In the days after the 9/11 attacks, Americans watched their
fellows grieve for 3,000 innocent loved ones lost in the heaps of
charred rubble at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in a
Pennsylvania field. Though the press’s reporting in the first few
days of the crisis had been courageous and straightforward, it
wasn’t long before “analysis” was forthcoming.
Most descriptive was the headline in the Christian Science
Monitor, a mere 16 days after the attack. “Why Do They Hate
Us?” it read, plaintively. Implicit in the question was an
assumption — that the attack couldn’t be an act simply of
mindless, deadly hatred. There had to be a reason. And it was up to
us to find it, and to try to understand.
Now, in the aftermath of Dick Cheney’s hunting accident, perhaps
it’s time for the press to ask itself at least a variant of the
same question. The media’s outrage has been loud and protracted
about the Vice President’s decision not to notify the press
immediately — and to release the news through a private citizen to
a local newspaper.
But given the hyperbole, the snark, and the outright hysteria
when all available evidence points to a simple hunting accident,
any initial reluctance to set the press pack on the story seems to
have been — if not wise — certainly justified. Along with the
irresponsible and unjustified discussion of whether the Vice
President was alcohol-impaired at the time of the accident, the
week has featured such elements as the Washington Post’s
Dana Milbank (whom, the paper insists, is not an opinion writer)
appearing on Keith Olbermann’s show in a bright orange hat and
vest. By Thursday, the Post’s fashion writer was busily
deconstructing the Vice President’s decision to wear a pink tie for
a television interview about the accident.
Such treatment of the accident gives the game away — that many
in the press itself understand it’s not really an important story.
So why the continuing, constant coverage? Because, some in the
press have argued, it’s not the shooting itself but the way the
accident was handled that’s important — symbolic, we are to
understand, of a pattern of secrecy on the part of the Bush White
House. And if that’s the case, then it’s agenda journalism of the
worst kind: Covering an unimportant story as if it were important,
just to make a point.
It’s amazing. The same press that encourages Americans to
“understand” why some Islamofascists pressed a sneak attack upon
unsuspecting innocents is, itself, either unwilling or unable to
look at the reasons that Republicans — at least half the body
politic — routinely operate under the assumption that the
mainstream media will be hostile in its coverage of them, their
ideas, and their politicians.
Just last week, in an egregious slur, former NBC newsman Bryant
Gumbel volunteered that the dearth of African Americans competing
made the Winter Olympics “look like a GOP convention” (minus,
presumably, Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Ken Blackwell, Lynn Swann and
Michael Steele, among others). His views were remarkable in
big-time media circles only in that the anti-Republican bias was so
openly expressed — and it’s worth wondering how many current
big-time anchors share the same opinion, deterred from voicing it
publicly only by the chimera of “journalistic objectivity.”
Similarly, the hysteria over the Cheney accident itself only
underlines the monolithic mindset and life experience of most of
the national press — nary a hunter in sight — and its
psychological and physical distance from everyday Red State values
and pursuits.
A recent UCLA study, published in the Quarterly Journal of
Economics, found that nearly all major media outlets tilt to
the left. The findings were surprising only to those who have never
observed the mainstream media’s treatment of the GOP. The bias
explains why Republicans are happy to offer stories to local,
rather than national, press; they have a greater chance of being
treated fairly.
As of March of 2005, some polls were showing that journalists
were less well thought of than lawyers, auto mechanics, and even
politicians. Episodes like the media frenzy of last week explain
why. So even as members of the media excoriate the Bush
Administration for its failings after the Cheney birdshot accident,
perhaps they would be well-advised to take an equally persistent
look at their own.
Carol Platt Liebau is an attorney, political analyst
and radio talk-show host. Her blog is at www.carolliebau.blogspot.com.
