This recent story…
…reminded me of the press asking Bush about his response to those pre-9/11 threats. Boy, they really had some pointed questions!
You’re right that it became a bigger story as it went on, of course, because half a dozen or a dozen women is going to be a bigger story. Filner’s absurd ‘rehab’ plan made it that much worse. But would you mind giving some more details here? What kind of coverage isn’t “really digging in?”
Yes, the columnist says there were rumors. You said the press knew what he was up to. I don’t think you’re going to acknowledge the difference, but those are not remotely the same thing. Not all rumors are true. That’s sort of an important distinction in journalism. That’s not to say they couldn’t have found out, but it’s also not a sure thing and you didn’t characterize the situation accurately. Saying they failed to look into the rumors is not the same as saying they knew it was true and didn’t report it. And how this guy knows what everyone else knew is beyond me. Curlee can comment on his own failures as a reporter, and I’m not sure how he knows everybody else blew off the story.
Exactly. So just to make it clear, this was a story that was very harmful to a Democratic politician that was broken by a mainstream news outlet.
That’s probably attributable to individual factors: Spitzer was struggling as governor and had wasted a lot of the support he had when he came into office, and Vitter had supporters who were behind him no matter what. And perhaps Spitzer could’ve been impeached, which wasn’t going to happen to Vitter.
But this is kinda what I was talking about. I’m suggesting that the press applies a slightly different standard – rumors about a Democrat need some solid evidence before reporting them, even as rumors; rumors about a Republican need less solid evidence before reporting them.
This formula is reversed by the Washington Times and Fox News – they won’t ignore a Republican scandal when it’s obvious, but they’re more willing to let mere rumors alone… but if those rumors surrounded a Democrat, the threshold to print/investigate gets lower.
Whereas I would argue that there was never much of anything to the talking points story OR the IRS story, and the press helped the Republicans beat the scandal drum for weeks on end by repeating the allegations until the stories petered out. And of course it went without saying the accusations got a lot more coverage than the conclusion that not that much was going on in either case.
I don’t agree. I’m not sure how well individual examples can confirm or debunk this kind of thing, but there have been several counterexamples posted here. And then there’s the whole Obama birth certificate matter: the press covered the hell out of it, and in the process the number of people who believed the president was a foreigner kept going up. If there was a standard for confirming that rumor, is sure wasn’t applied there.
The difference is that the so-called “liberal press” will move on from even a Republican scandal when it dies down or turns out not to have any substance, but Fox and their ilk will hang onto a story about Democrats like their lives depended on it.
From Bernard Goldberg’s book Bias:
he testified before Congress regarding acts he claims happened but did not witness. His testimony was hearsay bullshit without evidence. It was a political stunt.
This is a different allegation than the one being made in the thread, though. And you could not have picked a less credible citation.
Careful now: Where in the transcript do you see that? Show us, please.
Again: He testified as to what he was told happened by those who said they were there and did them.
Closer to the truth, *perhaps *- but quite a bit farther from your claim that he lied. :dubious:
The decision to claim he lied, so as to convince those easily convinced, was a political stunt. It worked, too - the evidence of which is in this thread.
Not precisely similar to the OP, granted – but very similar to the point I’m suggesting, which is the attention paid to scandals and proto-scandals by reporters.
And I don’t see how the credibility of the author applies when what the text I’ve quoted is doing is asking you to engage in a thought experiment, rather than asking you to accept his testimony as to some historical event.
I defined it in the remainder of that sentence. This was a local story with very few exceptions that I pointed out. When it became obvious that Filner was not going to get out of this and national Dems called for his resignation the national media started covering the story heavily. Almost as if the national Dems gave the media their marching orders by actively calling for him to step down.
The press can’t fully “know” what he is up to if they choose not to investigate. Ignorance is bliss. They deliberately ignored what they knew would be a scandal. Why? As Curlee says:
Also, I didn’t say they knew it was true. I said:
I didn’t state that the media knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the rumors were true. But, they didn’t even bother to look into them. Probably, as he implies in the article, because they were afraid of what they would find.
As I stated above we are not talking about absolutes here. As I stated in my first post the bias is more about subtleties, ignoring a story on the evening broadcast (as opposed to morning shows) and the attempt to smear the entire party as opposed to an individual failing.
A “thought experiment”? Is *that *what you call when you have to make some shit up in order to reach the conclusion you want? 
Pity those of us stuck in the reality-based community.
The talking points story was a sideshow to cover something up. The press showed very little interest in the basics of the entire Benghazi story including the latest CNN story or trying to get anything from the survivors. Just a complete lack of curiosity. My guess is that they are afraid of what they will find.
The IRS story is still unfolding so I’m surprised to hear you think there is so little to it.
Because he makes his living complaining about anti-conservative bias in the news for the consumption of conservatives who already believe the media is biased against them. And he’s not very good at it: before going off into his fantasy about reporters going to school in Omaha, he neglects to mention that Dan Rather is from not-exactly-liberal Texas.
“Will” find? Tell us, O Sage, what else do you think might be there that Issa and his subpoenas couldn’t? Yes, we know you *want *there to be something, but that isn’t quite enough.
Right, it’s still unfolding like the Iraq WMD story is still unfolding.
What? The talking points were the thing Republicans were interested in! They insisted the White House had sent Susan Rice and others on the talk show circuit with a bunch of misleading talking points and had tried to keep the terrorist aspect of the story quiet so it wouldn’t hurt Obama’s reelection campaign. None of that panned out.
It already unfolded that the IRS was scrutinizing both liberal and conservative groups and that the White House had nothing to do with it.
Almost. What they were (and still are) interested in is scoring a crippling, humiliating blow to Sec. Clinton personally and to her presidential prospects. Backfired on 'em at her testimony, though.
It also unfolded that Issa had specifically limited his demands for info to IRS behavior toward *conservative *groups only. Naturally, that’s what he was provided with. Unfortunately that too blew up in his face.
Sure it did. She went on the Sunday talk shows and did exactly as she was told. Or do you have a better explanation? Just to be clear, are you of the opinion that:
A) she acted completely on her own?
B) she was doing what she was told, but she wasn’t told by “the White House”?
C) if B, who gave her her direction?
I’m of the opinion that D) the claim that the White House gave her a deliberately false set of talking points didn’t stand up to scrutiny.
So, you believe she was following what the White House told her, just that the error was unknown to the White House?