[vienna]

There's an old Japanese proverb: "The nail that stands the highest, gets hit first and hardest." Palin is a very high standing nail and she has brought the scutiny on herself. I don't believe there is any more scutiny of her than there is of anyone else in her position. It is a little naive and self-serving for her supporters to insist she is being singled out unfairly for media attention. Prior posts have tried to draw comparisons between efforts to investigate Obama's past and Palin's. The inference (if not outright statement) is the "liberal-controlled" media goes soft on Obama and not on Palin. This is absurd if only for the fact there is a substantial "conservative-controlled" media that has and most likely still is delving into the background and actions of Obama, past, present, and, assuredly, future. If they had found anything of material import, we would have heard about it by now. Also, use a little logic and ask yourself if you were an owner or editor of a media outlet, would you bury a sure-fire, front page, attention getting (possibly Pulitzer) story because of political bias? Would you risk your journalistic reputation or employment? Would you want to be known as the person who passed on possibly the story of the decade (if the "dirt" was dirty enough)? Even if you subscribe to the "liberal-controlled" media paradigm, do you think Limbaugh, Hannity, et. al., would balk at the chance to be the one to bring Obama down? As may be possible with Palin's e-mails, perhaps no Obama secrets have come to light before because "there is no there, there".

There is, truthfully, a form of media bias that often goes unnoticed: the slant or spin. This is selective journalism at its most insidious. Rev. Jesse Jackson like to tell a fable about media reportage:

Jesse Jackson and the Pope decide to have a face-to-face meeting. They decide to meet in a row boat in the middle of a lake to be out of ear-shot of the media, who ring the shore. During the meeting, a strong wind blows the Pope's hat off his head and into the lake. Jesse climbs out of the boat, walks on the water, retrieves the Pope's hat and returns to the row boat. And what does the press report the next day? Does the headline read "Jesse Jackson Meets with Pope"? No. "Jesse Jackson Saves Pope's Hat"? No. "Jesse Jackson Walks on Water"? No. The headlines read "Jesse Jackson Can't Swim".

Think of that the next time you see or hear an eye-catching headline. Oh, and no I am most certainly not a Jesse Jackson supporter but I do appreciate his take on media.