Gov. Rendell takes on the media, it’s our turn now

One of the tidbits of information that I found interesting about the Democratic Convention was a discussion on FOX News today about Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell’s appearance during a panel discussion with all three Sunday show moderators.

I have checked out what happened to prompt the FOX discussion about story selections, omissions and angles of media news and here is what I found.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/michaelcalderone/0808/Rendell_Obama_coverage_was_embarrassing.html

In front of Tom Brokaw, George Stephanopoulous and Bob Schieffer, Rendell blasted MSNBC and called the network “the official network of the Obama campaign”. Rendell also said their coverage “was embarrassing.”

WOW!

The Politico blog article then says that PBS’s Judy Woodruff, who was the event moderator, finally said “Why don’t we let Governor Rendell sit down.” Woodruff’s direction to Rendell was met with applause from the group, which included Arianna Huffington and Chuck Todd.

Why am I not surprised that these high profile media types could not accept criticism, even when coming from a democrat!

When the tables were turned they just could not take it.

I wish someone in the audience would have had the guts to stand up and applaud Rendell.

While his comments were the result of what he believes to have been unfair media coverage towards Hillary Clinton, he was pointing out an important aspect of this 2008 election process. Bias in the media filters down to all the rest of us. It is an important topic and needs our time and attention.

Only when we as citizens and voters rise up with loud and forceful voices will the bias be on the front burner. The media cannot take the criticism and they continue to dish out their prejudice and bias. They persist because viewers have sat meekly back and did not take action. The bias is not going to improve if we don’t join together.

We may see bias in the context of which candidate we support or do not support. In Rendell’s case he was moved to make a stand in front of major network people because of his views about Clinton/Obama. My feelings about media bias relates to the Republican side of the election. The issue is what citizens (viewers) will do to call out the media and take a stand. The media influence is not going to diminish, in fact, if unchecked, it will only become worse.

Thanks, Ed Rendell. You took on the big guys and were basically told to sit down. Now it is time for the rest of us to stand up and be counted. We can send e-mails, write letters, switch to a different channel. We must do something. We want the news but not the prejudiced way it is presented to us 24/7.