Chris Matthews: Media Was Biased During Election Season
(By Being Too Fair To Republicans)

One of his examples of "wild statements" the press was too soft on Republicans for was "putting women in binders."

Safe link to Newsbusters.

via @scottjw

I know this is pie-in-the-sky and I don't think it will happen, but here is what we desperately need: We need a coalition of biliionaires to simply buy a network and make sure the news division reports things objectively.

Not like Fox, which is a self-styled alternative to what was once called the Mainstream Media.

No, we need an operation -- we need to capture an institution -- and not label it an alternative to anything. So that it stands on its own. Not as an "alternative" to Mainstream Media, but as Mainstream Media itself.

And yes, a Mainstream Media which just so happens to report things objectively. As an actual Mainstream Media should.

Oh: Glenn Reynolds just wrote about this in the NYPost. I know it's been going around the comments, too.

He suggests a lower-cost option than buying a network: Buying women's magazines or at least websites.

My suggestion: Buy some women’s magazines. No, really. Or at least some women’s Web sites.

One of the groups with whom Romney did worst was female “low-information voters.” Those are women who don’t really follow politics, and vote based on a vague sense of who’s mean and who’s nice, who’s cool and who’s uncool.

Since, by definition, they don’t pay much attention to political news, they get this sense from what they do read. And for many, that’s traditional women’s magazines — Redbook, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, the Ladies Home Journal, etc. — and the newer women’s sites like YourTango, The Frisky, Yahoo! Shine, and the like.

The thing is, those magazines and Web sites see themselves, pretty consciously, as a propaganda arm of the Democratic Party. So while nine out of 10 articles may be the usual stuff on sex, diet and shopping, the 10th will always be either soft p.r. for the Democrats or soft — or sometimes not-so-soft — hits on Republicans.

When a flier about getting away with rape was found in a college men’s bathroom, the women’s site YourTango (“Your Best Love Life”) led with the fact that the college was Paul Ryan’s alma materin a transparent effort to advance the Democrats’ War on Women claim that Republicans are somehow pro-rape. A companion article was “12 Hot Older Men Who Endorse President Obama.”

Similar p.r. abounded across the board: Sandra Fluke is a hero; Sarah Palin is a zero. Republicans are all old white men (women or minority Republicans get mocked or ignored).

This kind of thing adds up, especially among low-information voters. They may not know or care much about the specifics, but this theme, repeated over and over again, sends a message: Democrats are cool, and Republicans are uncool — and if you vote for them, you’re uncool, too.

My only thought here is that you don't need to buy a woman's website; you could just build it from the ground up. That might work out cheaper.

Reynolds is right about how bias works, how these media institutions sell politics-- 90% of this stuff has nothing at all to do with politics. It's the 10% they throw in that does.

So why can't we do the exact same thing?

I think a lot of conservative writers would love writing about something other than politics, at least some of the time.

posted by Ace at 12:35 PM

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