is a very disturbing and disturbed element of political discourse. And I would, I would throw in Rush Limbaugh. Not blaming him, but when you say that our President is more dangerous than al-Qaeda you've gone off into crazy nut job land. You are off the charts crazy. And you are, you are whipping people up.”
On Wednesday, Fox News reported of the FRC attack:
“The suspect "made statements regarding their policies, and then opened fire with a gun striking a security guard," a source told Fox News. WJLA-TV7 reported the suspect was also shot. Sources also said the gunman may have been carrying a bag from Chick-fil-A, the embattled fast-food restaurant whose president came under fire from gay activists after he said he did not agree with same-sex marriage.
Sources told Fox New that after guard took away his gun, the suspect said, "Don't shoot me, it was not about you, it was what this place stands for."
It's sadly not surprising that Matthews, who often likes to jump to conclusions and link conservatives to acts of violence, had no interest in covering an attempted slaughter at a conservative organization.
On the other hand in an example of suppressing news unfavorable to their agenda the MSM pretty much ignored the fizzle of the Chick-fil-A “Kiss-in.” The broadcast networks promoted gay activists’ protest of the fast food company Chick-fil-A, but when that protest fizzled, they did little to cover the failure.
According to a report by the Media Research Center ABC’s Steve Osunsami hyped the protests ahead of time, saying “nearly 100,000 friends and family have been invited online.” After the apparent lack of turnout at the kiss-in, however, the networks stopped reporting on the protest. Only ABC briefly mentioned the results of the kiss-in, after all three networks talked about the protests on the morning of August 3rd.
“Gay activists scheduled their National Same Sex Kiss-in Day that day as a protest against the pro-traditional marriage views of the firm’s founder and Chick-fil-A’s contributions to pro-family groups.
The only attention ABC gave to the kiss-in was a brief on the Aug. 4 edition of “Good Morning America.” Ron Claiborne reported: “And hundreds of people across the country turned out for the latest round in the culture war sparked by the Chick-fil-A restaurant chain. Gay rights advocates staged a kiss-in on Friday, snapping photos of themselves kissing in front of the restaurant. This came a couple of days after people packed the fast-food chain showing support for the company's president's anti-gay marriage stance.”
After talking up the protests, the other two networks completely ignored the sparse attendance. CBS reported on Aug. 3: “At Chick-fil-A restaurants across the country, today gay rights supporters are calling for a national same-sex kiss day,” but skipped reporting the Chick-fil-A kiss-in altogether in its evening coverage and over the weekend.
Gay activists scheduled their National Same Sex Kiss-in Day that day as a protest against the pro-traditional marriage views of the firm’s founder and Chick-fil-A’s contributions to pro-family groups.
The only attention ABC gave to the kiss-in was a brief on the Aug. 4 edition of “Good Morning America.” Ron Claiborne reported: “And hundreds of people across the country turned out for the latest round in the culture war sparked by the Chick-fil-A restaurant chain. Gay rights advocates staged a kiss-in on Friday, snapping photos of themselves kissing in front of the restaurant. This came a couple of days after people packed the fast-food chain showing support for the company's president's anti-gay marriage stance.”
After talking up the protests, the other two networks completely ignored the sparse attendance. CBS reported on Aug. 3: “At Chick-fil-A restaurants across the country, today gay rights supporters are calling for a national same-sex kiss day,” but skipped reporting the Chick-fil-A kiss-in altogether in its evening coverage and over the weekend.”
I understand that bias that will occur in the press and media. This is natural and I have my own biases, biases on the right. But these prejudices should be confined to the opinion pages and blogs, not the front page of the papers or media that claims to be news. As an example The Fox News Channel, which proclaims “fair and balanced” has its news show and opinion shows. Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and John Stossel have opinion shows. Bret Baier, Shepard Smith, Peter Doocy, and Bill Hemmer are hard news reporters and will bring on advocates for both sides of an issue. This is what they are the leading TV news service in the nation.
There are two ways to project your bias in the media. The first is by having anchors, reporters, and opinion writers obviously in the tank for the agenda they espouse. The other is by having editors and producers select the stories they want to report on and then use certain code words to slant the news. As an example how many times have you heard the “far right extremist” in and news story as compared with the term “far-left extremist?” The answer is rarely, if never.
For eight years our MSM ran negative stories about George W. Bush. That’s because they hated him. On the other hand negative stories are few and far between about Barack Obama and his policies. That’s because they love him.
The job of the fourth estate is to report the truth to power — all power. Not to pick and choose stories that will best fit their agenda. This is the way they dictate the dialog. How can the voters obtain truthful and accurate information so they can make informed decisions when going to the polls?
I am not in favor of any form of censorship as recently demonstrated in Russia with the jailing of young dissenters, who protested the policies and regime of Vladimir Putin. Let the MSM and blogosphere have their opinion pages and writers. But let us have a MSM that will report fairly and accurately on breaking news stories and government policies and officials without using code words and editing out stories that do not match the agenda of the opinion page.
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