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by Daniel Mallock

Some folks might find this shocking, but not the readers of this blog. Deborah Howell, the ombudsman for the Washington Post today admits that the coverage of the election, at least in her newspaper, was clearly biased in favor of the president-elect. (Source)

The Post provided a lot of good campaign coverage, but readers have been consistently critical of the lack of probing issues coverage and what they saw as a tilt toward Democrat Barack Obama. My surveys, which ended on Election Day, show that they are right on both counts.

Many observers on the right and in the McCain camp in general have been commenting on the obvious favoratism towards now president-elect Obama from the beginning to the end of the late campaign. This obvious, and now self-admitted, bias towards one candidate and against the other is a total failure of American journalism. I have been saying this for many months and reiterate it again today with this new stunning but not surprising admission from the Washington Post - American journalism is a failed profession.

The op-ed page ran far more laudatory opinion pieces on Obama, 32, than on Sen. John McCain, 13. There were far more negative pieces about McCain, 58, than there were about Obama, 32, and Obama got the editorial board’s endorsement.

One of the great shifts, among many, that this election has brought about is the fundamental self-destruction of the American press. The trust of the reader is broken, reputations destroyed, and the concept of a valid and important 4th Estate is at an end. The demise of journalism in America was brought about by journalists, editors and owners themselves. Why?

Journalists forgot that they were Americans and professional journalists first and partisans second; they forgot that their jobs required them to be objective and report the news rather than make it or “help it along”. Professional journalists have a responsibility to the truth and to fairness of reporting. They failed. There has long been a clear left-leaning bias in the mainstream American press. The rise of right wing talk radio is a direct response to this obvious bias and lack of professionalism in the mass media. Republicans have complained about bias in the media throughout the campaign only to meet denials, counter-accusations, and obfuscations from the fallen leaders of a failed profession, journalism.

The leftist journalists of America favored Obama, so they helped him get elected by not digging, by not investigating and by ignoring legitimate issues of questionable associations, and even more questionable judgment that were raised time and again throughout the election process.

Journalism must reinvent itself and return rapidly to its roots just as the Republican party must do the same. Journalists have utterly failed in this election and their reputations have suffered rightfully on account of it. Newspapers are in a fight for their very existence with declining subscriptions, declining advertising and a steadily declining readership as more and more people seek news sources that they can trust, mainly to be found on the internet.

The election of 08 is the end of journalism in the United States as we know it. The bias in the media against the right and for Obama has always been true only now post-election is it being admitted.

Most importantly, the important stories of the election were not reported by the mainstream press. This was a direct determinant of the final outcome.

But Obama deserved tougher scrutiny than he got, especially of his undergraduate years, his start in Chicago and his relationship with Antoin “Tony” Rezko, who was convicted this year of influence-peddling in Chicago. The Post did nothing on Obama’s acknowledged drug use as a teenager.

Howell is right, and honest here.

It was a profound disservice to the electorate that these matters and so many others were not fully investigated by an objective press whose main purpose ought to have been the publication of the truth so that the American people could make an informed decision in this highly charged and very important election during multiple crises. This is the central issue, the press was not objective.

Any job applicant must undergo often rigorous scrutiny, Senator, now president-elect Obama did not get this scrutiny. And now we have unanswered questions that may never be answered. This is a total failure on the part of the Washington Post and so many other mainstream “news” outlets and organizations.

At one time there was great cache to being a “journalist”. No longer. Without professionalism, there can be no profession; without accuracy there can be no trust; without standards and accountability, there can only be writers writing stories. American journalists have destroyed their readers’ trust and entirely destroyed their profession. American newspapers, print journalism, and network news have only place to look to find the cause of their diminishment and failure-themselves.

One gaping hole in coverage involved Joe Biden, Obama’s running mate. When Gov. Sarah Palin was nominated for vice president, reporters were booking the next flight to Alaska. Some readers thought The Post went over Palin with a fine-tooth comb and neglected Biden. They are right; it was a serious omission.

This implosion of the profession of journalism will take much longer to repair, if it can be repaired certainly than it took to accomplish. Nothing but outright bias and partisanship ruined American journalism. It is to the credit of the Washington Post that they published the ombudsman’s findings and admissions of biased coverage. This is something I’ve known all along, and so many have denied.

George Orwell would be horrified by all that has transpired. However, the non-profession of American journalism must be pleased by their success in helping one candidate to office over another.

For the liberal, activist partisans writers of the Washington Post and all the yellow sheets who failed to provide accurate objective coverage of the Presidential election, the victory of Barack Obama is double-plus good. For their profession it is the end of the road and they’ve only themselves to blame.