. . . when the media is controlled by large corporations, beholden to the military, and in bed with a Republican Administration. From a David Boaz article posted to Reason Online:

Remember all those news stories in 1993 about how the nomination of former ACLU lawyer Ruth Bader Ginsburg to replace conservative Justice Byron White on the United States Supreme Court would "tilt the balance of the court to the left?"

Of course you don't. Because there weren't any.

In the past three months, the major media have repeatedly hammered away at the theme that Judge Samuel Alito Jr. would "shift the Supreme Court to the right" if he replaced retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

According to Lexis/Nexis, major newspapers have used the phrase "shift the court" 36 times in their Alito coverage. They have referred to the "balance of the court" 32 times and "the court's balance" another 15. "Shift to the right" accounted for another 18 mentions.

Major radio and television programs indexed by Lexis/Nexis have used those phrases 63 times. CNN told viewers that Alito would "tilt the balance of the court" twice on the day President Bush nominated him. NPR's first-day story on "Morning Edition" was headlined "Alito could move court dramatically to the right."

Now maybe all this is to be expected. Alito is a conservative, he's been nominated to replace a centrist justice, and he probably will move the Supreme Court somewhat to the right—which is probably what at least some voters had in mind when they elected a Republican president and 55 Republican senators.

But note the contrast to 1993, when President Bill Clinton nominated the liberal Ginsburg to replace conservative White. White had dissented from the landmark decisions on abortion rights in Roe v. Wade and on criminal procedure in the Miranda case, and he had written the majority opinion upholding sodomy laws in Bowers v. Hardwick. Obviously his replacement by the former general counsel of the ACLU was going to "move the court dramatically to the left."

So did the media report Ginsburg's nomination that way? Not on your life.

Not a single major newspaper used the phrases "shift the court," "shift to the left," or "balance of the court" in the six weeks between Clinton's nomination and the Senate's ratification of Ginsburg. Only one story in the Cleveland Plain-Dealer mentioned the "court's balance," and that writer thought that Ginsburg would move a "far right" court "toward the center."

The only network broadcast to use any of those phrases was an NPR interview in which liberal law professor Paul Rothstein of Georgetown University said that Ginsburg might offer a "subtle change...a nuance" in "the balance of the court" because she would line up with Justice O'Connor in the center.

No one thought that some momentary balance on the Court had to be preserved when a justice retired or that it was inappropriate to shift the ideological makeup of the Court. And certainly no one had made that point during 60 years of mostly liberal appointees from Democratic presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson—even as they replaced more conservative justices who had died or retired. ut suddenly, we are told by senators, activists, and pundits that a nominee should not change the makeup of the Court.

h/t: Eugene Volokh

Posted by: Attila Girl at 07:41 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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An editorial by a friend of mine who leans leftward and might be regarded as a present-day conventional liberal (as opposed to those like Dean Esmay, Jeff Goldstein, and this author, who call themselves classical liberals).

Terrible news about the miners in West Virginia. I was awake, of course, and watching when CNN broke the news that initial stories of twelve survivors were wrong and, in fact, there was only one survivor. Over on MSNBC, they were running tape of an eariler press conference on the subject, and on FOX a panel of conservatives were assuring each other that the scandals surrounding the White House and Republican congressmen weren't really scandals and wouldn't affect the Administration or the Republican grip on Congress.



Only CNN was live. Only CNN had the story. An astonished Anderson Cooper broke the news of a single survivor after a women ran down from the Baptist Church where miner's families were gathered and blurted the distressing news to him.



The New York newspapers, which are put to bed before 3 a.m., when the news of the "miscommunication" broke, all ran headlines like "ALIVE" (the New York Daily News).



But again, experience and class tells. The New York Times ran the story saying that families had told them twelve miners were alive, but they (the Times) were unable to confirm it. It seems the other papers published the news as fact, whereas the Times did not.



CNN and The New York Times take it in the balls about every fifteen minutes on FOX and conservative talk radio, where they are called un-American, pro-terrorist and things even more vile. They are favorite targets of the Right wingnuts. It's all bullshit, of course.



Last night, CNN and the New York Times showed why they are the preeminent news sources, world-wide. They are the best at what they do, and the fact that they're not perfect detracts not one whit from that.

I'll remind everyone here that this friend of mine has been very kind to me in a lot of ways. So, sticking to the facts, how would you begin to quantify the degree of error in various news sources? If you accept the premise that we all want to believe what we want to believe—and would prefer to get our information from organs that share our respective slants—how would you cast doubt on either my friend's conviction about the New York Times, or my own?

Posted by: Attila Girl at 06:49 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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