Media Bias Saved America?

In a blog titled "How ‘Media Bias’ Saved America," Philadelphia Daily News senior writer Will Bunch (on his well-named "Attytood" blog) first tried to argue that the media are not really biased, just accurate in pointing out the sleazy negativity of John McCain and the know-nothingness of Sarah Palin. But he ended by merely proclaiming that this so-called media bias "may just have saved America." Objectivity is for cowards:

Yes, they’re voicing outrage today inside the sacred sanctuary of the Temple of Objective Journalism , where the celebrants nervously fingered their rosaries rather than confront the Constitutional bonfire that was building outside.

But for eight years now, there’s been an out-of-control fire raging outside of that temple – a fire that was built upon the USA Patriot Act and Guantanamo and rendition and torture and signing statements and 16 words in a State of the Union Address. Ultimately, saving the last fabric of democracy is more important than worrying about what contrived commandments of journalism were stepped on while the blaze was finally extinguished.

I myself would call it truth-telling, and honest journalism, but now we have some who want to call it "media bias." That’s fine with me, but understand this.

"Media bias" may have just saved America.

To liberals, proclaiming your liberal beliefs from the rooftops of a newspaper building isn't biased, it's just "honest journalism." But the first honest thing to say would be "I wasn't trying to be objective."

Bunch also lamely claims that George McGovern's press coverage was "horrific" in 1972 (examples, anyone?) and cites Mark Hertsgaard's book On Bended Knee that claimed a dramatic pro-Reagan bias in the press corps. Hertsgaard's primary method of research in that book was interviewing liberal journalists who apologized for not being anti-Reagan enough.

(Hat tip: Tom Johnson)