"Liberal Media" My A**!

(Cross-posted at MyDD)

Did you all catch this in today's LA Times? If not, check it out. We actually find some real analysis of that old myth of the "liberal media" and the new rumors of a "media love affair with Barack Obama".

Here, take a look:

The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, where researchers have tracked network news content for two decades, found that ABC, NBC and CBS were tougher on Obama than on Republican John McCain during the first six weeks of the general-election campaign.

You read it right: tougher on the Democrat.

During the evening news, the majority of statements from reporters and anchors on all three networks are neutral, the center found. And when network news people ventured opinions in recent weeks, 28% of the statements were positive for Obama and 72% negative.

Network reporting also tilted against McCain, but far less dramatically, with 43% of the statements positive and 57% negative, according to the Washington-based media center.

So I guess all the chatter about "liberal media bias" and "media love for Obama" is simply WRONG. Not only are they being hard on him, they're being harder on him than they are John McCain! Surprised? You shouldn't be.

I said this during the primaries when Hillary Clinton got the short end of the media stick, and I'll say it again now. The corporate media bosses aren't all that into "the liberal agenda". The only agenda they have is one to expand their profits.

And while the right-wing is in decline, they still exert plenty of control on the corpoate media. That's why we see them trying to "balance" any postitive news on Obama with negative news, even if there really isn't much negative news to report. And of course, we see how the media is still propping up the facade of "McCain the Moderate Maverick"... Even though McCain's agenda isn't all that different from George W. Bush's.

So what can we do about this real imbalance in media coverage of the election? Well, we can let folks know about the real facts on media bias like this analysis piece in today's LA Times. And of course, we can always refute the distortions with the real facts.