OFFLINE

On Election Day 2010, then-CBS Early Show anchor Harry Smith posed a hypothetical question about newly-elected Republicans to Ann Coulter: “There’ll be a routine vote, for instance, to increase the debt ceiling and the Tea Party guys are going to say, ‘Over my dead body,’ and the government comes to a screeching halt. Then what happens?” The conservative author confidently predicted: “Well, the media will blame the Republicans.”

And that’s precisely what has occurred. A Media Research Center study of the Big Three network evening and morning programs finds that, when it came to assigning blame for lack of a debt ceiling resolution, ABC, CBS and NBC’s coverage has placed the overwhelming majority of the blame on Republicans’ doorstep.

MRC analysts watched all 202 stories on the debt ceiling from July 1 through July 22, looking for statements which assigned blame or responsibility for the failure to reach a settlement. Of the 85 stories that included such statements, the skew was lopsidedly anti-Republican, with 56 stories (66%) mainly assigning them the blame for the impasse. Even though Democrats control both the Senate and the White House, only 17 network stories (20%) suggested they bore more responsibility, a greater than three-to-one disparity (see chart). Twelve stories offered a balanced discussion of which party ought to be blamed.



Of the Big Three networks, NBC was the most likely to pin the blame on the GOP, by a 27 to 6 margin (with four stories assigning equal blame).  On CBS, 19 stories blamed Republicans vs. nine which tilted in favor of blaming Democrats (and five balanced), while on ABC, ten stories singled out Republicans for blame, vs. only two that painted Democrats as responsible and three suggesting equal responsibility.

Democrats believe that they gained political advantage during the government shutdowns in late 1995 and early 1996, when the national media also disproportionately battered the Republican side of the stand-off. Once again, the broadcast networks seem eager to hand another liberal President an election-year narrative: that conservatives are an intransigent obstacle, while liberals offer a “balanced” and reasonable alternative.


and here are the facts that irritate me with this whole narrative. first off, the democrats never even passed a budget until the republicans won a share in the game. secondly, obama initially wanted a "clean" debt limit increase, with no cuts whatsoever. then the basic deal was supposed to be cuts at least matching the limit increase, and then obama himself got involved, playing hardball. for weeks, he stalled the talks with his insistence on tax hikes. and finally, boehner agrees to revenues worth $800 billion, when obama, at the last moment, throws in a demand for an additional $400 billion in revenues. this is what prompted boehner to walk out of the deal, and this is what finally pushed action onto the congress to come to their own deal. and even after both boehner's bill and reid's bill both took the revenues off the table, obama comes out in his speech sunday, still pushing for his "balanced approach." it's almost as if he wants to instill panic and fear so as to get his way. so while i'm frustrated with the congress in their actions, i feel obama's influence has only damaged and delayed this entire process. and between him threatening all these vetoes, and reid threatening to kill anything that comes out of the house, it just makes me very angry.

OFFLINE

So I'm assuming you plan to vote in the upcoming presidential election then?  

OFFLINE

Perhaps its reality not bias?

OFFLINE

Originally Posted by Bryant Platt:
Perhaps its reality not bias?

if it were reality, then none of my  highlighted statements above would be true. touche to me!

OFFLINE

here's a question i have though. why do you think obummer and the dems are so insistent on an extension that takes us beyond the next election? is there any reason to do this OTHER than political? does he think this issue will be easier to tackle after the next election? does he actually think that there's going to be a new surge of democrats being elected to office?

i think the administration would simply like to put this in their rear view, so the president can focus on his role as campaigner in chief. this messy stuff just distracts him from that, and forces him to actually lead (or try to).