I've been disappointed that the Halperin internal memo hasn't received more attention. As I mentioned last week, Powerline called it "the most astonishing media bombshell ever." (The internal memo--from ABC Political Director Mark Halperin--can be read here.)
Halperin and Co. are now rightly being taken to the woodshed. John Podhoretz:
The point here is that Republican attacks on Democrats offend the ear of mainstream-media veterans like Mark Halperin in a way that Democratic attacks on Republicans don't. And by writing his ill-advised but revelatory memo, Halperin has shown how implicit bias can become explicit newsgathering policy.
So conservatives owe Mark Halperin a debt of gratitude — for proving to all fair-minded people that we right-wingers have been hollering "foul" about media bias all these years with ample reason.
After all, how many other memos like this have been written over the decades that we haven't seen? Dozens? Hundreds?
And David Limbaugh:
The arrogance contained in that missive is astounding. Not only do they self-styled elitists think they have to tell the voters what is important, they even believe they're justified in slanting the news to make it conform to the image they want conveyed. This is another example of "the ends justify the means" mentality enveloping the Old Media. Then, after all this, these people claim "we are not interested in taking sides, we are only interested in getting at the truth."
So, you think it's ok to lie in furtherance of imparting the truth? The sad thing is that they are so biased, so intoxicated on their worldview that they don't even self-reflect enough to see the scandal in what they're doing.
It's the exact same mentality as Dan Rather when he said "while the authenticity of the document may be in doubt, we still stand by its accuracy." Similarly, ABC is saying, in essence, "We can slant the reporting (as opposed to just reporting and let the viewers decide), but it's ok because it's necessary for us to slant it in order for the idiotic, ignorant public to see it our way -- which is the only way. In other words, the viewing public is simply too ignorant to be trusted with the unabridged version so we'll tweak our reporting so they'll see it through our lenses. That kind of arrogance is scary.
Halperin can talk about holding the candidates "equally accountable," but what ought to happen is for someone -- or the public itself -- to hold him and his colleagues accountable. The outrageousness of this incident must not be understated.
And the Washington Times editorializes:
The obvious point of course is that Mr. Halperin's memo adds further proof — this time, neatly typed out in black and white — to the growing mound of evidence that the mainstream media leans liberal. A Pew Research Center and Project on Excellence in Journalism released a report over the summer that found 34 percent of national journalists identified themselves as liberal, while just seven percent said they were conservative. An August New York Times article conducted an "unscientific" survey that found that by a 12 to one margin, Washington journalists favor Mr. Kerry in the upcoming election. But entrenched liberalism isn't really the problem here; shameless arrogance is.
The Pew survey contrasted its findings with the breakdown of the American public, 20 percent of which identifies itself as liberal, 33 percent as conservative. No wonder Mr. Halperin thinks ABC News, with all its "skill and strength," should "help voters evaluate what the candidates are saying": The poor dolts are too conservative for their own good. In the wake of the Dan Rather uproar, one would think that executives like Mr. Halperin would be a bit more guarded in revealing their bias, especially three weeks before the election and right before his own Mr. Gibson was about to host a presidential debate. But when someone like Mr. Halperin doesn't think he has a bias, it's particularly difficult to guard against it.
