Mainstream Media's 'Irrelevancy' on Display Post-Election
by Chad Groening
November 4, 2004
(AgapePress) - A conservative media watchdog group says President Bush's re-election victory demonstrated just how irrelevant the mainstream media has become.The Media Research Center (MRC) says "media elites" were surprised by the influence of moral issues in the just-completed presidential election. The media watchdog notes that as the election results began to finally indicate that George W. Bush would likely have a second four-year term, two networks -- ABC and NBC -- saw no mandate in the popular vote count and even indicated the president would have to govern from "the center."
Tim Graham, director of media analysis at the Virginia-based MRC, notes that the mainstream media's pro-John Kerry slant began long before election night. But the American people, Graham says, did not pay attention to the months of distortion put out by the media to help the Democratic candidate.
"The election returns sort of foretell us of the coming meltdown of the liberal media," the MRC spokesman says. "The liberal media this year did so much to try to get George Bush thrown out of office -- and ultimately the American people made a different choice than the media wanted them to make.
"So they look less relevant today than they have really since television news started getting its clout in the 1960s," he says.
But despite that image of being irrelevant, Graham says he does not expect the media to change its ways.
"I cannot predict that the media will see the error of their way [and] try to stick more to the facts and to be less promotional toward the Democrats," he says. "I think really what we're seeing is the opposite -- that is, the [major networks'] frustration over the power of talk radio or Fox News or C-SPAN or anything else where people can get that alternative story."
According to Graham, it is probable that that frustration will just cause the networks "to become more biased to try to correct or misrepresent the other side."
