One of the most aggravating unspoken policies in the modern mainstream media is their insistence on trying to bring balance and objectivity to stories that in reality have none. While an attempted lack of bias is laudable on the part of any journalist, there are plenty of times when trying to inject balance winds up drawing a completely wrong impression for the viewer or reader -- basically because there's very little to be found and presenting the story as if there were just creates a false-equivalency, which by its very nature is fundamentally dishonest.
Sometimes there just aren't two equal sides to the same story.
Another fact about the mainstream media is this: They're well aware of the accusations of a liberal bias -- very, very tired accusations by now, and ones that are usually leveled with the hope of satisfying a political agenda -- and desperately want to avoid confirming anyone's suspicions. In other words, they overcompensate. Big time. I've seen it happen over and over again; I've sat in meetings where stories were edited severely, watered-down, or killed outright because of the unstated but understood fear that they would validate the time-honored charge that the media are inherently liberal.
I get the feeling that both of these unfortunate practices came into play yesterday, when NBC News made the decision to edit out a shocking, inflammatory, and thoroughly revealing comment made by one of the protesters attending the 9/12 Teabagger rally in DC. NBC Nightly News on Saturday evening ran a news package that contained a shot of a woman saying, "We are losing our country, we think the Muslims are moving in and taking over." But when the story was posted online, that comment was edited out and replaced with the infinitely less insane and racist, "I'm scared to death for my country. I believe Obama is running this country into the ground."
The problem of course is that by toning down the crazy, NBC gave a false impression of what was really going on at the rally. Although there were certainly a number of decent, intelligent and relatively informed citizens taking part in the march -- and their concerns shouldn't necessarily be dismissed out of hand -- the overwhelming majority of those in attendance, at least the ones making the most noise, were ignorant, irrational, hateful, paranoid, and more than a little crazy. Oh yeah, and as evidenced by the woman whose comment NBC edited, quite a few were out and out racist.
This was the reality of the protest. But in an effort to allay the concerns of those whose concerns will never be allayed because they need the "liberal media" boogeyman to be able to point at and claim victimization at the hands of, NBC made the whole thing look much more sane and reasonable -- and less full of unfocused hostility -- than it actually was.
Just keep this in mind the next time somebody does start railing to you about how liberal the media is.
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