I don't disagree with this.
I don't think that's true. I stand on the corner that says the left leaning media that claims that it isn't left leaning that will be our downfall. I don't like people like Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes and find their political positions nauseating and absurd, but they're Americans with the right to say and believe what they want. I have a bigger problem with people like Brian Stelter who largely spout the same agenda but sanctimoniously claim to be fair commentators and guardians of the truth. It's the fraud, not the bias, that offends me.
Smith and Wallace don't lean right. (Baer does.) They only look like they do next to guys like Brian Stelter and Chuck Todd. What they really have that guys like Stelter and Todd don't have is professionalism and integrity. The same is true of Tim Russert. He was a partisan liberal who worked for Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Mario Cuomo. Everybody knew his beliefs and whose side he was on, but when he hosted Meet the Press, he put all that aside and behaved like a professional. Even though he totally agreed with a guy like Dick Gephardt, he'd grill him the way he'd grill Newt Gingrich. We need more journalists that him, and we have virtually none in mainstream media any more.
I honestly don't follow either of those guys.
But don't you see why it's a problem for media to be so partisan when their job is to find truth and hold those in power accountable?
Has it occurred to you that the UK might actually not allow Fox News because it wants to suppress competition with its own network (BBC News) and that the relevant decision makers might also have a political agenda?
When lawyers represent clients in court, they largely go with whatever argument that works. I detest illegal immigration, but when I practiced law, not only did I represent illegal immigrants, I was a very aggressive advocate for them specifically on the issue of their status - enough that other lawyers often sought out my work product and guidance on how to exclude evidence of their immigration status and how defeat defense efforts to bar them from recovering lost wages or lost earning capacity due to their status. I was a leader in my profession on those issues. Is it because I secretly like illegal immigration? No, it's because that was my job, and when people put their trust in me enough to hire me, I believed I owed them my very best effort.
And the mainstream media outlets take goofy positions in court too when it helps them. For example, what was the defense to the Sara Palin and Covington Catholic defamation cases? The defense was that the journalists were stupid and careless (as opposed to intentionally dishonest). Should we throw that at them?
