In His Pocket

Mitt Romney mouths so many lies that it's impossible they're all original. How could anyone keep up that pace? One that's central to Rovian disinformation, and repeated endlessly by Romneycareless is that the media are in President Obama's pocket. Coordinate with him. Oh yeah?

The Liberal Media has consistently given more positive coverage to likely Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney compared to President Barack Obama,according to a new survey of media coverage from the Pew Research Center's Excellence in Journalism Project.

During the early weeks of 2012, Romney's media coverage was slightly negative—between January 2 and February 26, 33 percent of the stories about the ex-Massachusetts governor were positive and 37 percent were negative, according to Pew's analysis. But Romney has received mostly positive coverage since then (47 percent positive to 24 percent negative). By contrast, according to the report, President Barack Obama "did not have a single week in 2012 when positive coverage exceeded negative coverage."

As to the lie: one might still hope. Hope, that is, for media coverage of what's actually at stake, of what Obama actually has and has not done, of what Romney proposes to do, and how it will affect us. Be the basis for a real debate on the real issues. Instead, we'll hear more about presidents eating dog and his bodyguards doing it doggy-style.

Because what our media are is neither liberal nor news-producers: what they are is lazy and shallow.* Because they want the revenue that comes from ads, which increases with viewing, which increases with sensationalism and shiny objects. And, possibly, because when they lose their way and actually do the occasional reportage, with facts at the forefront, and depth, teabaggRs scream liberal bias. Because, as we know, being factual and thoughtful threatens their very existence. And it's what the media, before Foxification and Limbaugging, used to do.

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*Fox "news," of course, is neither lazy nor shallow (nor is it news): they're a full-out propaganda machine single-mindedly and very effectively devoted to deeply misinforming their audience.