LATimes: Rather Not Claim Bias

Big deal! Front page! 3,010 words! Yes, the LATimes has finally gotten its Big Story on the story behind the story ... and it's not a story about bias or blogs!

The expose, "How CBS' Big Story Fell Apart" played above the fold and went on ad nauseum about things anyone who's following learned weeks, if not months, ago.

Buried in the story was the word "bias." It appeared just one time: word 10 in paragraph 22 of the 78-paragraph story. The story raises the bias issue, then blithely dismisses it:

Republican partisans viewed such statements as evidence of political bias. They joined some independent analysts in faulting the review panel for not concluding whether liberal political sentiments tainted CBS' story. But a review of months of provocative internal CBS e-mails uncovered no messages that attacked Bush directly.

A couple questions the LATimes might have asked: How many e-mail records are missing? How do they explain the Mapes Gap of sequences of missing e-mails? What other provocations short of attacking Bush directly constitute bias?

The Kerry campaign smoking gun? Raised and, again, dismissed:

Smith, now an associate producer for Mapes, described Burkett as "high-maintenance." Mapes in one e-mail jokingly referred to the source as "our bitter little man." But there were also more serious issues at hand: Paying Burkett as a CBS consultant, or acting as his go-between with Kerry's camp, would give at least the appearance of conflicts of interest.

"At least give the appearance of conflicts of interest?" The eagerness to dismiss with minimal investigation evidence of complicity between a Big Three network and a DNC presidential campaign is mind-boggling. Do you suppose that the LATimes sees no evidence of bias in the CBS affair because it can see no evidence of it in itself? Just maybe.

As for blogs, well, the topic just didn't come up.

Could MSM possibly do a better job of dismissing their own relevance? A couple week go by before they publish. Then they publish nothing new. Then they defend their shattered objectivity by ignoring CBS' lack of it. Finally, they failed to concede that there is a news source other than ink-on-paper or talking-heads-on-airwaves.

Head in the sand, MSM soldiers on!