There is clearly a double standard in how the national media treats the Republicans versus the Democrats. Over and over again news stories are slanted or even misreported (fake news) to forward the liberal agenda. Just in the last week numerous stories by the alphabet networks have been shown to be maliciously slanted ... in particular, by adjusting two timelines to slime Trump and Company. But this media preference for a political party is just part of the problem.
Clearly, the media also tilts the gender scale ... have you noticed? Women are almost always right ... particularly when arbitrating a he-said, she-said dispute. The male is almost always wrong, especially if he is a conservative. This is yet another double standard. Recently, in Alabama, Roy Moore lost his battle in the court of public opinion. He is a conservative and more people believed the accusing woman and not him. They might have been right but we may never know.
In the past, this gender bias in the media has occasionally been wrong. Remember the Duke lacrosse team smear, the UVA fraternity libeling by the Rolling Stone magazine? But these are rarities. Too often the veracity of these female accusers is presumed ... and the accused is led to the gallows without a stop in front of a jury. This media perp walk is wrong and does not serve real justice.
And this is not the limits of such media bias. There are other groups that are automatically presumed truthful. Need I name them? But when an accusers belong to more than one of these favored groups, then the power of their accusations is magnified. Maybe this is human nature, but it is a frustrating truth ... or should I say mis-truth?
I agree with you that we are seeing a noisy feeding frenzy in the media for sleazy accusations. The allegations against Moore when he was in his 30's overshadowed the real issues of his incompetent judgeship and unfitness for the job as Senator. Yet I do not see the media bias against GOP pervs over Dem pervs. I note that you were eager to leap upon Al Franken for acting like a jerk, and little more. Not so much with Trump, who is on tape admitting his assaults. That = bias.
ReplyDeleteIn the cases of the prominent media men of power such as Weinstein, Lauer, Rose, O'reilly, et al I think the decision to remove them was based on the fact that they were known, serial abusers by people who were inside the bubble. The mainstream press has been pretty fair in their attempt to get things right. In most cases, it is multiple accusers, and a pattern of behavior that has sunk the accusee. As a cynic I am inclined to think that the abrupt terminations and resignations are an effort to quell further investigations and possibly even more sordid revelations.
In a way Al Franken was a "poison pawn" (a chess term where you give up a pawn for much greater situational advantage). The Dems now think that they can use this sacrifice to nail DJT. However, it is now conviently coming out that Lisa Bloom was paying big bucks for Trump's accusers to tell their tails (watch for the blog DRty Money").
DeleteI must confess that seeing some of these pervs go down has been enjoyable ... but now I am thinking maybe I was too quick to judge (except for Weinstein and maybe Lauer).
I'm generally inclined to presume innocence in the absence of evidence.
DeleteEspecially if the accusee is likable. We also need to admit that there is definitely a sexual climate change since the 50's and 60's and give a bit of slack to those who weren't hands-on.
The latest Lauer accuser who admits a consensual affair but claims she was pressured is not credible in my mind.