To fix a problem you must first admit that you have one.
There may be no stronger evidence that the establishment press in the U.S. is miles away from admitting that it has any kind of problem with persistent party and ideological bias than a report filed by Associated Press reporters Raphael G. Satter and Gregory Katz on Friday. In it, the pair observed without even a hint of irony how "many of Britain's most-read papers take sides."
Meanwhile, in the course of discussing the out-of-nowhere rise of Nick Clegg, Satter and Katz noted how the Liberal Democrat's debate performance was "threatening (Conservative leader David) Cameron's lead," while "somehow" forgetting that Clegg & Co. have for the moment relegated Gordon Brown's Labour Party to third place in many polls, including this one from a week ago at the Financial Times. No bias there, eh?
(The latest from the Daily Telegraph is that Clegg won't rule out a LibDem-Labour coalition government as long as Brown isn't Prime Minister.)
But back to the AP's comic relief, seen in Satter and Katz's first five paragraphs:
Wow. Where do you start with something as deluded as this? Jennifer "Democratic operative" Loven? The Bush rally crowd that supposedly booed heart attack-hospitalized Bill Clinton, but didn't? Dan "Fake documents" Rather's work called "fake but accurate" by the New York Times? The kid-glove treatment given to Barack Obama during the entire 2008 election cycle (and beyond)? The virtual cover-up of ClimateGate? I don't have time to write a book, and I don't need to when all anyone has to do is read NewsBusters for 15 minutes or so to get sufficient proof of how utterly deluded Satter and Katz are.
One of the better indicators of the relative fairness and toughness of the UK press is the fact that during the Clinton years it broke so many stories on U.S. politics that the leftist establishment press in America wouldn't touch. Though not as frequently (thanks to blogs and others being here to beat them to it), it's doing the same thing during the Obama administration. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs doesn't like it a bit, but unlike the domesticated domestic press in the U.S., the Brits push back.
The AP pair's claim to relative objectivity in the U.S. press amounts to unsupported self-congratulation that would be hysterical if it weren't for the fact that the wire service largely drives the daily news narrative.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
