The Mainstream Media Bias

I know that I'm beating yet another dead horse, but when is the mainstream media going to treat issues and questions surrounding John Kerry the same way they treat issues and questions regarding President Bush? Senator Kerry is the one who has made his service in Vietnam, his Purple Hearts, his incursion into Cambodia, and his protests of the war the core issue of his presidential campaign. He puts his service out as if he deserves to be President because he served in Vietnam. As I've said before, as the sister of a Vietnam Vet and daughter of two WWII vets, I have nothing but respect for his service in the Navy and in Vietnam. But it doesn't automatically qualify him to be Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. If that were the case, I can personally name dozens of people just as qualified and maybe even more so because they spent entire tours of duty, and in some case, multiple tours, in Vietnam.

But until the media starts asking the same questions that others are asking, and get concrete answers from reliable sources, I have serious reservations about his fitness to hold the Office of the President. I'm not concerned that he spent only four months in Vietnam, my brother spent only a few months there before he was reassigned stateside due to a family emergency. I don't particularly care that he may have used his military service as a stepping stone in his future political career. What I do care about his military time is how it molded his character. What I've seen doesn't impress me at all.

I took a journalism class in high school. Now, granted, this was more than a few years ago, but I was taught that journalists have a responsibility to print the truth. If they print something and find out after that there are questions, it's their responsibility to keep digging until they find out what the truth is. Their responsibility is to present the facts, not just what looks good for one candidate or the other, but all the facts to their readers so that the readers, or viewers in the case of broadcast media, can make decisions based on facts.

I am a citizen of this country. I expect the media to present me with the facts, raw and unembellished with their opinion or interpretation. If President Bush is open for question, then so should any other candidate be. All candidates should open their records, military, financial, and personal. It's part of the price of becoming a political figure.

The people want to know. And we have the right to know that the facts presented by the media are real, uninterpreted, and provable. If it can't be proven, it's rumor, not "unsubstantiated fact" and shouldn't be presented as anything other than what it is: gossip.

We also have the right to know when a candidate, or the President, is lying to us. And it's the responsibility of the media, print or broadcast, to find that lie and to present it to the public. When the media is not presenting facts, they are lying to us, the public.

And we shouldn't take it anymore.

Update: Apparently the media is beginning to question the Senator's service also, or at least parts of it. Here and here. I'm guessing others will be jumping on the bandwagon now that it's started. Links found via the Captain's Quarters. Thanks!