Bernie Goldberg: Distrust of media traceable to their ‘love affair’ with Obama

posted at 2:23 pm on September 28, 2011 by Howard Portnoy
[ Media ]   

As a rule I don’t watch The O’Reilly Factor (partly because of my blasphemous view that the rise and fall of the tides are caused by the moon’s gravitational pull rather than by the hand of the Almighty).

Nevertheless, I tune in every now and then in the hopes of catching a “Weekdays with Bernie” segment, which features former CBS Newsman and liberal-turned-conservative Bernard Goldberg.

I caught last night’s segment, and so apparently did Noel Sheppard, who conveniently provided a video and transcript of the segment in a post at NewsBusters today.

The theme of the interview was the widespread distrust of the media by Americans, as recorded recently by the Gallup and Pew organizations. The data reveal:

• More than half of Americans—55%—do not trust the media.
• 47% believe the media tilt left, 13% right, and 36% not at all.

Goldberg’s explanation for these data—the media’s early adoration of Obama—is not an earth-shattering observation, but his take on it is pretty entertaining. At one point in the interview, he gives “an example that’s just too good to pass up.” He reads the following quote, which appeared in print on Christmas morning of 2008. For now, I will omit the attribution:

The sun glinted off chiseled pectorals sculpted during four weightlifting sessions each week and a body toned by regular treadmill runs and basketball games.

Goldberg states that the quote “sounds like the crap you read … in romance novels. Having in a previous life ghost-written one romance novel, I will respectfully disagree. If I had crafted language half that sappy, my editor would have thrown the manuscript back at me for rewrites.

More importantly, I believe that the mainstream media’s love affair with President Obama is the least of their sins. Far more egregious was their stubborn refusal to vet candidate Obama. When the story of his two-decades-long association with a hate-spewing black nationalist preacher surfaced, it was widely ignored by the “legitimate” press. Had it been any other candidate, the media would have had a field day with it.

Goldberg is also ignoring Part 2 of the story—the MSM’s falling out of love with Obama. No less liberal an organ than the San Francisco Chronicle became so incensed when the White House banished one of its reporters for during her job that Editor at Large Phil Bronstein vented his spleen in print. Other fits of moodiness have included bleepable quotes on TV by TIME’s Mark Halperin and Newsweek’s Evan Thomas. It was not hard to predict that their discontent with a dithering president would emerge once the scales fell from their eyes. At least it was not hard for anyone who refused to drink the Obama Kool-Aid in the first place.

If Americans don’t trust the media, it is because the media have become untrustworthy.

Oh, and the source of that smarmy quote about the glinting sun and the chiseled pectorals? It was the Washington Post, page 1.

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