Why the Old Media Gets Every Story Wrong

In my very first blog entry -- entitled "The Old Media's Berlin Wall" (available in the archives) -- I point out that the Old Media has misreported every story of the past half-century or so up until the moment the lies could no longer be sustained.

That is, up until the moment the Berlin Wall came crashing down the Old Media was still portraying the Soviet Union as on par with -- even superior to -- America militarily and economically. The Old Media was still trying to sell the notion of the Japanese economy as an "unstoppable juggernaut" even as it was beginning its free fall into what is now a decades long recession.

More recently the leftists were "reporting" that America was in a "Vietnam-like quagmire" even as American troops were entering Baghdad in historic time and claiming that the streets of Iraq were "too chaotic" to allow for voting up to the very moment that the Iraqi people swarmed the streets to vote in greater numbers (percentage) than Americans in our most recent national elections.

Add to this the Old Media's longtime assertion that the "Arab Street" was seething with righteous indignation towards America and could burst into violence against "the Great Satan" at any moment even as protesters were taking to the streets demanding American-style and American-inspired freedom and democracy.

In the original piece I pointed out that this uninterrupted near-half-century of abject failure by the Old Media is not due to sloth, ignorance or incompetence -- if it were, frankly, the Old Media would have gotten a couple of stories right along the way. After all, as the saying goes, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Rather the Old Media has gotten every story wrong because they were reporting not what they actually saw happening but rather what they wished to happen. The Old Media was acting as a cheerleader and advocate for the leftist agenda which, invariably, seeks to undermine America.

To the "multiculturalists" who dominate the Old Media America's greatness -- it's "exceptionalism" -- is the single biggest obstacle to having their philosophy taken seriously. It is hard to argue that all cultures and forms of government are equally good and equally right when America keeps winning on the battlefields, in the economic arena, in the world of invention and innovation and in so many other ways.

By portraying Communism as on a par with America, or Japan as America's economic superior or the Arabs as better fighters than Americans the leftists hoped to undermine America's belief in itself and by doing so make the selling of multiculturalism that much easier.

This undermining of America is the one and only constant of the Old Media's reporting through the years. Be it the lies about a Viet Cong victory in the Tet Offensive or the attempt to besmirch America's morality by exaggerating the wrongs of Abu Gharaib -- whatever could be used to show the non-American culture to be superior and the American way to be inferior was what the Old Media reported without regard for truth.

That is, for forty-plus years the Old Media has sought to provide whatever misinformation and disinformation they felt necessary to convince the American people (and the people around the world who would follow us) that America, Americans and American culture is not superior to others.

I bring up the Old Media's sustained failures and lies again today because events of the past few months have yet again proven my assertions.

For example, in their quest to attack the Judeo-Christian religion at the heart of America's exceptionalism the Old Media had long been selling the tale of an oh-so-sophisticated Europe so intellectually superior to the dolts in America that they had transcended the superstition that is religion. Yet, when the real story could not be covered up -- the outpouring of love and affection for Pope John Paul shown by millions of adoring and worshiping Europeans the leftist "angle" was, yet again, exposed as the wishful thinking of the leftists and not the facts of the story.

Similarly, last week's historic victory for Tony Blair and the Labour party, proved the Old Media as wrong as wrong can be. In their attempt to weaken America the leftist press had tried to peddle the notion that the world hated America and anyone who supported the US in its liberation of the Iraqi people would pay a hefty political price.

Instead Blair completed a perfect "election trifecta" as the Weekly Standard called it, with George Bush and John Howard of Australia -- the three staunchest supporters of Iraq's liberation -- not just winning elections but doing so in impressive fashion.

If one wants to understand the demise of the Old Media -- with the NY Times' circulation plummeting to the point of irrelevance and CNN becoming a network only the leftists in Europe watch -- they can find the answer here. After all, how much longer can any business survive when it's record is "oh-for-forty-years?"