You know the only people I know that listen to Rush and Hannity on a regular basis are ---- libs.
Believe it or not. I get in discussions with people at work from time to time and they say "Rush Limbaugh is an idiot he said ..."
I ask why they listen to them. Maybe it's something like "Know your enemy".
I listen to Coast to Coast as often as possible :D
I read the board, follow links when they're provided. If not I google stuff and research on my own. I check CNN and Drudge. Google stuff and research on my own.
The rare instance when I hear Rush or Hannity I know enough that I don't appreciate their commentary anywhere the level of a Mark Levin. Levin, is sharp. He's a constitutional attorney who knows his shit. Rush and Hannity always were and always will be radio personalities. This guy, Levin, has experience in the "trenches" of politics and law.
But the interwebs is and will always be my primary source of information.
Print is dead. Ironically this is one of the reasons to which some attribute their blatant bias this year. Linked.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Story?id=6099188
Decent story. A few choice quotes. Overall it doesn't just mention the "decline" with respect to the election. It starts out with the author framing his piece by acknowledging an element of subjectivity - historically and the human inability to be totally objective. He goes into a bit of his history to qualify himself. Then he speaks of instances that caused him to open his eyes a bit to more egregious subjective reporting. He cites an experience in Lebanon. Slowly he leads up to our current state of affairs and then dives in:
But nothing, nothing I've seen has matched the media bias on display in the current presidential campaign.
Republicans are justifiably foaming at the mouth over the sheer one-sidedness of the press coverage of the two candidates and their running mates. But in the last few days, even Democrats, who have been gloating over the pass -- no, make that shameless support -- they've gotten from the press, are starting to get uncomfortable as they realize that no one wins in the long run when we don't have a free and fair press
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those people who think the media has been too hard on, say, Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin, by rushing reportorial SWAT teams to her home state of Alaska to rifle through her garbage. This is the big leagues, and if she wants to suit up and take the field, then Gov. Palin better be ready to play
Now he gets into it.
No, what I object to (and I think most other Americans do as well) is the lack of equivalent hardball coverage of the other side -- or worse, actively serving as attack dogs for the presidential ticket of Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Joe Biden, D-Del.
If the current polls are correct, we are about to elect as president of the United States a man who is essentially a cipher, who has left almost no paper trail, seems to have few friends (that at least will talk) and has entire years missing out of his biography.
That isn't Sen. Obama's fault: His job is to put his best face forward. No, it is the traditional media's fault, for it alone (unlike the alternative media) has had the resources to cover this story properly, and has systematically refused to do so.
Why, for example to quote the lawyer for Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., haven't we seen an interview with Sen. Obama's grad school drug dealer -- when we know all about Mrs. McCain's addiction? Are Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko that hard to interview? All those phony voter registrations that hard to scrutinize? And why are Sen. Biden's endless gaffes almost always covered up, or rationalized, by the traditional media?
The absolute nadir (though I hate to commit to that, as we still have two weeks before the election) came with Joe the Plumber.
Middle America, even when they didn't agree with Joe, looked on in horror as the press took apart the private life of an average person who had the temerity to ask a tough question of a presidential candidate. So much for the standing up for the little man. So much for speaking truth to power. So much for comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, and all of those other catchphrases we journalists used to believe we lived by.
And finally on page 4-5 he gives his explanation as to why he thinks he's seeing what he's seeing.
So why weren't those legions of hungry reporters set loose on the Obama campaign? Who are the real villains in this story of mainstream media betrayal?
The editors. The men and women you don't see; the people who not only decide what goes in the paper, but what doesn't; the managers who give the reporters their assignments and lay out the editorial pages. They are the real culprits
Aaaah the EDITORS ... not the reporters/journalists ...
Bad Editors
Why? I think I know, because had my life taken a different path, I could have been one: Picture yourself in your 50s in a job where you've spent 30 years working your way to the top, to the cockpit of power … only to discover that you're presiding over a dying industry. The Internet and alternative media are stealing your readers, your advertisers and your top young talent. Many of your peers shrewdly took golden parachutes and disappeared. Your job doesn't have anywhere near the power and influence it did when your started your climb. The Newspaper Guild is too weak to protect you any more, and there is a very good chance you'll lose your job before you cross that finish line, 10 years hence, of retirement and a pension.
In other words, you are facing career catastrophe -- and desperate times call for desperate measures. Even if you have to risk everything on a single Hail Mary play. Even if you have to compromise the principles that got you here. After all, newspapers and network news are doomed anyway -- all that counts is keeping them on life support until you can retire.
And then the opportunity presents itself -- an attractive young candidate whose politics likely matches yours, but more important, he offers the prospect of a transformed Washington with the power to fix everything that has gone wrong in your career.
The conclusion delves into the fairness doctrine which is sure to be resurrected with Obama as Pres, and a majority in the house and senate for the Dems.
In hindsight, as I look at some of my own bitching and moaning about the bias that exists I forgot and was reminded by this article and ..... HISTORY ...
Ok and a few folks on the board. That some element of bias is standard operating procedure.
But if this guy is right ... and I'm inclined to agree with him ... it really has been a bit blatant and one sided in this election than in any other election I can recall.