Are reporters really 'Lapdogs' in the Bush era?

Journalists handed the president a free pass for several years.


How the mighty have fallen. It seems everyone — including plenty of Republicans — are eager to beat up on President Bush these days.

But it wasn't always like this. During his first four years in office, Bush was treated more like a king than a president.

Newspaper editors bent over backwards to avoid giving offense to Bush and other conservatives. To do otherwise would risk being tarred with the dreaded "liberal media" brush.

If you disagreed with the Bushies, you invited attack from the deep-pocketed conservative media — the columnists, bloggers and talk-show hosts who regarded Bush as their messiah.

snip

So, the next time you see a newspaper treating, say, Al Gore in a patronizing, dismissive manner (even though his documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," is packing 'em in), while the paper treats Karl Rove's candidates as serious thinkers ... just remember where the real bias lies.

http://www.theleafchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060611/COLUMNISTS02/606110331/1014

they're enablers.

You don't have to look far to see why the media is utterly supine when it comes to critiquing the GOP. Media companies are huge corporations. The GOP is the party of huge corporations. All those lovely tax cuts for big business and the wealthy are going straight into the coffers/pockets of the media moguls. There is a complete alignment of interests between the media and the GOP. Neither of them is going to do anything to derail that particular gravy train.

There was a lot I liked about this book but I think it nearly completely ignored whatever members of the media happened not to fit with its thesis. Not that there are many, but there are a few.

For example, it barely mentions Olbermann at all. Why? Because he never fit the "lapdog" stereotype.

produces the one thing that matters to both corp's and the Bush repub's and that is money, revenue. Olberman knows it and has talked openly about it.