If you check out this site’s ‘About‘ section, you would see the big bold headline: “Not Pro-McCain – Anti-Obama!” I mean it. I’m not really all that fond of John McCain. I’m sure he’s a fine person and all that, but I just don’t tend to agree with him a whole lot. Of course, considering the choices we have in this election, I certainly agree with him a lot more than I do Obama. But that doesn’t mean I’m pro-McCain.
Even though I’m not pro-McCain, I do at least respect the man for some of the things he’s done. I think, like any other human being, he deserves fairness and respect. I’ve tried to be fair with Obama as well, to respect him as an individual. After all, that’s only human, right? I’ve done my research, that research has raised significant concerns, enough that I do not feel comfortable giving Obama my vote. But simply because I’ve made that decision would not then allow me to slander him as a person, maliciously misconstrue his past, or outright lie about him. Because I wouldn’t do that about Obama, I don’t think it’s fair for anyone else to do that about McCain, whether you agree with him politically or not.

The reason I’m even discussing this is because of a news report – if you can call it that – which was aired by NBC Nightly News on September 30. I really didn’t want to talk about McCain directly on this site. I really didn’t want this to be about him. As the title of the blog says, this is about Obama. But in this instance, it’s Obama who’s profiting from this disgusting behavior, therefore I’m going to mention it, because you need to know exactly what’s going on. You need to watch this video, called “Return to Hanoi: McCain’s captors remember.”

Click “more” to learn about what the video doesn’t tell you and why you should be mad about yellow journalism!

For the past two years, the various networks and organizations of the main stream media have made repeated excuses as to why they haven’t seriously and thoroughly looked into certain aspects of Obama’s past – the Ayers connections, the 20 year history of his association with Reverend Wright, communist poet Frank Marshall Davis whom Obama claims in his own book was his teenage mentor and political inspiration, and so on and so forth. What’s the most common excuse? The main stream media reminds us that they have limited resources, and they can only investigate so many news stories at time, so we can’t honestly expect them to look into every little complaint or concern.

Yet they have the time, funds, and resources to send a reporter all the way to Hanoi to interview a known torturer from communist North Korea? And what do they do with what their precious resources bought? Do they take a historic look at the places in which we know for a fact that John McCain and dozens of other Americans were brutally tortured? Do they discuss the well-documented historical accounts of this tragedy? Do they tell the true story of the pain that was inflicted not just upon John McCain, but upon countless other American POWs? Even aside from all that, do they even bother to mention that they’re interviewing a known and admitted communist torturer, who is still currently residing within communist Vietnam, which controls what this formerly very important official has to say? Do they bother to mention any of this?
No. They only bother to insinuate that we should accept the word of historically confirmed torturers who claim that John McCain wasn’t tortured at all, but rather he was good friends with the director of the infamous Hanoi Hilton. Sure. That’s news. That’s telling the facts. That’s fair and balanced. That’s not insulting to POWs. That’s not insulting to those who were tortured and murdered at the Hanoi Hilton. That’s not spitting on the memories of the soldiers who died in Vietnam. No, that’s the traditional journalistic ideals of who, what, where, when, why and how, excusing all other influences to present solely the facts. Why, of course, that’s not yellow journalism at all!

This sickens me. It disgusts me, the depths to which the media is sinking, and for what? I still can’t figure out what the media thinks they’re going to get for selling their reputations in order to get Obama elected. I just don’t get it. They’re being mocked and reviled by the nation for being so terribly yellow that they no longer appear human, yet they continue to air stories like this? Why? Seriously, someone tell me why.

Of course, as a presidential candidate, John McCain’s life is an open book. Of course, all aspects of the candidates’ lives should be examined. But of all the things to address about John McCain, of all the important things we should be discussing, why are they attempting to distort something as well-documented, as thoroughly researched, as grounded in solid fact, as his experience as a prisoner of war? It makes no sense to me. I don’t see what the media thinks they stand to gain for selling their souls. And it deeply saddens me that they think it’s so important to elect Obama that they’re willing to trample on the memories of those who lost their lives in that terrible place, at the hands of that man they interviewed. Presenting his word as fact is despicable, when there is so much evidence to the contrary that has never before been questioned. No election is worth spitting on the memories of POWs and MIAs.

Any respect I had for NBC is quickly falling apart, not just because they’re attacking a Republican, but because they’re attacking anybody. Nobody deserves this kind of treatment. This is not journalism, this is not what the media should be doing! Gone are the days of Walter Cronkite, when journalistic integrity meant something, when the media didn’t dare to make your mind up for you. They would present the facts, the bare bones basic facts, because they didn’t even dare to imagine that you, the viewer, could be so dumb, so ignorant, so oblivious, that you couldn’t make up your own mind. No, NBC thinks they have the right to do that for you. They think they have the right to shove their political opinions on you as fact, and that you’ll unquestioningly accept it and keep coming back for more. They do not want you to think for yourself, they do not want you to think individually or to have your own opinions. They want you to swallow what you’re fed and never question it.
Are you going to take that? Whoever you support in this election has nothing to do with this issue, because media bias is wrong no matter who benefits from it. It’s scary as hell that we have sunk so low that injustice in any form is tolerable to anyone. And this is most certainly injustice, as this is a direct violation of everything that freedom of the press symbolizes and protects. Freedom of the press doesn’t mean freedom to manipulate the truth, it means freedom from the control of political agendas. Yet here we are, stuck in a cacophony of persuasion, propaganda, and ruthless yellow journalism.

I’m done. I’m done with NBC. Until they and all the other yellow journalists out there clean up their act, I will not be watching their networks. I will be writing to their sponsors and demanding action. I hope you’ll do the same. Don’t let them take away your right to think, to examine the facts, and to come to your own conclusions. Do not let them feed you anything, even if you agree with it. Agreeing or disagreeing is beside the point and it’s about damn time we realized that a journalistic slant in any direction is wrong.
We have the power to fix this, we have the power to deny them their company’s life blood: money. Money talks, and through it, we can and will make them them listen. Save your time, your attention, and your money for journalists who don’t insult your intelligence or your right to think for yourself. Our country simply does not have time for media bias. It has gone on too long, it is too vast, it is too ruthless, and it cannot and must not be tolerated.