CNN, the most trusted name in - doodling?

In a showcase piece of just how far the network has sunk journalistically speaking, they have produced a segment that could only be described as childishly one-sided. The title of the piece - Palin Fantasies Revealed in Doodles.

The reality is that the analysis of these doodles reveals more about CNN's fantasies than anything else. It is a piece so laden with PDS overtones, so bereft of integrity, that one has to wonder how it can possibly be offered up by CNN as news.

Reporter Jeanne Moos compares two doodles, one done by President-elect Barack Obama, and one by Governor Sarah Palin, back when she was running for mayor. She manages to find some people on the street to comment on the two doodles, and the results are incredibly biased toward one side. And guess who gets the positive coverage...

Link and embedded video below the fold.

To quote tennis player John McEnroe, "You cannot be serious!"

Newsweek is exploring the possibility of a baby boom being sparked by the "euphoria of Obama fans."

Jessica Bennett of Newsweek comes firing out of the gates with the somewhat disturbing headline, "Change You Can Conceive In."  She quickly follows that up in the sub-headline, posing this question:  Could euphoric Obama fans be sparking a baby boom?

Creepiness factor aside, does this really constitute serious journalism? 

The opening for some reason feels it important enough to find out if Barack Obama himself, was conceived on the day that John F. Kennedy was elected.

It continues after the break:

How is it that in this time of historic change and euphoria, the media can remain so pessimistic?

The messiah has been elected, ACORN and Democratic Secretary of State Mark Ritchie are stealing an election in Minnesota, conservatives are going to be silenced via the Fair-Less Doctrine, and gay marriage activists are assaulting the elderly. It is a time of hope and optimism in this, our liberal country.

So, why so negative?

The answer of course is, certain news might be perceived as a positive point in the waning days of the Bush Administration.

The bias, after the break…

In what can only be described as delusional, Los Angeles Times writer James Rainey attempted to castigate the right wing media as a bitter and resentful group of shameless journalists - attributes that can only describe the liberal media's behavior for at least eight years now.

The title itself, ‘Right-wing media feeds its post-election anger,' demonstrates that Rainey will not be pulling any punches with his article.  But why is he focusing on the reaction of conservative talk show hosts less than one week after Obama's election?  Did he forget the liberal media's - nay, the mainstream media's - chronic case of misplaced anger since election night of 2000?

The answer, of course, is no.  Rainey's employer, the LA Times, has been one of the biggest offenders of liberal media ignorance in quite some time.  After all, The Times has produced rants that read like a rap sheet of bias. 

An examination of the piece follows...

Ah, the land of lollipops and unicorns has descended upon us now that the savior has won the election.

Perhaps with the safety of the completed election securely behind, Peter Slevin of the Washington Post did a very cutesy article covering the not-so-cutesy terrorist, Bill Ayers.

Ayers was gracious enough to come out of the woodwork to offer his viewpoints on the Republicans demonizing him during the campaign. 

"Pal around together? What does that mean? Share a milkshake with two straws?" Ayers said.

No William, palling around together might include one pal giving another a glowing review of their book, or perhaps the two of you serving together on the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, or maybe even inviting Obama over to your home to help launch his political career.  Hell, who's to say Bernardine Dohrn wasn't serving up milkshakes in your living room at the time?  But maybe we're just splitting hairs on defining the term ‘pal.'

He goes on to say:

Who would you think is more concerned with the best interest of the United States? Americans? Or those in other countries?

If you chose the latter, then you are likely a liberal. You are also, apparently, like many other countries in the world. Countries that will go from respecting the authority of this nation, to snickering behind our backs at the possibility of electing a President who thinks the world is his constituency, and not his native country.

The media is unconsciously making this obvious, by revealing what may be a major reason we should be concerned about the possibility of the phrase ‘President Barack Obama.’

The world is salivating at the prospect of appeasement, and that will be Obama’s number one foreign policy platform.

Just check out these Election Day headlines:

In what can only be considered as having your race cake and eating it too, Hardy Brown, a writer for Black Voice News is demanding that African Americans vote for Barack Obama to ‘break the shackles of hopelessness that has weighed us down for so long,’ while simultaneously taking the high road by declaring that there is no place for racism in campaigns.

This is what is known as a Sharptonism – making a racist statement that attempts to portray the speaker as non-racist, whilst the rest of the world actually sees them as one of the worst offenders of intolerance.

The entire first paragraph seems to harness the theme of ‘we are owed this election because of our past.’ How about, ‘we owe ourselves the dignity of making an honest choice on Election Day, casting our vote based on policies rather than skin color?’

(Emphasis mine)

The Associated Press this morning did a short and sweet hit piece on Sarah Palin, criticizing the Alaska Governor for acting as, well, the Alaska Governor.

Anne Sutton of the AP essentially mocks Palin for governing the state by ‘remote control.’ It’s not so much the criticism as it is the reality that if Sarah Palin wasn’t doing her job, the AP would be hammering her for that instead. The headline would go from ‘Palin manages to govern Alaska from afar’ to ‘Palin manages to neglect Alaska while campaigning.’

Sutton goes on to offer these hard-hitting examples of journalism that have come to define the AP, using such concrete descriptors as ‘almost a month’ and ‘probably’ to define lengths of time and cost respectively. The entire article follows (emphasis mine):

There's a new potential excuse out there for Obama backers fearing a racial tinge to the election results next Tuesday.

As NewsBuster's Tim Graham noted, Newsweek has been proactive enough to suggest that only racism can launch McCain into the White House at this point.

The Hartford Courant offers a different rationale, however (As if there is anything rational about calling someone who doesn't vote for your candidate, a racist).

Yes, the new terminology offered by the Hartford Courant is ‘unconscious racism.' Meaning if you pull the lever for McCain on Election Day, you are not only a racist, but you're too stupid to realize it.

No word yet on whether the 84% of African Americans who are voting for Obama should be considered ‘conscious racists.'

Ah, the good old days. Remember way back when filmmaker Oliver Stone lamented about his even handed portrayal of George W. Bush in his disappointing new hit piece, W?

"I tried to be fair and balanced and compassionate," Stone said. "I don't take sides. I don't take political sides. I'm a dramatist, and this is the movie I've made."

Yes, that was way back on October 12th, barely a week ago.

Now however, it appears being fair and balanced means comparing the President to someone like, say, Adolf Hitler.

CNN's Presidential Debate Report Card echoes most polls offered by the main stream media.  It involves 60% Democrats as a sample group, and if your response doesn't agree with their agenda, then some ‘alterations' are made.  In other words, the results are weighted to provide liberals with an edge. 

The Web site's latest report card allows the viewer to rate the performance of both Presidential candidates in Wednesday's debate.  Seems pretty straight-forward, right?  But things weren't working properly for some readers.

In fact, when visiting the Barack Obama side of the report card first, all is seemingly well. Votes are counted and recorded correctly.  Everything seems just dandy.  However, when one visits the John McCain side first, things can get a little peculiar. 

This peculiarity occurred several times early Thursday afternoon, and will be outlined after the break.

When clicking on a choice of grade for McCain's debate performance, I went with an A, as can be seen here with the highlight:

Did you happen to catch the candidate who handled her heckler with grace, poise, and dignity? It’s created quite a buzz in the media…

The Boston Globe spoke of her ‘snappy comeback.’ The Consortium for Independent Journalism reveled in ‘her deft reaction.’ MSNBC reported from the scene that there was ‘roaring cheers and applause from the stunned crowd.’ USA Today remarked about her ‘deadpanning.’ The New York Times noted that ‘Her words were drowned out by a cheering, now-standing crowd.’

Yes, the media was all sorts of in love with the quick retort to a crazed heckler.

But, if you thought that was in response to Sarah Palin’s excellent handling of an anti-war heckler, you’d be sadly, mistaken. Rather, those were all quotes in response to Hillary’s handling of the ‘Iron My Shirt!’ incident, nearly a year ago. It was all the MSM rage once upon a time.

In a rapid fire display of flip-flopping that would make even the staunchest of liberals proud, Newsweek's Howard Fineman manages to change his opinion on the justification of an Obama-Lincoln connection three times in just under 900 words.

The random logic is hard to see through all the gooeyness behind the concept of such a ridiculous comparison in the first place, but once you wipe the screen, you'll be able to spot it clear as day.

Fineman starts by asking himself a few questions:

Is there any reason, other than the lean frame and knack for giving good speeches, to compare the two men? Is there any reason to see in Obama a Lincoln-like ability to unite a "house divided" in our perilous times? Is that even a fair question to ask or comparison to make?

While most of us would scoff at the notion, Fineman concludes otherwise:

Remember the furor and the comedic punch lines as a result of Sarah Palin’s statement, implying that she needed someone to clarify the role of the Vice President?

Well, brace yourselves for a similarly overwhelming media reaction to Joe Biden’s solution on where one can locate the definition of the Vice President’s role – Article I of the Constitution.

Problem being, it’s actually Article II.

To most, this will simply constitute another famous Biden gaffe. However, Biden was so forceful and patronizing in his argument during last night’s debate that Dick Cheney should realize ‘Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president,’ that it bears pointing out.

The full excerpt from the debate follows (h/t to Michelle Malkin):

Today’s version of our exercise, in which we dissect the media’s attempts at interjecting bias into a simple headline, may stun some of you.

The shocking aspect? The Washington Post didn’t partake in the liberal doctoring of the headline. Let’s take a look…

The Pentagon just released a report entitled ‘Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,’ which highlights a decline in violence in the country in 2008.

Surprisingly enough, the WaPo ran this headline:

Violence Declines Further in Iraq

While positive news in a Post headline is a bit hard to believe, they did include the following sub-headline, managing to interject that ol’ liberal pessimism we’re more accustomed to:

Pentagon Report Cites Factors That Could Rekindle Attacks

That said, we have to give them some credit for combining the positive and negative into one headline, making it less biased than their competitors. Observe…

CNN’s Web site this morning tracked a developing story involving the stock market opening, by featuring a photo of an Iran anti-war protest.

The photo, provided by our friends at the AP, was simply too perfect to pass up apparently. After all, any photo which includes a man brandishing a banner which reads ‘Jail Bush,’ is something that a biased news organization simply has to take. Pertinence be damned. Seriously, nothing says the economy quite like a placard reading ‘No attack on Iran.’

CNN probably could have found a photo that actually applied to the topic of a sliding stock market. Was a stock photo of a line graph with a red arrow pointing down not available at the most trusted name in news? No picture of someone ringing the opening bell?

The story itself was titled ‘Wall Street Drops at Open,’ and to its credit, did not include the photo within the article. Oddly enough however, there was no mention of 'Iran' in the article that the above photo linked to either. Nor was there any mention of the word 'war.' Or 'protest.'

We've covered it here before.  It's akin to that old child's game where one person whispers something into another's ear, passes it on to several others, until the final statement is no longer vaguely recognizable as being related to the first.

So, here we go again with Anatomy of a Biased Headline...

Let's start with a recent study funded by the National Science Foundation, in which researchers lay claim to this finding: 

Some Political Views May be Related to Physiology

Science Magazine's actual headline was similarly non-insulting:

Political Attitudes Vary with Physiological Traits

Seems pretty neutral right?  Let's see how the media took that headline and ran with it...