Seriously, Can it get more Biased?
Wednesday, October 1, 2008 at 10:31AM 
To my chagrin, most of my friends don’t care enough about politics to even care if the MSM is biased. They probably recognize, on a subconscious level, that it is not optimum, but care they do not. There was a time when the news was delivered objectively by demonstrably objective professionals who understood their job; delivering unbiased and untainted news developments to a public audience that trusted them to have no ulterior motives.
You see, in America now, we have lived immersed in personal freedom our whole lives, having never seen a credible threat to it in our time. A little old lady living today who can still be seen counting pennies to tip a waitress is a palimpsestic reminder of some ethereal memory passed down in vague platitudes about some sort of “depression”, but is in no way truly comprehensible to a generation nurtured by incessant text messaging and $5, flavored coffee drinks. The youngest men of the Greatest Generation are now Octogenarians who silently lament the loss of respect they once held as kids for the elderly, while gazing down upon the teenager occupying a seat on the crowded bus he is riding. Alas, it is only they who can truly remember impartial news delivery.
It is the more recent generations who see absolutely no cause for concern that a pivotal Vice Presidential Debate is being “moderated” by a woman who will release a book (on Inauguration day, no less) that will benefit her both ideologically and financially if a particular candidate wins the election. This is the sort of thing that causes a Judge to recuse himself; no true professional would allow such appearance of impropriety, on any level. Nor would any governing body allow such egregious partiality to occur under their auspices.
So it is that I find myself wondering, both aloud and not, at this wondrous development. The Commission on Presidential Debates has chosen Gwen Ifill, the PBS host and author of an upcoming book on Barack Obama, to moderate the debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden. Ifill is a woman who has grandiosely declared this the “Age of Obama”.
While the definition of the word moderator does not explicitly require impartiality, it can be reasonably inferred that lack of bias would enable a fair debate. One can reasonably assume that if a married couple underwent legal mediation, the mediator would not be conspicuously aligned with one of the parties. This is just a matter of common sense. When such a conflict of interest arises, ethical professionals must recuse themselves and there is little more to discuss on this matter. I can only imagine what would be said if Rush Limbaugh were chosen to moderate a Presidential debate. The difference, of course, is that Rush Limbaugh would laughingly admit his obvious lack of impartiality and recuse himself.
When we can no longer count on a true debate or discussion to occur in this country, we must begin to explore the consequences. There are many countries we can easily look to with state-controlled media, which always delivers the decidedly biased, state-controlled information to the masses. At what point will American journalists realize that they have completely abandoned what was once the most important element of journalistic integrity in exchange for expediency in bringing their tilted message to their once-trusting audience? And more importantly, how much longer will we tolerate it?