What media bias?

We've all heard of Cindy Sheehan.  For a while there, if she sneezed, it was reported everywhere you looked.  Maureen Dowd famously claimed that grieving mothers of fallen soldiers have "absolute moral authority" when they protest the war.

So, Maureen, how about Merrilee Carlson—not to mention the many others like her?  Do they also have "absolute moral authority" when they speak out in opposition to everything Sheehan stands for?

Todd Manzi of Townhall.com writes:

A grieving mother of a soldier killed in Iraq wants to voice her opinion. She has a message about the war in Iraq and feels the American people need to hear what she has to say.

Her name is Merrilee Carlson and her story is compelling and newsworthy. Unlike another mother of a fallen soldier, Carlson is not a household name. Her message is exactly opposite of the over-exposed message of the well-known protesting mom.

Regarding the war in Iraq, Carlson says, "We have to take a step back and look at what we have asked our military to do. We have asked them to do a job. It doesn’t matter how we got there. The fact is we are there and we have a job to finish."

Carlson began trying to get her message out last August and September. She didn’t like what was coming out of Crawford and felt the need to correct the record.

In the last couple of weeks the organization that Carlson chairs, Minnesota Families United, has been in the center of a controversy that, by any objective reasoning, should have made national news.

Minnesota Families United teamed with Progress for America Voter Fund and produced two television spots. Minnesota was used as a test market for the spots and PFA made a rather large statewide television buy. The ABC affiliate in the Twin Cities market, KSTP, refused to air the spots.

The decision not to air the first MFU commercial was made by Rob Hubbard, General Manager. His objection was over two lines in the spot:

1) The media only reports the bad news, but American troops are making real progress
2) You would never know it from the news reports, but our enemy in Iraq is Al Qaeda.

Thank goodness for the blogosphere, or you'd never know about this sort of thing.

There's no real question, of course, about just why they're ignoring her.  But I want someone—anyone—from the Legacy Media to tell us why.  Have a little courage.  Speak the truth about why you're ignoring her.

On Thursday, February 16th, the Chair of the Democrat Party in Minnesota called on all TV stations to pull the ad. The top Democrats in Minnesota want to suppress the message of Carlson’s group.

Merrilee Carlson was born and raised a Democrat. She doesn’t like politics and she wants to make it clear that her group is non-political. So, the Democrats in Minnesota are trying to suppress the message from mainstream families who have suffered the loss of their children from the war in Iraq. Why is this not news?

That other mom was a full-time, anti-war protester for more than a year before she came up with the PR stunt to go to Crawford during the president’s vacation. The media accepted the stunt and gave her message enormous coverage. This prompted Carlson to take action for her message. Now Carlson is in the middle of legitimate news and the media is silent.

Have we come to the point where it takes a stunt to make news? Merrilee Carlson is thoughtful, sincere, professional and respectful of those who disagree with her. Not only does she have the exact opposite message from the spectacle in Crawford last summer, she has the exact opposite approach. Regarding the efforts of her group she said, "This isn’t about us. We are not looking to be that public figure; we have stepped out because of the need. This is not about us, it is about our children."

Obviously, the mainstream media is going to do everything they can to avoid Carlson. They are not interested in balancing her view against the anti-war view they have so heavily promoted. We already knew the media was liberally biased. Now it’s apparent they are also biased against ordinary people as well. The foaming-at-the-mouth fanatical fringe gets news coverage and the people who portray the best qualities of us are ignored.

Despite its protestations that it's necessary for this country to function constitutionally, the American Legacy Media has sunk to the level of being a mere tool of the leftist, Democratic point of view.  There's not much difference between them and any other propaganda tool in history.  Many folks want to compare them to the Nazi propaganda machine in the 30s and 40s, but let's not go that far.  Let's just call them what they are:  propagandists.  Propagandists and enemies of freedom.

(Hat tip to Ralph Bristol, and thanks to Greyhawk for the Open Post!)

Comments

[rob]

Oh man... I was just watching the evening network news and they just ran a story on that high school teacher that was suspended to making comments to his class that were very negative towards George Bush. The whole school staged a protest and walked out. He is a government teacher and during class he compared Dubya to Hitler and also told the kids that the US is the most violent country in the world. They brought out all these civil liberty guy to denounce the suspension. One of them argued that he was entitled to his opinion and was mearly expressing an alternative point of view to spur discussion and to let the kids think for themselves to make an opinion.

My jaw dropped. I've heard that argument before but if I remember correctly it was being made by some Intellegent Design proponents and was being shot down by these same civil liberty guys. Funny how that goes.