In-Your-Face Media Bias

Howard Kurtz is doing his job. The host of CNN’s “Reliable Sources” has exposed the media’s bias on Iraq, noting that when casualty figures dropped last month, “the media paid little attention. A couple of sentences on the CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News, The New York Times ran it on page 10, The Washington Post, page 14, USA Today page 16. The L.A. Times, a couple of paragraphs at the bottom of a page 4 story.”

Kurtz then got the Post’s Robin Wright to flash her bias when she said, “it's not even sure that it is a trend yet. There is also an enormous dispute over how to count the numbers. There are different kinds of deaths in Iraq." Oh Ms. Wright? And those numbers were a problem when casualties were higher?

Finally, Kurtz turns to CNN’s military correspondent Barbara Starr and remarks, “let's say that the figures had shown that casualties were going up for U.S. soldiers and going up for Iraqi civilians. I think that would have made some front pages.” Starr candidly responds, “Oh, I think inevitably it would have. I mean, that's certainly -- that, by any definition, is news.”

OK, so we have the truth. The media is out to—let’s cut to the chase folks; we've only got 13 months—elect Hillary Clinton. “News” is anything that supports Clinton’s run for the White House: bad stuff from Iraq or on the economy. Good stuff from Iraq or on the economy is “no news”.