Blasts From The Past, And Other Places Part 9

It’s Time For The Media To Step Up

Now that John Kerry has done the right thing and conceded the American media must reexamine itself or be prepared to become irrelevant.

The farce that took place on Fox New and CNN on Election Night proves that neither the bastion of the right or left is capable of brining the public the news in an unbiased fashion. Fox’s coverage was the most egregious. First, the network refused to call California for Kerry until hours after the polls closed 11pm West Coast time. CNN called it immediately. There was no doubt in either party’s mind that it was going Kerry, along with Oregon and Washington State, but Fox kept saying it was to close to call.

However, that did not stop Billy Kristol and company from being the first to take the plunge with Florida and Ohio. Florida was an easier call, but there was no excuse for any network to call Ohio before this morning. The Foxes just could not hold themselves in check, so desperate were they to give the day to Bush. If Ohio went Democratic enough for the uncounted votes to matter Fox would have looked worse than Dan Rather.

The media must re-center itself. Network executives must come to realize that the American people will still watch even if a network is non partisan. CNN came the closest to this by including a couple of right wingers on their election panel, but you could still hear the hope in the reporter’s voice that Kerry would pull out a victory.

Just report the news. Period. That is all we want.