Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Media bias, pt. 2

John O'Sullivan in the Chicago Sun-Times notes four trends in the media: Inferentialism, selective agonizing (Abu Ghraib, not Oil-for-Food that starved Iraqis), useful idiocy (taking Berg's beheaders at their word that his death was retaliation for Abu Ghraib even though his abduction occurred before the photos came to light) and willing gullibility (the BoGlo and Daily Mirror printing fake abuse photos). Here's the crux:

Neither the media's vaunted "skepticism" nor simple fact-checking on the Internet were employed by the papers. The fakes were, in the old Fleet Street joke, "too good to check." As Mark Steyn argued Sunday, the journalists wanted to believe they were real. Indeed, it is worse than that -- since the fraud was discovered and the Mirror editor fired, he has become a heroic figure in British circles hostile to Blair and the war.

Admittedly, reporters and editors make mistakes. But when all the mistakes are on the side of opposing the liberation of Iraq, and none of the mistakes favor the United States or Britain or Bush or Blair, it tells you something.

Namely, which side they're on.

Read it all, here.

hat-tip, instapundit.

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