Journalism and Expendable Truths

Media still in the tank for Obama

In this opinion piece from Steve Chapman of The Chicago Tribune we see the rather vain and inglorious attempt by The Elite Media Monoculture to deal with the sinking Obama campaign by trotting out various fabrications in the hope that most people who read the essay will not already know that they are a pile of leftist agitprop. Let's take a few of these and look them over.

Last week, he released a TV spot on education studded with falsehoods. It quoted the Chicago Tribune calling Obama a "staunch defender of the existing public school monopoly." But the Tribune didn't say it. I did, in a signed column in the Tribune, which praised McCain's support for school vouchers for low-income families.

Interesting that Chapman tries here to blame McCain for something that he himself said in his own newspaper. Just how exactly does McCain bear any responsibility for what is written at The Chicago Tribune? Presumably Chapman would say that he stands by the assessment of Obama's views on vouchers, so what is the problem here? Apparently Chapman is upset that someone actually used his words against The Anointed One. But note that he does not say that his views on Obama are incorrect. He only thinks they are inconvenient.

The ad couldn't be bothered explaining why Obama is wrong about vouchers. Instead, it said his "one accomplishment" was a bill mandating sex education for kindergartners. "Learning about sex before learning to read?" asked the narrator, implying that 5-year-olds would be taught the proper use of condoms before being taught their ABCs. Which, as it happens, is not true.

The purpose of a political ad is not to teach people the theoretical ideas behind vouchers or how they have become a political issue. When you watch a commercial on TV for, say Nike shoes, does it spend a lot of time telling you the history of shoe-making or the theory of orthopedics? Not as a rule. The purpose of a commercial is to get you to accept a single idea or image as a motivation to action.

If you want to know the underlying ideas of how vouchers work there is plenty of information on the web that you can use to become educated on the issue. You can go to The Heritage Foundation or the Cato Institute and read about the ideas of free markets and how they can be applied to the problems we have in government monopoly education to your hearts content. Or you can read Free to Choose by Nobel prize winning economist Milton Freidman who is credited with coming up with the idea in the first place. Responsible voters are expected to at least do a bit of their own thinking and reading for themselves before they decide who will get their vote. For Chapman to demand that a commercial become a lesson in how to understand public financed education is, of course, deeply absurd. But then, when is the major media these days anything other than absurd in their desire to see The Lightworker elected?

And as far as the sex education bill in question is concerned, note that Mr. Chapman does not actually refute the charge. And that is because the bill would have done exactly what its critics are charging. Jim Geraghty at The Corner comments:

Anyway, having now looked at the text of the sex education bill in question… it’s clear that one of its key purposes was to change existing law that said “Each class or course in comprehensive sex education offered in any of grades 6 through 12 shall include instruction on the prevention, transmission and spread of AIDS” to “Each class or course in comprehensive sex education offered in any of grades K through 12 shall include instruction on the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, including the prevention, transmission and spread of HIV.” Yes, the legislation permitted parents to take their children out of the class. But that was already existing law.

One has to wonder that the people who are calling McCain a liar seem not to have noticed that the text of the bill says just what the ad would make you think it said. But no critic seems to want to discuss the actual text of the bill. It's too easy to just call McCain a liar and leave it at that without adding any specifics. As we have seen in the last two weeks, these kinds of charges against McCain-Palin have consistently fallen down when they have been examined closely, something that the left would rather not do.

"We have yet to dispute any claim from the Obama campaign about Palin."

Neither have many other of the house organs of The Elite Media Monoculture. They have been too busy praising The One's coming healing of the planet and lowering of the seas to do any kind of serious journalism. That has been left to talk radio and the bloggers of the new media who have done the kind of job that is no longer done by dinosaur media, thank you very much. Is it any wonder that the Tribune, like so many other papers, is being forced by falling circulation and ad revenues to lay off staff? Not to us, but apparently it is still a mystery to Mr. Chapman.