Abc's Michael S. Malone...media's Presidential Bias And Declin

[FirefightnRick]

Click Here:...."The sheer bias in the print and television coverage of this election campaign is not just bewildering, but appalling"...

...Meanwhile, I watched with disbelief as the nation's leading newspapers, many of whom I'd written for in the past, slowly let opinion pieces creep into the news section, and from there onto the front page....

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But nothing, nothing I've seen has matched the media bias on display in the current presidential campaign. ...But in the last few days, even Democrats, who have been gloating over the pass -- no, make that shameless support -- they've gotten from the press, are starting to get uncomfortable as they realize that no one wins in the long run when we don't have a free and fair press.

Who are the real villains in this story of mainstream media betrayal?

The editors. The men and women you don't see; the people who not only decide what goes in the paper, but what doesn't; the managers who give the reporters their assignments and lay out the editorial pages. They are the real culprits.

Rick

Edited October 28, 2008 by FirefightnRick

[KRAM1]

I give that a big "RIGHT ON"...the press is beyond belief with what they have done and continue to do in this election...but how about all the "free" media ads Obama is getting through shows such as SNL and all the media replays and the Opie Andy commericail. That thing has been replayed as "news" over and over...free campaign ad and nothing less! Good Grief! I NEVER want to hear anyone say anything negative about FOX News and its conservative slant EVER again. The "slant" is nothing compared with today's "mainsttream media" all out love-fest with Mr. Obama.

Blind is as blind does in the media world today! Opinions = News in most media outlets today.... is it any wonder why newspaper circulation is dropping like a rock? This stuff certainly doesn't help!

[Coffee and TV]

Where was this liberal media when all the major networks and newspapers were beating the drums to go to war with Iraq?

Oh that's right, its a farce.

[UNTflyer]

Where was this liberal media when all the major networks and newspapers were beating the drums to go to war with Iraq?

And when did this happen?? I recall the press being very much critical of going to war after 11 years of failed sanctions.

[FirefightnRick]

I recall the press being very much critical of going to war after 11 years of failed sanctions.

Would this be the same press and mainstream media that also spent countless weeks delving into the whereabouts of George W. Bush for two weeks during his U.S. Coast Guard duty, yet doesn't seem concerned at all about the associations or whereabouts of Obama for the past 20 years?

And now, even this week we learn from Obama's own words how he truly views the U.S. Constitution and how to him it's flawed and goes on to say....."You've got World War II, uh, the doctrines of Nazism that we are fighting against that started looking uncomfortably similar to what's going on back here at home. I'm curious, what will he do if/when he has to take an oath to protect that Constitution? And even further, this week the media (L.A. Times) are intentionally holding onto the Rashid Khalidi tape and refuse to release it, and all of this gets a pass.

Rick

Edited October 29, 2008 by FirefightnRick

[Coffee and TV]

And when did this happen?? I recall the press being very much critical of going to war after 11 years of failed sanctions.

You also thought the economy was in tip top shape in August.

[FirefightnRick]

You also thought the economy was in tip top shape in August.

Why not, Barney Frank was telling us all summer that it was and that we had no reason at all to be concerned with Fanny Mae....

Rick

[JayDub]

I have to agree, for once, that the bias and "opinion passing for news" has been pretty apalling. MSNBC is so obviously and disturbingly pro-Obama...hell, NBC as a whole is...and Fox is, if not pro-McCain, at least hardcore anti-Obama...and, even as the Obama supporter that I am, that bothers the hell outta me. At some point it became less about reporting news and more about saying the most shocking or ego-stroking thing possible to score higher ratings.

Listen, I watch MSNBC. However, I watch mostly for entertainment because Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow appeal to my somewhat liberal sensabilities...and, well, because Contessa Brewer is wicked hot & I have a strange, unexplainable attraction to Mika Brzezinski. However, MSNBC is just about as much of a joke as Fox News when it comes to real, actual news...they make CNN look legit. Thus why I quit getting my news from the cable news networks.

The BBC, The Guardian, and, to a slightly lesser extent, Al-Jazeera English provide pretty good, mostly-unbiased coverage of the major US news stories. They realize that it is not their place to help decide an election, especially one that is not even in their country, and leave it alone.

Edited October 29, 2008 by JayDub

[JesseMartin]

Except for comedy stuff, I don't pay attention to any media "spins". I learned long ago not to trust any media, because they're spinning it one way or the other. I mostly use campaign info sites and the candidates' speeches and debates to make my choices...and of course actual voting records and deviances.

"They vote with the President X percent of the time!" Well, kind of. By the time everything's gone through committees and hearings in both houses of Congress, it's usually a bipartisan variation on the President's idea, and everybody had a hand in designing it, so most measures pass by a large margin anyway. Yet another way the media ignores all available social scientific methods and just throws at us whatever works best for their story.

[Coffee and TV]

Why not, Barney Frank was telling us all summer that it was and that we had no reason at all to be concerned with Fanny Mae....

Rick

Too bad Fannie Mae had little to nothing to do with the mortgage crisis, but keep believing your little Republican talking points though.

[FirefightnRick]

Too bad Fannie Mae had little to nothing to do with the mortgage crisis, but keep believing your little Republican talking points though.

Really? Nothing to do with it at all? So please explain what was it then?

Rick

[Mean Green 93-98]

Too bad Fannie Mae had little to nothing to do with the mortgage crisis, but keep believing your little Republican talking points though.

[Coffee and TV]

Really? Nothing to do with it at all? So please explain what was it then?

Rick

http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation/story/838366.html

Subprime lending offered high-cost loans to the weakest borrowers in the housing boom from 2001 to 2007. Subprime lending was at its height from 2004 to 2006.

Federal Reserve Board data show that:

•More than84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions.

•Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year.

•Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that the critics lambaste.

The “turmoil in financial markets clearly was triggered by a dramatic weakening of underwriting standards for U.S. subprime mortgages, beginning in late 2004 and extending into 2007,” the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets reported Friday.

From 2004 to 2006, when subprime lending was exploding, Fannie and Freddie went from holding 48 percent of the subprime loans that were sold into the secondary market to holding about 24 percent, according to data from Inside Mortgage Finance, a specialty publication. One reason is that Fannie and Freddie were subject to tougher standards than many of the unregulated players in the private sector.

In those same three years, private investment banks — not Fannie and Freddie — dominated the mortgage loans that were packaged and sold into the secondary mortgage market. In 2005 and 2006, the private sector securitized almost two thirds of all U.S. mortgages, supplanting Fannie and Freddie, according to specialty publications that track this data.

Critics also blame the subprime lending mess on the Community Reinvestment Act, a 31-year-old law aimed at freeing credit for underserved neighborhoods.

Fannie and Freddie, however, did not pressure lenders to sell them more loans. They struggled to keep pace with their private-sector competitors. In fact, their regulator, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, imposed restrictions in 2006 that led to Fannie and Freddie losing more market share in the booming subprime market.

What’s more, only commercial banks and thrifts must follow CRA rules. The investment banks don’t, nor did the now-bankrupt non-bank lenders such as New Century Financial Corp. and Ameriquest that underwrote most of the subprime loans.

These private non-bank lenders enjoyed a regulatory gap, allowing them to be regulated by 50 different state banking supervisors instead of the federal government. And mortgage brokers, who also weren’t subject to federal regulation or the CRA, originated most of the subprime loans.

More of an editorial, but here's a Businessweek writer:

http://www.businessweek.com/investing/insi...ie_mae_and.html

Start with the most basic fact of all: virtually none of the $1.5 trillion of cratering subprime mortgages were backed by Fannie or Freddie. That’s right — most subprime mortgages did not meet Fannie or Freddie’s strict lending standards. All those no money down, no interest for a year, low teaser rate loans? All the loans made without checking a borrower’s income or employment history? All made in the private sector, without any support from Fannie and Freddie.

There’s a must-read study by staff members of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York analyzing the roots of the subprime crisis that came out in March. I don’t think it got much attention then as the conclusions seemed uncontroversial at the time. But now that Washington politicians are trying to rewrite history, it should be mandatory reading for every American interested in knowing how we got here.

The study identifies five causes of the subprime meltdown:

-Convoluted loan products that consumers didn’t understand.

-Credit ratings that didn’t do a good job highlighting the risks contained in subprime-backed securities.

-Lack of incentives for institutional investors to do their own research (they just relied on the credit ratings).

-Predatory lending and borrowing (which I think means fraud perpetrated by borrowers).

-Significant errors in the models used by credit rating agencies to assess subprime-backed securities.

You’ll note in the Fed’s five causes that there’s some culpability for lenders, borrowers, investors and credit raters. There’s no blame for Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae which had little or nothing to do with the entire situation.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/20...9/usa.mortgages

The conservative view makes Fannie and Freddie the fall guys for the bubble's financial excesses, when the true cause was failed macroeconomic policy and inadequate regulation of mortgage lending.

The insinuation that Fannie and Freddie were primary movers of the housing market excesses of 2004–2006 lacks even superficial merit. This is because since 2003 both Fannie and Freddie have had limited asset growth, and Fannie's assets actually fell significantly after 2003.

Moreover, the roots of the crisis lie in the sub-prime, Alt-A, and jumbo mortgage markets. That is where "no doc" and "zero down" mortgages proliferated, where loan originations exploded in volume, where losses started, and where the bulk of losses have been so far. Yet, Fannie and Freddie are prevented from financing such mortgage products by their charters.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/opinion/...tml?ref=opinion

Opinion Piece yes, but Paul Krugman just recently won a Nobel in Economics. I know that means nothing to you since that devil man Al Gore won one too.

But here’s the thing: Fannie and Freddie had nothing to do with the explosion of high-risk lending a few years ago, an explosion that dwarfed the S.& L. fiasco. In fact, Fannie and Freddie, after growing rapidly in the 1990s, largely faded from the scene during the height of the housing bubble.

Partly that’s because regulators, responding to accounting scandals at the companies, placed temporary restraints on both Fannie and Freddie that curtailed their lending just as housing prices were really taking off. Also, they didn’t do any subprime lending, because they can’t: the definition of a subprime loan is precisely a loan that doesn’t meet the requirement, imposed by law, that Fannie and Freddie buy only mortgages issued to borrowers who made substantial down payments and carefully documented their income.

And yes, there is a real political scandal here: there have been repeated warnings that Fannie’s and Freddie’s thin capitalization posed risks to taxpayers, but the companies’ management bought off the political process, systematically hiring influential figures from both parties. While they were ugly, however, Fannie’s and Freddie’s political machinations didn’t play a significant role in causing our current problems.

Last week 60 minutes had a piece on Credit Default Swaps & their effect on the subprime mess. For 100 years this practice was outlawed until the lame duck Congress unanimously passed it in 2000. I can't find a transcript or full video, but here's a short segment about it.

http://60minutes.yahoo.com/segment/197/credit_default_swaps

[FirefightnRick]

http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation/story/838366.html

More of an editorial, but here's a Businessweek writer:

http://www.businessweek.com/investing/insi...ie_mae_and.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/20...9/usa.mortgages

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/opinion/...tml?ref=opinion

Opinion Piece yes, but Paul Krugman just recently won a Nobel in Economics. I know that means nothing to you since that devil man Al Gore won one too.

Last week 60 minutes had a piece on Credit Default Swaps & their effect on the subprime mess. For 100 years this practice was outlawed until the lame duck Congress unanimously passed it in 2000. I can't find a transcript or full video, but here's a short segment about it.

http://60minutes.yahoo.com/segment/197/credit_default_swaps

I suppose that ignore button isn't working after all?

This is going to take me some time, but I'm intrigued non the less to look it up and learn. But the first article is in reference to the global crisis. My reference was more pointed towards the U.S.mortgage crisis and the fact that Barney Frank, even as late as this summer, not to mention clear video of him during committee hearings years back, defending FM/FM and telling people there was no concern at all. I wasn't referencing the overall global crisis. As for FM/FM, if there was no concern back then which he spoke of, and if FM/FM played no part at all in anything, then why the bailout for them?

I'll try and do some research and get back to this.

Rick

Edited October 30, 2008 by FirefightnRick