Political hacks pretending to be journalists.
The Smoking Gun For Media Bias
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Journo-Gate: For decades, moderates and conservatives have been derided and ridiculed for complaining about the mainstream media's pervasive liberal bias. As it turns out, however, their worst fears were true.
If you don't know about Journolist, you should. It's a semi-secret listserv maintained by Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein. Don't bother to try to log on. If they want you, they'll ask you to take part. No outsiders need apply.
And who uses it? Almost exclusively liberal journalists and left-leaning movers and shakers. Sound innocuous? It isn't.
Journolist has become a forum for lefty journalists to talk about how to push their progressive agenda on America, protect President Obama and hurt his foes. It is a safe-space for the often-vile expression of hatred toward conservatives and their ideas.
It all came to light a few weeks ago when news broke that then-Washington Post writer David Weigel, hired to cover the conservative movement for the Post, had made disparaging comments about those he covered on Journolist.
Weigel's remarks were bad enough. But in the ensuing weeks, other comments emerged that made it clear his comments weren't atypical. Not only do the liberal journalists despise conservatives and their non-progressive vision for America, but they actively colluded ? one might say plotted ? to undercut them.
This isn't journalism. It's political activism.
What's disappointing is not just the lie that journalists put forth about being "objective." That's long since been proved false by survey after survey showing that members of the media are not only overwhelmingly Democratic in their political orientation but also far to the left of average Americans on virtually every major social and economic issue, from tax cuts to abortion.
No, the biggest disappointment is the nastiness they appear to harbor toward right-leaning journalist colleagues.
During the 2008 debate over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, President Obama's personal pastor who repeatedly expressed his contempt for America in shockingly racist terms, some on Journolist suggested ways to squelch coverage. As Spencer Ackerman of the inaptly named Washington Independent suggested, "What is necessary is to raise the cost on the right of going after the left.
... Take one of them ? Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares ? and call them racists."
When ABC News' Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos dared to ask Obama about his longtime ties to Wright, Richard Kim of the Nation called Stephanopoulos a "disgusting little rat snake."
