Many months ago, Ace of Spades erupted in a fury over an “objective” mainstream media news story: Stop telling me what to think!
I’d love to link that memorable post, but archive searches on Ace’s site are difficult. The point he made, however, is that some journalists have an obnoxious tendency to assume readers are too stupid to spot their attempts at the “Jedi mind trick” of constructing a narrative framework within which carefully selected facts are construed in such a way that only one (narrowly biased) conclusion is possible.
You usually only notice that trick when (a) you’re sufficiently familiar with the facts to know that the selection and emphasis are not exactly neutral, and (b) you don’t share the writer’s narrow bias.
While this Let-Me-Tell-You-What-to-Think stuff is particularly annoying when it occurs as reporting, the same kind of sneaky highhandedness can also be observed in some opinion writing.
Being an expert at Neutral Objective Journalism, as well as the Future U.S. Ambassador to Vanuatu, I have grown weary of the way some of my fellow conservatives — as well as certain RINO squishes who may or may not be named “Jazz Shaw“– have portrayed the 2012 Republican primary campaign. According to some people, the only plausible presidential candidates are Name Brand Frontrunners, preferably governors or former governors like Tim Pawlenty, Rick Perry or Mitt Romney, although other candidates may pass the plausibility threshold if they have sufficient national “name ID” and proven fundraising ability, such as Newt Gingrich.
Like I say, you don’t notice this kind of favoritism if you share the bias for Name Brand Frontrunners, but my own partiality toward long-shot underdogs makes me keenly aware of how some pundits — who may or may not be named “Jazz Shaw” — routinely ignore candidates like Rick Santorum, whose keen appreciation of South Pacific diplomatic expertise is just one of his many fine qualities.
By artificially limiting the discussion to a predetermined two-man race between Romney and Gingrich, a pundit who may or may not be named “Jazz Shaw” engages in Let-Me-Tell-You-What-to-Think journalism, and unless you happen to have a specific reason to notice this omission, you might not even realize that you’re a victim of the Jedi mind trick. (Ron Paul supporters also probably don’t have much use for a pundit who may or may not be named “Jazz Shaw.”)
A quite similar venture involves Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal, who would have you believe that “Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, Haley Barbour” comprise “the GOP A-Team” who should have run for president but didn’t. Therefore, Stephens tells you, Republicans will lose in November, and deservedly so.
OK, so who is Bret Stephens, who knows so much better who should be the Republican candidates than does anyone else? Well, according to Wikipedia (caveat emptor), he was born in 1973, which means he was in seventh grade when I began my journalism career.
While there are probably lots of older pundits who share Stephens’s elite biases, I get pretty damned irritated when punk kids volunteer to do my thinking for me.
And anybody under 40 is a punk kid in my book, especially if he’s an overprivileged alumnus of St. Grottlesex. Nothing worse than a preppie who thinks he’s smarter than God Almighty Himself.
Elsewhere on the presidential campaign front, I notice via Memeorandum that Newt may need some cheese to go with his whine:
Gingrich won’t ‘allow’ moderators
to silence crowd at future debates
— The Hill
Gingrich Threatens to Skip Debates
if Audiences Can’t Participate
— New York Times
Gingrich on Debate’s No-Clapping Rule:
‘Media Doesn’t Control Free Speech’
— CNS News
Watching the debate last night, it took me a while to catch on to the fact that NBC had strictly prohibited audience applause, which was one reason why Newt’s trademark red-meat rhetoric didn’t seem quite as persuasive as it did when he was getting standing ovations in the South Carolina debates last week.
Was the no-applause rule a form of bias? Of course. But you only notice (and object to) bias when it is a bias you don’t share. And because this bias disadvantaged Gingrich, then it indirectly helped Rick Santorum, whose keen appreciation of expertise in South Pacific diplomacy is but one of his many excellent presidential qualifications.
UPDATE: There is nothing wrong with bias, by the way, so long as you don’t try to hide it. If you’re for Newt, or if you’re for Mitt or Ron Paul, just say so and then your readers will understand why you’re so viciously and unfairly prejudiced against Rick Santorum. And if you want to do P.R. for your favorite candidate, why not just reprint his campaign press releases?
ICYMI: DEBATE REVIEWS ARE IN AND
THE “BIG WINNER” IS SANTORUM
Sarasota, FL — While former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and former Congressman Newt Gingrich bickered over their checkered past, the reviews are in and Rick Santorum stood head and shoulders above his competition.
Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post said: “But if Santorum is in a political no man’s land, he didn’t show it last night. While he got far less time to speak than either Romney or Gingrich… Santorum made the most with what he had.
As he had done in the debates last week, Santorum repeatedly attempted to lump Gingrich and Romney together as Obama-lite while presenting himself as the genuine conservative article.
In his best answer of the night – and the best overall answer from any candidate all night – Santorum detailed the apostasies of Gingrich and Romney on health care and climate change before adding: “They rejected conservatism when it was hard to stand.”
And from Twitter, influential opinion-makers said:
Ari Fleisher (@arifleischer) “Good and effective shot by Santorum on the tea party’s origins and newt & mitt’s support for the bailouts.”
Dick Morris (@DickMorrisTweet): “I think the big winner is Rick Santorum.”
Phil Klein (@Philipaklein): “Santorum nailing it on Iran. ‘It would be reckless not to do something’ if they’d get nukes otherwise – exactly!”
Nate Silver (@fivethirtyeight): “Santorum wins debate in the penalty shootout phase.”
Dana Loesch (@DLoesch): “Digging this Santorum answer.”
Andrea Tantaros (@AndreaTantaros): “They rejected conservatism when it was hard to stand.” – Santorum on Newt and Mitt. Great answer.
To learn more about former Senator Rick Santorum, please visit http://RickSantorum.com.
See there? That’s not so hard to do, is it?
