Journalism 101: All the News That’s Fit to Print
From Reuters via the Washington Post:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh raised $2.1 million for children of fallen Marines and law enforcement officers on Friday by auctioning off a letter from Senate Democrats denouncing him for a remark about “phony soldiers.”
An important story meriting prominent placement?
The Post did not think so; they chose to bury the item on its “Nation” page under the “Wire” link. As of this writing (Friday night), the wire service account is underneath more than thirty other such stories.
When is Rush Limbaugh more newsworthy?
Very frequently—but mostly when he is in trouble.
He is front-page news when he demonstrates insensitivity toward an enfeebled celebrity venturing into the political arena (the Michael J. Fox tumult). Limbaugh has also found himself at the top of the page concerning his personal life, when his battle with addiction to prescription drugs found its way into the public domain or later when authorities detained him for carrying Viagra on an international flight. Evidently, those incidents were stories with high news value.
So, Limbaugh is a person of general public interest. Is there anything special about this particular story?
I think so. Limbaugh earned a record-breaking amount of money for a worthy cause. The ebay auction netted the biggest charitable contribution in the history of the online-bidding enterprise. Limbaugh more than doubled the previous record.
Did the story involve any other persons of note? Were there any compelling special interest angles?
You bet. The online charity auction was the latest chapter to a major imbroglio from the recent past. Nearly three weeks ago, Limbaugh found himself on the defensive when the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, and forty fellow Democrats in the Senate, charged him with making “outrageous…unpatriotic and indefensible comments” directed at soldiers dissenting against the war in Iraq. The story was above-the-fold news in all the major dailies and the network news shows.
The developments today unquestionably constituted a noteworthy follow-up to that featured story.
But what did all that add up to for the mainstream network news desks tonight?
A big fat zero. I could find no coverage on the big three nightly news broadcasts or on the Newshour.
In fairness, I must accord some left-handed praise for the New York Times for at least covering the culminating event. They currently feature a full-length, in-house story on the front page of their website: Limbaugh Sells Critical Letter for $2.1 Million.
However, the tenor of the article is pungently hostile to the conservative media icon. Check out this lead:
After Rush Limbaugh referred to Iraq war veterans critical of the war as “phony soldiers,” he received a letter of complaint signed by 41 Democratic senators.
TWELVE (let me repeat, TWELVE) graphs later, we get Limbaugh’s side of the story:
Mr. Limbaugh has said that he was only referring to one soldier who was critical of the war and had served only 44 days in the Army and never seen combat.
In between, we learn that Harry Reid is a big enough person to applaud the charitable gift. Quoting Reid:
I strongly believe that when we can put our differences aside, even Harry Reid and Rush Limbaugh, we should do that and try to accomplish good things for the American people.
We also learn that Rush was dead wrong in his character assessment of the Leader:
He [Limbaugh] predicted the sale’s success would anger the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, a signer of the letter, who[m] Mr. Limbaugh calls “Dingy Harry.”
But no—Reid was just tickled pink over the news.
In a truly bizarre conclusion, the Times article, consulting a purported tax law expert, insinuates:
the Casey foundation [the high bidder] might be liable for taxes because it would have difficulty demonstrating that the purchase of the letter furthered a charitable purpose. [Quoting the tax attorney]: “They’d have to establish the link between the transfer of money for that letter and promoting free speech, and that’s going to be tough.”
Say what? I don’t have a law degree, and I have no IRS experience—but come now.
A 2.1 million-dollar gift to a registered charity is going to be tough to justify?
Bottom Line: No fair-minded person can say that the mainstream media is a level playing field for prominent conservatives like Rush Limbaugh. In other words, objectivity is always subjective.
One More Note: Thomas Lifson asks a question to which we all know the answer, but it is nevertheless brilliantly illustrative: what if a Republican leader had attacked a liberal media favorite in a similar manner, using the power of Congress to intimidate a major media outlet? Would the smashing return shot have been news?
Cross-posted on The Bosque Boys.
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An UPDATE: The Washington POST did assign one of its own reporters eventually (rather than merely carry the wire account)–and ran the story on Saturday: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti... Of course, the Saturday edition of any newspaper is a dead letter, and the story itself took the line that the entire confrontation was silly and irrelevant, reporting the incident as a political sporting event. The POST lead: "Petty bickering about patriotism and Who Loves Our Troops More has never been seen as a financial growth industry, but there's no stopping American capitalism. This is why a perfunctory bit of political grandstanding, committed to U.S. Senate letterhead this month, became worth a reported $4.2 million yesterday, instantly becoming one of the most valuable printed documents of the modern era." Petty? Perfunctory? Yes (at least on the part of Reid and friends), but that angle ignores the malice and attempt to inflict real damage on Limbaugh. To add insult to injury, the POST neglects to mention the obvious: Rush smashed his persecutors. If you are going to play the story like a Redskins exhibition game–you might at least have the decency to report the final score.
Typical MSM, they will post every scandal and every dirty piece of laundry of any conservative, but not any of Liberal, that will be on the back page. Yes there is a liberal bias in the MSM and if anyone says differantly they just need to look at this imbruglio. or look at Hillary's campaign problems. You really don;t see it in the MSM as much as how bad the Iraq War is going. Even if we are having a lot of success, that doesn't fit into their picture. Or all of the Global warming Deniers that are coming out, they are castigated as being bought off by big oil or big companies, while the AlGore Disciples are raking in money from the brainwashed peolple. The MSM has been a joke and is loosing people left and right at their pandering to the liberals.
Hey Stix - we got a great video up at Political Vindication where John Stossel talks to a slew of "deniers." It rocks! Go here: http://politicalvindication.com/?p=1313
Great new post Waco. You just nailed it. The MSM is a liberal propaganda machine, pure and simple.
thanks