Chuck Todd does not get it
Over the last several weeks it had seemed that Chuck Todd was becoming a journalist in his new role on Meet The Press. He did a good piece on Obamacare where he did not resort to false equivalencies nor did he attempt to create a fair and balance scenario where there was none. In the past he would have used false equivalences to attempt at creating an unnecessary balance.
On Tuesday Chuck Todd appeared on the The Mike O’Meara Show. O’Meara asked if he got blow back from people who believe that Meet The Press had a point of view. The implication was that somehow Meet The Press had a Liberal bent. Chuck Todd’s response was shocking. His answer was “There’s no point of view to Meet the Press.”
That statement is provably false as Meet The Press features more Republicans than Democrats. Moreover, in these times of war and terrorism, Meet The Press like most Sunday shows continue to feature neocons who were wrong about Iraq in particular and wrong about foreign policy in general.
The most shameful statement he made however was the following.
I have to say, and the left is now just as aggressive about this. I mean, I probably get more heat from the left than the right these days ’cause the left gets just as aggressive at trying to work the refs. They think that we in the quote, “mainstream media” overcompensate to the criticism. That’s their argument. Of course the right says we’re never, so it’s a shame. I think advocacy journalism, sort of the Fox and what MSNBC primetime, those models, that hasn’t been healthy for politics. It’s just not healthy for it. It all goes to one of the explanations why we don’t persuade people anymore.
Chuck Todd attempted to create a false equivalency that just isn’t true. MSNBC definitely has a Liberal bias. However, it is a fact based network with Liberal hosts. Fox News is a Conservative network that lies.
Several months ago authors Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein attempted to school Chuck Todd on the media’s role in allowing false equivalencies to cloud the political debate. Later on the article “Chuck Todd Is The Embodiment Of A Delegitimized Traditional Media” detailed how badly the traditional mainstream media had fallen. Chuck Todd in a moment of zen admitted that they had very little latitude with questioning guests appropriately.
Neither MSNBC nor Fox News are culpable for Americans lack of trust in the traditional mainstream media. They did that to themselves. They have allowed mostly the Right Wing the ability to dictate the narrative. They allowed news stories that should not have seen the time of day (government takeover of healthcare, death panels,death taxes, etc.) to achieve plausibility.
The fear that Chuck Todd spoke about, the fear that bloggers are delegitimizing the traditional mainstream media is real. They have left a truth vacuum that must be filled. Good bloggers will fill and are filling that space as the traditional mainstream media continues to get rolled by the Right and the corporatacracy.
(h/t Mediaite)