Media 'Lowlights' Of 2009

The continued decline of the 'Main Stream Media' has been disheartening to witness, mitigated only by the rise what was once considered 'alternative media' predominantly consisting of different forms of blogs/blogging. It is past the point where being referred to as part of the Main Stream Media is an insult meant to insinuate that you are in the tank for liberal causes and Democrats. At the end of the year it is worth taking a look back and remembering why this is th case.

http://www.aim.org/aim-column/watch-the-decline-the-media-lowlights-of-2009

"There were so many media lowlights that it's a challenge to pick the best of the worst for a year-end recap, but here goes:

"Teabaggers" everywhere! The mainstream media's abysmal coverage of the "tea party" movement wins the award for media bias of the year hands down.
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Global warming games. The tea party movement exposed the bias of liberal journalists to start the year, and ClimateGate did the same to end it. E-mails and other documents showed that for years, leading climate scientists had been manipulating scientific data, suppressing research, and playing politics in the peer-review system.
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Obamania. The occasionally critical press coverage that President Obama has garnered may mislead news consumers into thinking that the media have reported on him objectively, but they have not. The media's Obama worship of Campaign 2008 continued into 2009. The newsroom swoon when Obama visited The Washington Post a few days before inauguration serves as an apt symbol for the first year of his presidency.
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"Palinoia." The media's contempt for former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is as strong as its love for Obama. Their animosity for Palin spawned a new term in political discourse -- "Palinoia" -- and journalists had bouts of the disease on and off all year.
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Van Who? What ACORN videos? Ignorance may be bliss, but in the news business, it's also bias. Fortunately, the low barriers to journalism in the information age give conservatives the ability to break news on "the fringe" and force the "professionals" to stop neglecting their duty.

That's how Van Jones lost his cushy job as Obama's "green jobs" czar. No matter how radical Jones' political beliefs or how insulting his behavior, establishment journalists scoffed at the suggestion that they should care. As a result of their willful ignorance about Jones being unfit to serve the country, their reputations took a hit.

Rather than learn from the mistake, however, the media quickly repeated it by tuning out another scandal involving the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Undercover activists caught ACORN officials on tape professing a willingness to enable child prostitution and tax fraud, among other offenses."

Head to the source (or just check the archives here) for a more detailed explanation of each incident.