No wonder people don’t trust the media

by Dan Lucas

A Gallup poll from September revealed that public trust in the media is at an all-time low. Some recent national developments shed some light on why that might be.

The first of those developments is a new book by Sharyl Attkisson. Attkisson is an investigative journalist who worked for CBS News for two decades and had worked for CNN and PBS previously. She has won four investigative journalism Emmy awards and a RTNDA Edward R. Murrow Award. One of her Emmy awards was for reporting that was critical of the Bush administration.

Her book documents how the Obama White House and Democrats are protected by CBS. For example, she talks about how CBS suppressed stories about Solyndra, relaying how a CBS News exec asked “What’s the matter, don’t you support green energy?” CBS also worked to suppress Attkisson’s work on stories critical of the Obama administration such as the Fast and Furious scandal, the launch of ObamaCare and Benghazi.

The NY Post reported Attkisson talks about “what she calls the ‘Substitution Game’: She likes to imagine how a story about today’s administration would have been handled if it made Republicans look bad.” It’s an acknowledgement that the media treats stories much more favorably for the Obama administration than it did for the Bush administration.

Continuing on about the flagrant CBS bias, the NY Post reported “One of her bosses had a rule that conservative analysts must always be labeled conservatives, but liberal analysts were simply ‘analysts.’” Attkisson added “And if a conservative analyst’s opinion really rubbed the supervisor the wrong way, she might rewrite the script to label him a ‘right-wing’ analyst.’”

Attkisson also talks about how the White House would put pressure on her through President Obama’s top national security advisor, who is the brother of the president of CBS News.

It doesn’t sound like the problem was unique to CBS. Attkisson explained “Reporters on the ground aren’t necessarily ideological, but the major network news decisions get made by a handful of New York execs who read the same papers and think the same thoughts.”

The other recent development is how the media is underreporting that a Democratic candidate for governor in South Carolina called his female opponent a “whore.” Can you imagine the coverage this would be getting if a Republican did that to his Democratic opponent? An outraged Ann Romney said “You get so sick of saying there is bias out there, but if a Republican had said this, it would be blowing up in their face like nobody’s business.”

The few media reports on the Democrat’s “whore” comment are excusing it, using terms like “mistakenly” or “accidentally” and shifting the focus to Ann Romney. Why is Ann Romney part of the story at all? Why isn’t the MEDIA outraged that a minority, female candidate was called a whore by her white male opponent? Is it because she’s conservative and thus fair game in the eyes of the media? What an outrageous double standard.

This isn’t the first time the media has covered for unacceptable behavior from Democrats towards Gov. Haley.

Gov. Nikki Haley is from South Carolina and her parents are from India. She is the first Indian-American woman Governor, and she’s Republican. Last year the chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party made a racist comment which the mainstream media either ignored, excused or downplayed. The white male chairman said he hoped South Carolina voters would send “Nikki Haley back to wherever the hell she came from and this country can move forward.” How many people heard about that?

We are currently bereft of a vibrant, objective fourth estate. That is a dangerous state of affairs for our republic.

To read more from Dan, visit www.dan-lucas.com