Mark Tapscott: Three big stories the media's 'homers' missed
By: Mark Tapscott
Editorial Page Editor
August 13, 2009
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| President Barack Obama participates in an AARP tele-town hall on health care, Tuesday, July 28, 2009, in Washington. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari) (AP) |
Sports writers who never have a harsh word for the local team are called "homers," but one doesn't have to look far in the news sections or broadcasts of the mainstream media to realize that this problem starts on the front page.
Take, for example, these three significant stories that got little or no play in The Washington Post, The New York Times or the network news outlets.
First, remember that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) "report" warning of the danger of domestic terrorist attacks by right-wing extremists? With only a few exceptions, major mainstream media outlets uncritically repeated the report's assertions, which were allegedly based on credible intelligence from official sources.
It was left to a conservative non-profit, Americans for Limited Government (ALG), to file a Freedom of Information Act request for the documentation used by DHS to prepare the report. And guess what ALG found? Instead of intelligence reports, DHS used unverified allegations and speculations it found on the internet.
DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano's researchers liked one particularly apocalyptic web site so much that they cited it 11 times in their report. This site - called "What It Means" - often warns that the world is about to end, as with this recent headline: "Deaith Star Pandemic of 2009-2012: End of Age Begins."
Sleep tight tonight, folks, because your government knows what it all means.
Then there is the rebellion exploding within the ranks of AARP, the 40-million member Goliath of Washington lobbying on behalf of more government programs and spending. You might never know it from reading the Post or Times, but the liberal Democrats who run AARP's Washington office have gotten themselves into one heck of a mess.
They've spent millions of dollars collected from their members in an online, print and broadcast propaganda campaign for a government-run health care system - even as they hypocritically deny having endorsed any specific legislation in Congress.
But judging by the latest Gallup poll, most AARP members want no part of Obamacare or any other health care "reform" that takes billions of dollars away from Medicare and denies seniors the right to keep their doctors and their private health insurance.
Seniors aren't stupid and they recognize the crock they're getting from AARP's Washington leaders. That's why legions of them have cancelled their AARP memberships in recent months. When I asked AARP's Drew Nannis last week how many cancellations have been received, he promised to get right back to me. I'm not holding my breath.
Finally, did you know a government commission on civil rights is threatening to investigate the U.S. Department of Justice for its failure to prosecute what must be the most blatant violation of voting rights since Sheriff Bull Connor last unleashed his water hoses and dogs?
Remember the YouTube video of two New Black Panther Party members blocking people from entering a Philadelphia polling place last November? Both of the Panthers were dressed in paramilitary outfits and one of them carried a night stick. Both flung repeated racial slurs at people they were clearly intimidating.
Attorney General Eric Holder's Justice Department declined to prosecute the Panthers, in part because the defendants failed to respond to the charges brought against them and out of concern for their freedom of speech!
As The Washington Times reported last week, members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights were dumb-founded by the Justice decision not to prosecute. A search of the Post and New York Times archives turned up no coverage or commentary on this controversy in the past month.
Each of these three stories provided valuable information and insight that contradict ed the conventional wisdom being continually spouted in Congress and the White House, on college campuses, throughout the non-profit activism community, and across the mainstream media.
In Washington, government is the home team and media's homers aren't going to report stories that make the home team look bad.
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