The corrupt media is made up of many entities. But within it you have legitimately good reporters and correspondents like the Daily Beast’s Eli Lake and CBS News’ Sharyl Attkisson who are out there doing the kind of reporting and digging we’d like to see from the others. So it’s not as though stories such as Obama’s Libya cover up or Fast and Furious aren’t getting coverage — the problem is that the media’s Narrative Gatekeepers refuse to give those stories the traction and attention deserved.
And who are the Narrative Gatekeepers? Well, most of them are the men and women behind the scenes who pick and choose which stories will lead the daily newspapers and on the news casts and networks. And it’s almost always in The Narrative where you find the bias. This election has been a screaming example of that.
For instance, Romney’s taxes, Romney’s dog, Romney’s elevators, Romney’s real and media-manufactured gaffes, Big Bird, Bain, and contraception have all been major Narratives — what almost all of the media was talking about at the exact same time. And we all remember how Paul Ryan’s brag about his marathon time was not only turned into a Narrative but was also used by the media (in tandem with the Obama campaign) in an attempt to define Ryan as a liar.
Though the media went a little overboard on some of these issues, no one’s saying they’re not legitimate when we’re talking about the men who might move into the White House. So often, it’s not what is covered that’s bias, it’s what’s not covered. To be more precise, bias is oftentimes that which is covered dutifully but ignored or downplayed by the corrupt media’s Narrative Gatekeepers whose priorities have nothing to do with what’s important and everything to do with reelecting Barack Obama.
How else can anyone explain the fact that Paul Ryan’s silly marathon brag was exploded into The Narrative but Jake Tapper’s reporting on Joe Biden’s provably false social security brag during the vice presidential debate has thus far been almost completely ignored:
During the vice presidential debate last week, Vice President Joe Biden seemed to significantly overstate his role in the 1983 negotiations over Social Security.
Asked about Medicare reform, the vice president said, “Look, I was there when we did that with Social Security in 1983. I was one of eight people sitting in the room that included Tip O’Neill negotiating with President Reagan. We all got together and everybody said, as long as everybody’s in the deal, everybody’s in the deal, and everybody is making some sacrifice, we can find a way.”
The comment would seem to suggest that Biden was one of the few, key players “in the room” working in a bipartisan way to reform Social Security.
On “Meet the Press” on April 29, 2007, then-Sen. Biden made a similar claim, saying he was “one of five people — I was the junior guy — in the meeting with Bob Dole and George Mitchell when we put Social Security on the right path for 60 years.”
But according to the historical record, Biden was not one of the small group of people in “the room,” or in “the meeting” — nor was he even a key player in reforms.
And there you go.
And yet, even though Tapper filed his story yesterday, this is likely the first time many of you are hearing about what should be a pretty big deal. After all, Biden is a sitting VP, he’s been caught red-handed lying by a respected journalist, and the lie occurred in front of about 60 million people during a nationally televised debate.
But you’re not hearing about it — not because there aren’t honest reporters like Tapper digging into Democrats with the same zeal they show towards Republicans (all anyone can ask) — but because the Narrative Gatekeepers would rather talk about “binders” today. And tomorrow the Narrative Gatekeepers will talk about something else beneficial to Obama; anything other than a legitimate story like this one that might harm Their Precious One 19 days out.
Not that I wouldn’t like to be proven wrong.
Because lying is second nature, the Narrative Gatekeepers might say that Tapper’s story’s not getting any traction because the Romney campaign hasn’t raised it. Well, the Narrative Gatekeepers have raised all kinds of anti-Romney stories without Obama’s help, including Bain’s outsourcing (which was a lie) and Romney cutting some kids’ hair 50 years ago. And I’ve seen the Romney campaign try to create traction on any number of issues only to have the media respond with questions about gaffes and tax returns.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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