The Media- objective and fair, yay!

The following is "Fiddling As It Burns", a column by New York Times columnist Bob Herbert:

By anyone's standards, terrible things are happening in Iraq, and no amount of self-congratulation in Washington can take the edge off the horror being endured by American troops or the unrelenting agony of the Iraqi people. The disconnect between the White House's fantasyland and the world of war in Iraq could hardly have been illustrated more starkly than by a pair of front-page articles in The New York Times on Dec. 10. The story at the top of the page carried the headline: "It's Inauguration Time Again, and Access Still Has Its Price - $250,000 Buys Lunch With President and More." The headline on the story beneath it said: "Armor Scarce for Heavy Trucks Transporting U.S. Cargo in Iraq."

Why would we need to research media bias, when the New York Times columnists will do it for us? I mean what is his point here? His proof of bad times, is some editor at the New York times' decision to put a bunch of liberal stuff on the front page. This is some bad reasoning it really is. Is Bush's legal fundraising an issue for the front page by the way? If you don't believe the media is leftist, then I would consider you a complete jackass. (Fallacy-name calling) Here is another good example on a story from the AP. I highlighted the part where I saw some clearly objective reporting.

Bush Named Time's Person of the Year
Sunday, December 19, 2004

NEW YORK — After winning re-election and "reshaping the rules of politics to fit his 10-gallon-hat leadership style," President George Bush for the second time was chosen as Time magazine's Person of the Year. The magazine's editors tapped Bush "for sharpening the debate until the choices bled, for reframing reality to match his design, for gambling his fortunes — and ours — on his faith in the power of leadership."Time's 2004 Person of the Year package, on newsstands Monday, includes an Oval Office interview with Bush, an interview with his father, former President George H. W. Bush, and a profile of Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove.In an interview with the magazine, Bush attributed his victory over Democratic candidate John Kerry to his foreign policy and the wars he began in Afghanistan and Iraq."The election was about the use of American influence," Bush said.After a grueling campaign, Bush remains a polarizing figure in America and around the world, and that's part of the reason he earned the magazine's honor, said Managing Editor Jim Kelly."Many, many Americans deeply wish he had not won," Kelly said in a telephone interview. "And yet he did."In the Time article,
Bush said he relishes that some people dislike him."I think the natural instinct for most people in the political world is that they want people to like them," Bush said. "On the other hand, I think sometimes I take kind of a delight in who the critics are."
Bush joins six other presidents who have twice won the magazine's top honor: Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower (first as a general), Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Franklin Roosevelt holds the record with three nods from the editors.Kelly said Bush has changed dramatically since he was named Person of the Year in 2000 after the Supreme Court awarded him the presidency."He is not the same man," Kelly said. "He's a much more resolute man. He is personally as charming as ever but I think the kind of face he's shown to the American public is one of much, much greater determination."The magazine gives the honor to the person who had the greatest impact, good or bad, over the year. Kelly said other candidates included Michael Moore and Mel Gibson, "because in different ways their movies tapped in to deep cultural streams," and political strategist Rove, who is widely credited with engineering Bush's win. Kelly said choosing Rove alone would have taken away from the credit he said Bush deserves. This is the first time an individual has won the award since 2001, when then-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was celebrated for his response to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The American soldier earned the honor last year; in 2002, the magazine tapped Coleen Rowley, the FBI agent who wrote a critical memo on FBI intelligence failures, and Cynthia Cooper and Sherron Watkins, who blew the whistle on scandals at Enron and Worldcom.