MSM Methods of (mis)reporting Politics

Claim you are “unbiased”, by not letting your readers know how you vote.. Then………

1. Criticize your political opponent Whenever You Can, and never give credit when due. Even when it is painfully obvious that you were wrong, and the Wingnut was right. Caveat: the MSM is 90% Leftist.
2. Set Standards for Conservatives, of absolute perfection, or better than perfect,. Examples are - Casualtyless wars, Low Oil prices, admission to mistakes when asked by hostile reporters, No tripping, ever! etc,) for Conservatives, Corollary to rule# 2: Expect Nothing of liberals except to get, and stay elected. Report on any transgressions of the expected perfection, as abject failure
3. Play “Name That Party” IE, When Conservatives are involved in scandal, be sure to mention their party affiliation. Many times. Do not mention Democrats party affiliation, if at all possible. If necessary, do it at the end of a long article that makes many mentions of unrelated Republican transgressions.
4. When a scandal is possible about a Rethuglican, FRONTPAGE! When it turns out to be nothing? - Corrections page a18, under the escort services ads.
5. Use The Damning But technique whenever good news for conservatives cannot be avoided.
6. When good news for Bush – for example the “Anbar Awakening” is unavoidable to mention, Find an “expert” that disagrees, and give him most of the article space.
7. Treat all Military Staff with complete circumspection. Quote : A military spokesman “claimed” Or “defended” the latest move/decision in trouble-ridden XXXX” Exception, the “expert who disagrees.” The “Expert’s” word is taken as is, no qualifier.
8. Treat All Military members on the line as victims of bad policy, as long as that policy is set by a Republican. – Exception, the “expert who disagrees.”
9. If the policy is set by a Democrat, They are “Acceptable casualties of war” See #2, “standard of perfection”
10. Count Bodies – of friendly/allied/USA soldiers. If 3 friendlies die when taking a mountain stronghold, but 150 Enemy soldiers were killed, Treat enemy soldier deaths as “a military spokesman claimed”, then go to tearful relatives of your own countries casualties, and ask them how they feel, on camera. “Damning but” technique helpful. Point out that “Area Was Unsafe!”
11. Ignore progress, if progress may be good for conservatives. It is after all, relative to another bad thing somewhere. If no factoids can be found or manufactured (above willing suspension of disbelief level), do a negative poll. Zogby, Gallup are good go-to pollsters for this
12. When progress is undeniable, find a victim of the progress. Every silver lining has a cloud! ”Fewer Deaths in Iraq Bad for Cemetery workers” Real headline.
13. Nagging problems: “More electricity, but stifling heat continues” or “Some Progress, problems remain”. A Variation of the “perfection” theme (#2) almost always used as, or in conjunction with “damning but” technique.
14. Negative word use without substantiation or perspective – “Costly Move” “Unpopular War” “Lowest Approval rating” “Most casualties between 12:00 and 12:01pm, In Iraq, ever”
15. UN/NATO/FRENCH approval is necessary for wars started by Republicans. Democrats, Not so much. See Kosovo.
16. The Enemy of your enemy (example, Ahmadenijad vs George W Bush) – is your friend, and deserves the benefit of the doubt. Also, really easy, non-confrontational interviews.
17. Small protests that agree with your worldview can be made to look important with lots of close up shots of the most interesting poster held by a normal looking /angry individual. NEVER publish pictures of freaks in marches, unless…… They are conservatives. Then, that is all that you publish. Remember to use “fringe, far-right, extreme, and fundamentalist” often in describing them. The rightist freaks, at least. Use pictures taken from inside the crowd, outward, to make a conservative protest look smaller. Or take more pictures of the leftist counter-protestors than you do of the actual marchers. Make sure their version gets more space, quotes, and better pictures.
18. At protests, Ignore left-on-right violence. The opposite applies to the opposite event.
19. At leftist protests, treat police who are trying to protect the tax-paying public and their property as oppressors of free speech and the right to express views.
20. At rightist protests, treat police who are protecting leftist counter protesters from abusive, bad words, as victims of vicious brown shirt-like fascists – (and the leftists as victims of violent conservative thugs) unless a leftist gets arrested.
21. Arrests at protests: - if leftists, list their complaints and that of their attorneys. If conservatives, write about their transgressions, find lefty with complaint about events.
22. Use “file photos” to obscure your lack of information from any given event. File photos are very seldom questioned, so, for example, all “file photos” of Iraq will show destruction or death, or soldiers pointing guns at children. File photos of anointed politicians will reflect them in all their holy glory.
23. The Memory Hole: If you do not acknowledge a salient fact or event that you were wrong about, ever again, that fact or event may be treated as if it never existed, or took place.
    

24. Define the political center to the left. That makes Hillary Clinton a “moderate”, Hugo Chaves slightly leftist, And journalists the center.
25. Use Bigspeak. Decimate. Surge. Atrocity. Global. International. Billions. Deficit. Tons. Used when describing something bad, BIG bad, cause by wasteful Americans and their Idiot-in-chief.
26. Newwordyness. I-anything. Webinar. Organic. Bio-crap. Nano. Blog. Truthiness. Use when trying to sound “hip”. Remember to type on Mac. Imac. I’m a Mac. Under an Ipod. On the internet. I-blogging!
27. The “Bad gun” or “Devil made him do it” argument. : Whenever a terrorist or Criminal kills, or convinces himself to kill, write that the “Iraq war radicalized” him, or “Easy access to guns/explosives/knives/drugs/high heels by gangs” caused the death-murder-bombing/fashion crime to occur. Never write that the act was willful on the part of the perpetrator.
28. Lie internationally, retract locally. International wire services will disseminate news far and wide, the retraction will be made at their site only.

Summary of all of the above - Anything Bad that happens, Anything at all, will get tied to, or mentioned as a part of The GWB Administration. Anything good will be ascribed to dumb luck - if it cannot be ignored.