Media Plays Fast, Loose with Truth

Does the truth not matter to the media anymore? I’m really beginning to wonder and have decided to ponder the subject in this column over the next two weeks.

My boiling point was reached the other day while listening to a guest host for Rush Limbaugh on KTRH. No, I’m not a regular listener. I worked for KTRH years ago, and even though Clear Channel has done its best to destroy the news value of the station and turn it into yet another right wing blabber fest, old habits are hard to break. My radio usually still finds its way there in the morning to catch the news or in the evening to listen to the Astros game. Sometimes, if I’m in the car during the day and haven’t changed the station, Limbaugh’s voice will come spewing forth.

I’ve taken to testing my mettle on occasion by seeing just how much Limbaugh I can stand before changing the station. My personal best is 20 minutes. The other day, I was curious if a guest host, Mark Belling of WISN Radio in Milwaukee, might help improve my score, but when he started giving his assessment of all the Democratic presidential candidates, he produced an unprecedented level of disgust.

On the Limbaugh Web site, it says “There is a consensus among the American people, who have made this the most listened to program, that it is also the most accurate, most right, and most correct.” What a crock! According to Eric Burns, the communications director for Media Matters, a national organization that successfully monitors right wing radio and television hosts and calls them out when not factual, “Limbaugh is the godfather of conservative misinformation.”

Apparently, the disregard for the truth bug afflicts anyone who walks in the Limbaugh studio. In his so-called assessment of the Democratic candidates, guest host Belling said, “…and Joe Biden — how many times is that guy gonna run for president? He’s become the Harold Stassen of the Democratic Party.”

There’s only one problem with the comment and the comparison to the Republican Stassen who ran for president nine times. Joe Biden has only run once before, in 1988.

I guess the disregard for the truth which seems to have permeated all different types of media, not just right-wing radio, drives me crazy because of my background. When I was in journalism, truthfulness and objectivity were insisted upon.

As I learned firsthand, objectivity is tough. A person’s background and perception are going to influence his reporting no matter how hard he might try.

But that means all we have left to rely upon is that what’s being said, even though it may not be objective, is based on fact. And since that has now gone out the window as well, I think we’re all in trouble. There can be serious consequences with the new lax standards and next week, I’ll talk about one glaring example.

(Originally published by Examiner Newspaper Group)