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Originally Posted by Lenny2
Exit polling showed that 70% of Bush voters think that we DID find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
That tells me that the media, liberal or otherwise, didn't do a very good job of driving that point home to thier viewers/readers.
For fear of looking "unpatriotic" very few in the media were harshly critical of this administration during the war.
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A reasonable person might think that the media would have been very proud that the Washington Post exposed Watergate and that it might have been an inspiration. Instead that was probably the last time anyone in the mainstream media did any serious investigative journalism. Which is not to say that nothing "inconvenient" is ever printed or given air time, but such items often appear only after there is enough dynamic behind them. The events of 911 are a good example in that many of the issues finally brought out by commissions and enquiries eventually got (lowkey) mainstream coverage. Yet most of that information was freely available via the internet, "underground" press and foreign media within 48-72 hours of the events taking place.
Given the political tendencies of most media empire owners, it is tempting to see the media as right-leaning. Perhaps this is part of the problem, but mainly the blame goes to the role of the news being switched from information to entertainment. Dumbing down the news inevitably involves a shift to the right, because right-wing politics are the only ones where everything is black and white, where slogans and emotions can replace argument and reason. The massive problem the Democrats face is that where once only leftists had to hold an audience long enough to explain complex concepts, centrist ideas are now complex to many voters. Sound bites don't work if you have to explain to someone why higher taxes might be a good thing, or why national education standards do not mean a surrender to "big government".