Media Bias: Only The Left Can Offer Real Spending Cuts

Most people complain about media bias, but the media acts like it doesn’t know what they’re talking about. . . except when Fox News is being criticized. Bias takes many forms, from favoring one argument over another, to reporting one side uncritically while casting doubt on the other, to selectively reporting facts, to mischaracterizing one side, to demonizing one side while “humanizing” the other, to flat out lying, fabricating and/or distorting arguments or facts. Let's take a look at how the media has addressed the issue of deficit reduction for an example of a clear leftward bias.

Over the past year, the MSM has slowly walked through a series of attacks on Republican deficit reduction plans. Here is the how this attack went:

1. Republicans were first to demand spending cuts. The MSM immediately responded by attacking these cuts as endangering the economic recovery.

2. But the public wanted cuts, so eventually the Democrats came up with a competing plan. While this plan was less specific than the Republican plan -- suggesting only that someday they would cut wasteful spending and increase taxes on the rich -- the MSM immediately hailed the Democrats for putting together a “serious plan to reduce the deficit.” The MSM seemed to forget that until that very morning they were arguing that cutting the deficit would destroy the economy. At the same time, the MSM began criticizing Republicans for “not putting together any plan”. . . which begs the question of how they made the criticism in No. 1.

3. Once the Republicans began publishing their plan (to get around the media's attempts to ignore their plan), the MSM switched their attack to: “the Republican plan is vague and meaningless.” They never once said this about the Democrats, who offered even fewer specifics.

4. When this didn’t stop the Republicans’ popularity from surging, next came, “we agree with the need for cuts, but these are draconian.” So how does this fit with the prior argument that the Republican plan was vague and meaningless? Not coincidentally, the MSM never identified any cuts they would make.

5. Next the MSM touted the deficit cutting plans introduced by a handful of Democrats, which typically amounted to little more than a few pennies on every $10,000 of spending. No mention was made of the insignificance of these plans; to the contrary, they were hailed as “brave." The MSM then went back to criticizing the Republicans for not offering any alternative plan.

6. Then the MSM tried to turn the Republicans' refusal to propose tax increases as "giveaways" to large corporations and the well-connected. . . as if not stealing something is the same as showering the owner with their own property.

7. With the public still leaning to the right, the MSM next proclaimed that the Republicans weren’t actually serious about the cuts they proposed, and that they had no intention of following through. Of course, no proof was offered. They even had the nerve to ask why Republicans never submitted these before. . . even though they had, the Democrats just refused to vote on them.

8. When this argument didn’t work, they switched to the bizarre argument that the Republicans may be suggesting good cuts, but were offering them for the wrong reasons. . . seriously, they said this.

9. Then came “the Republicans won’t be able to deliver these kinds of cuts.” Yet, somehow the Democrats can? Actually, this has become a common argument in places like The Economist: only the left has the moral authority to make spending cuts or deal with unions or address Muslim countries, etc.

10. Next, they began attacking the specific people proposing the cuts, pointing out whatever scandal they could from the past. And when no scandal was available, they accused them of being too partisan and having angered a large part of the population, i.e. the hard left. They even attacked Paul Ryan for associating with. . . Republicans. Oh my!

11. Finally, when it became obvious the Republicans would win the election, the MSM returned to the idea that spending cuts would hurt the economy.

Notice that throughout this process, the MSM uncritically blessed any plan put forward by the Democrats as serious and likely to work, without ever addressing the plan's obvious flaws or asking why the Democrats couldn’t have done this during their prior years in power. Meanwhile, they repeatedly made arguments against the Republicans which were proven to be disingenuous once they moved on to the next argument, e.g. like when they suddenly argued a plan was "draconian" right after arguing that there was no plan.

Notice also that when they failed to win on the merits, they turned to impugning the motives of the Republicans -- as if it matters what your reason is for putting a good policy into place -- and then they finally attacked the individual messengers. With Ryan, they went for the ultimate tautology gotcha: we can find no fault with Ryan except that he is a Republican and therefore his plan is proof that Republicans are bad.

This is a classic example of bias. This is not analysis, this is advocacy. This is slowly walking through contradictory alternative arguments until you find one that strikes a chord. This is what lawyers do when arguing to an appellate court. Nor should it surprise anyone that the MSM outfits who made these argument were parroting Democratic talking points as they did. This is why people no longer trust the media.

So what examples of media bias have you seen lately?