Maggie's Farm

I am sympathetic to Palin's cause, and agree the media is unbalanced (and I have spent 25 years working in TV - there is no question it has a liberal slant).

However, one MUST be careful how one posits this. Hillary Clinton attacked "the right wing conspiracy" that tried to bring down her husband. It carried little clout because conspiracies are idiotic and silly. But Palin is bordering on echoing this sentiment.

More people believe the MSM is liberal, so she gets a bit of leeway here...but she must be careful to be specific about what the lack of balance represents and where it comes from.

1. It is NOT a conspiracy. The MSM has no "ruling elite" telling it what to do. Rather, it is a conglomeration of talking heads who mimic each other and attempt to outdo each other with their outrageous thought patterns and sensationalism. Couric's interviews were classic bait and switch interviews....but the portions of the baiting were casually left off. The Bush Doctrine question was not specific - there are fully 4 different versions or interpretations of the "Bush Doctrine". This was also not noted.

2. The media is liberal NOT because all commentators are liberal. Far from it. It is liberal because it presents an agenda in a manner from which it questions all other items. For example - the current economic mess is a result of deregulation. Thus, what is Obama doing to FIX regulation?
This is clearly wrong - deregulation worked, it was enforcement of existing laws that was a problem. So the agenda was set, then the question asked, without presenting how the agenda was being defined or framed. It's an example of what I call "sloppy thinking" on the part of the liberals. Rather than question the agenda, they ask the question and consider the agenda to be agreed upon already....while it clearly is not.

3. Denial of opposition. Good arguments from the opposition will typically be avoided - they are usually too good to present as it would destroy the agenda. As a result, the most outrageous of the opposition's views will be presented, because they will clearly seem outlandish and reduce the credibility of the conservative view. This is a standard. The Liberals avoid this problem by saying "Well, Michael Moore is a bit out there....". They still love him, but they are willing to disavow him. Apparently, conservatives are not allowed to disavow the likes of Anne Coulter when she is on a lunatic rampage.

4. Agenda setting - who is doing it and is it a conspiracy? No it's not, and it's not being set by anyone in particular. Interestingly, for as much as Liberals HATE markets, the agenda is set in the marketplace of TV ideas. One commentator asks a particularly stupid, but really cool sounding question ("when banks were deregulated, did you really expect them to stick to standard accounting guidelines?") which then creates an interesting spin, which then takes on a life of its own.
We saw this with Joe the Plumber. He asked a great question. Regardless of his background, his question had LEGS. It could have undermined Obama completely (indeed, is proving prophetic), but a few people decided the best way to combat this was to attack Joe personally. That was genius....in the sense that it diverted attention from a good question and directed it to a stupid question.

So, Mrs. Palin, I wish you luck. But play fair...and be specific. You are right - you were undone by an unbalanced media. But don't expect that media to come to your support anytime soon, especially as you continue to expose it.
The Nattering Nabobs of Negativity remain in control!!