Ann Coulter: In 300 Stories On The Bell Salary Scandal, Only One Mentioned The Party Affiliations of the Corrupt

Keyser Sosa said the greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing the world he didn't exist.

The greatest trick the MFM plays is convincing the world that corrupt Democrats don't exist. For if they are Democrats, they are not corrupt; and if they are corrupt, then, in the media's telling at least, they are not Democrats.

In the greatest party-affiliation cover-up since the media tried to portray Gary Condit as a Republican, the media are refusing to mention the party affiliation of the thieving government officials in Bell, Calif.

There have been hundreds of news stories about Bell city officials' jaw-dropping salaries. In this poor city on the outskirts of Los Angeles, where the per capita annual income is $24,800 a year, the city manager, Robert Rizzo, had a salary of $787,637.

...

The police chief, Randy Adams, was making $457,000 -- $770,046 including benefits. The assistant city manager, Angela Spaccia, had a $376,288 salary, with a total compensation package of $845,960. Being just an assistant city manager, Angela had to pay for her own yacht.

...

According to Nexis, there have been more than 300 news stories reporting on the Bell scandal. Guess how many mentioned the party affiliation of the corrupt government bureaucrats?

One. Yes, just one. Now guess if the government officials were Democrats or Republicans? Yes, that is correct.

Congratulations -- you've qualified for our bonus round!

The one newspaper to cough up party affiliations, The Orange County Register, admitted that the corrupt officials were all Democrats only in response to reader complaints about the peculiar omission.

Lots of news stories on the scandal in Bell used the word "Democrat" or "Democratic." But that was only to say that the DEMOCRATIC attorney general of California, Jerry Brown, who is running on the DEMOCRATIC ticket for governor, is investigating the Bell officials' salaries.

So we know the media are aware of party affiliations. They just chose not to mention it when it would require them to identify shockingly corrupt government officials as Democrats.

Unbelievable.

As I have said a thousand times before, this is the clearest, most inarguable example of media bias there is. There should be a simple rule -- a stylebook rule -- dictating that a politician caught in corruption should have his party affiliation noted in the first paragraph. Or by the second.

But the MFM refuses to impose such a stringent rule. They want to keep the freedom to only note the party affiliation of corrupt Republicans while not mentioning it at all with regard to corrupt Democrats.

They want, as they call it, the freedom to apply their judgment and examine context. In their judgment and in context, they always find that the party affiliation of corrupt Republicans is relevant, but the party affiliation of corrupt Democrats never is.

Without such a rule dictating evenhandedness and similar treatment of similar situations, they are allowed to use "context" and "judgment" to make decisions case-by-case, and, surprise, that judgment always runs the exact same way.

This is the simplest and easiest thing to fix. It requires nothing but a one sentence addition to the style guide. It would go a long way to restraining the impulse for bias by adhering to an external rule, no "judgment" required.

Not only do they refuse to add such a rule, they refuse to even explain why they refuse to add it. They will not dignify that question with a response. They will not lower themselves to answering it.

Howie Kurtz writes a column a week on media behavior -- and sometimes touches the subject of bias. (Generally to provide "context" justifying biased media decisions.)

Has he ever addressed this question? About the media's refusal to identify corrupt Democrats as Democrats? Not even a refusal, actually -- they won't even address the question at all.

It has become a running joke that whenever the party affiliation isn't mentioned, you know god-damn well it's a Democrat.

But the media is content to be a running joke.

Thanks to, ahem, "Just the Tip."

posted by Ace at 12:48 PM

| Access Comments