If one googles "Letterman" and "pencil," he'll find numerous (with video) blog reports of David Letterman stirring his pencil into Bill O'Reilly's courtesy beverage before O'Reilly comes onstage. (Yes, O'Reilly drank from it, too. )
If one googles "Letterman" and "pencil" in the Google news section, which monitors hundreds if not thousands of mainstream news sources, one will get back zero hits.
That's zero hits, folks. Nobody in the media noticed? Nobody? A week later, and still...nothing?
Media bias includes what is not covered. It is impossible to conceive that this is not of news interest. Nor is it possible for me to conceive that if a right-winger had committed this bastardly deed, his career would not be over, and rightfully so.
Now, maybe the blogs are wrong: I didn't see the show, and haven't watched Letterman since he got terminally lazy with his fat contract and I got cable sometime in the last century and had moose mating or whatever to switch over to on Discovery. But even debunking this is newsworthy enough for a media that has nothing better to talk about than Lindsey Lohan's hip size.
That's zero hits, folks. Crickets chirping. Letterman's in the club.
(Mad props to The Political Teen for this photographic evidence (?), and to the exquisite Larry Elder for the riff. If his radio show isn't available in your area, give him an ear via the internet. The Sage rules.)
4 comments:
And Tlaloc, I’m pretty sure any coverage of the current government is going to not cover more of the right’s actions because there’s a lot more to overlook. They’re simply doing a lot more of the governing right now.
The Downing Street Memos are hardly indicative of a humdrum act of governance. They call into question the entire rationale for the centerpiece of the current administration: The War.
That aside, Tom, you're being ridiculous again. You're conflating Letterman with news. Give me a break. At best, it'd appear in something like "The Fix" or "Entertainment Tonight." It's not news. Reading actual news sites and ignoring the entertainment sections, you wouldn't know or care that O'Reilly had been on Letterman. This tired old canard is ridiculous. Multiple media studies have shown that for the last few decades the media has been so concerned with "balance" that they will repeat blatantly false information just to have someone representing the other side.
That's not journalism. Journalism is about truth. It's about actions and their consequences. It's ultimately about being engaged and giving a crap about the place you live in.
This whole nonsense about Mainstream Media and/or its Bias is ridiculous, the blogosphere merely puffing up its chest and making its genitals feel big. It's nonsense, because without the actual news the MSM brings, bloggers would have nothing to talk about but their own pontifications. Which might be fun, but isn't news and isn't helpful to the world.
Hey, on an urelated note, would one of you be willing to unlock the above thread or post a thread about the Alito hearings if I promise to keep my comments civil? I'm dying to actually discuss these things with someone interested.
James, you do not have to promise pre hoc to be civil, I do not recall a time you have strayed over the line. The thread is locked because Tlaloc will not, or perhaps cannot, accept the minimal rules we set down. He knows he is not supposed to repeatedly repost a comment that has been deleted, and he knows he is owed no explanation for the removal of comments. I agree: the Alito hearings should be discussed. Not used as the vehicle for repeating slander that even the LA Times, WaPo and NYT won't traffic in.
This is the perfect example of Thomas Frank's Plen-t-plaint.
True conservative bias is something like Thomas Sowell getting an hour long special w/o any journalistic review, When no one from the far left could ever get more than 5 mins on any national news channel w/o journalistic review, or an opposing guest.
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