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In this issue
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review June 18, 2009 / 26 Sivan 5769

From newsroom to bedroom

By Cal Thomas


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Not so long ago in a vastly different media environment there were such things as journalistic ethics. Reporters were prohibited from taking trips paid for by individuals or groups they might cover. They couldn't accept money for speeches. And they surely could not accept money or gratuities in exchange for reporting on a story in which a corporation or individual might have an interest. Too much socializing with sources was also frowned upon.


Today, when news is sold as a product, like toothpaste and erectile dysfunction pills, the press has become a subsidiary of the advertising department, catering to target groups that are most likely to buy advertisers' products.


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The ABC News division has taken this one step further. On June 24, it will essentially become a mouthpiece for the Obama administration and its position on reforming health care. A special, "Questions for the President: Prescription for America," moderated by Charles Gibson (who is old enough to remember the days when a wall separated advertising from news), will air from the East Room of the White House. Gibson will also deliver "World News Tonight" from the White House's Blue Room.


The programs should not originate from the East Room and Blue Room. Instead they should be broadcast from Obama's bedroom since ABC (and much of the slavish media) is in bed with this president.


That the media fix is in on health care is evident from ABC's response to a request from the Republican National Committee (RNC) that it be allowed to air opposing views. RNC Chief of Staff Ken McKay wrote to David Westin, president of ABC News, expressing his deep concern and disappointment with ABC's "astonishing decision to exclude opposing voices on this critical issue on June 24…" In addition to "World News Tonight" and the special, ABC will feature "reporting" on the Obama health care plan on all of its other news shows. No word yet on whether any opposing views will be allowed on those programs.


McKay wrote Westin, "In the absence of opposition, I am concerned this event will become a glorified infomercial to promote the Democrat agenda." Noting that the President "has stated time and time again that he wants a bipartisan debate," McKay wrote that "the Republican Party should be included in this primetime event, or the (Democratic National Committee) should pay for your airtime."


ABC News Senior VP Kerry Smith defended the program, saying ABC "is looking for the most thoughtful and diverse voices on the issue." It is difficult to see how diverse voices will be heard in a show that features no thoughtful opposition to the Obama plan.


The media have found that Obama sells. With his high approval ratings it appears they are targeting Obama supporters who would tune into the news equivalent of religious programming on which atheists and people with different beliefs never appear.


In doing these programs from inside the White House, ABC has thrown its remaining credibility to the wind and becomes an appendage of their advertisers, the Obama worshippers and the Democratic Party.


Try to imagine this happening in a Republican administration. You can't, because it would never happen.


By the way, guess who's the new director of communications for the White House Office of Health Reform. It's former ABC News correspondent Linda Douglass, who left journalism last year to join the Obama campaign.


This should settle, once and for all, the matter of big media bias. Only those in complete denial could argue there will be anything "fair and balanced" about the ABC programs. And the public, on an Obama high right now, is going to be the big loser in the end when it awakens to the erosion of our hard-earned freedoms. But by then it will be too late.

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Cal Thomas Archives

JWR contributor Cal Thomas is co-author with Bob Beckel, a liberal Democratic Party strategist, of "Common Ground: How to Stop the Partisan War That is Destroying America". Comment by clicking here.

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