Ep 6 | Media Manipulation: How the Left Came to Rule Journalism | The Beck Story

This episode explores the historical and modern influence of left-wing ideologies on American journalism, tracing the evolution from partisan beginnings to the present-day media landscape dominated by left-leaning perspectives.

1. American journalism started as a partisan endeavor, with newspapers openly supporting political parties and candidates.
2. The Progressive Era introduced the concept of objective journalism, but it was heavily influenced by progressive ideals.
3. Key historical figures like Theodore Roosevelt played a significant role in shaping the relationship between the media and the government.
4. Modern media has increasingly aligned with left-wing ideologies, particularly evident in coverage of events like Vietnam, Watergate, and the Trump presidency.
5. The training of media professionals in environments that prioritize political activism over objectivity has further entrenched this bias.

1: The Partisan Origins of American Journalism

The episode begins by discussing the early days of American journalism, where newspapers were openly partisan and aligned with political parties. The host explains how this partisanship was expected and accepted by the public.

• "Historians often refer to the period from roughly the 1780s to the 1860s as the party press era in America."
• "The press thought they were performing a public good by promoting their political positions and criticizing their opposition."

2: The Progressive Era and Objective Journalism

This chapter explores the introduction of objective journalism during the Progressive Era, highlighting how it was influenced by the era's obsession with expertise and scientific rationalism.

• "The new journalism and progressivism seem to go together like peanut butter and chocolate."
• "The journalist strives to become a rigorously impartial expert, a collector of information."

3: The Rise of Media Power in the 20th Century

The host discusses how media power grew during the 20th century, particularly under presidents like Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt, who used the media to advance their agendas.

• "Theodore Roosevelt started the first informal press briefings at the White House every afternoon."
• "FDR's fireside chats on the radio were a masterful use of the new medium to communicate directly with the American people."

4: The Vietnam War and Watergate: Media's Leftward Shift

This chapter examines the role of the media during the Vietnam War and Watergate, highlighting how these events solidified the media's left-leaning bias.

• "Vietnam was a disaster, no matter what side of the political aisle you were on."
• "Watergate became the Holy Grail, the prize that both media elites and wide-eyed journalism majors aspired to."

5: The Digital Revolution and Modern Media Bias

The final chapter addresses the impact of the digital revolution on media, with a particular focus on the 2004 Bush memo controversy and the Trump presidency, which exposed and amplified existing biases in the media.

• "The media world was in the midst of another shift, a digital revolution."
• "Left-wing bias in mainstream media is anecdotally obvious, but has also been confirmed by diverse studies over the past few decades."

1. Seek Diverse Sources: Regularly consume news from multiple outlets with different political leanings to gain a balanced perspective.
2. Critically Evaluate Media: Always question the motivations and potential biases of media sources, particularly in politically charged stories.
3. Educate Yourself on Media History: Understanding the historical development of media bias can help you navigate current news coverage more effectively.
4. Support Independent Journalism: Consider supporting independent media outlets that prioritize objective reporting over political activism.
5. Engage in Civil Discourse: Discuss news and politics with people who hold different views to broaden your understanding and challenge your biases.

Liberal bias in mainstream news media coverage is a generally accepted reality in the U.S. Over the past few decades, even academic research confirms this reality. But how did progressivism come to dominate the media, and how did this become the accepted norm? This episode traces the history of media bias from the first progressive star journalists who flexed their newfound power in the Theodore Roosevelt White House to the pivotal Vietnam-Watergate years, when journalists believed they were saving America from itself, through to the modern era where activist journalism too often makes the truth expendable.

People

Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dan Rather, Mary Mapes, Bill Burkett

Companies

CBS, NPR, Washington Post

Books

None

Guest Name(s):

None

Content Warnings:

None

Jeff Bezos
Bill Burkett was a West Texas rancher and retired lieutenant colonel at the Texas National Guard, according to a report in Texas Monthly magazine, Burkitt said he received a phone call in 2004 from a mysterious woman who said her name was Lucy Ramirez.

The woman told Burkitt she was calling from a Holiday inn and that she had some information that might interest him.

A few days later, Bill Burkitt made his way to a cattle show in Houston, Texas. He was approached by a man in a cowboy hat who handed him a manila envelope. Inside the envelope were four memos with national ramifications.

The instructions inside told Burkitt to make photocopies of the memos, then burn the originals and erase any DNA evidence that could identify their true source. Burkitt followed the instructions, then gave one copy of the memos to a CB's news producer named Mary Mapes and another copy to USA Today six days later, on September 8, 2004. The four memos were the subject of a Dan Rather report on 60 Minutes Wednesday.

George Dealy
Last week on this broadcast, we heard for the first time the pool story from a Texas politician who says he helped George Bush avoid military service in Vietnam. Former Texas House Speaker Ben Barnes said he helped Bush get a highly coveted place in the National Guard. We also presented documents for the first time which indicated that once Mister Bush was accepted into the guard, he failed to live up to the requirements of his service, including following an order.

Jeff Bezos
The 2004 presidential election between the incumbent George W. Bush and his challenger, John Kerry was just two months away, one month before the 60 Minutes report aired, and the Kerry campaign was extremely nervous and furious.

A group called Swiftboat Valley Veterans for Truth was attacking Kerry's Vietnam service record, even accusing him of lying about aspects of his military exploits. Kerry called a campaign meeting at his wife's Pennsylvania farm, where he recruited a member of the finance committee to help him form a campaign attack of their own.

Kerry's recruit was a longtime democratic operative in Texas politics named Ben Barnes, the man mentioned by Dan Rather in the 60 minutes clip you just heard.

After that Kerry campaign meeting, Ben Barnes reached out to Mary Mapes, who was Dan Rather's longtime producer at CB's News, and agreed to tell what he knew about George W. Bush's allegedly shoddy service record in the Texas Air National Guard and how Bush junior allegedly got a cushy assignment to allow him to avoid serving in Vietnam.

Two weeks later, Bill Burkitt gave Mary Mapes a copy of the four memos that he had mysteriously acquired at a cattle show in Houston.

Because the memos contained information alleging bad performance reviews of Bush junior and that he had avoided some of his National Guard duty altogether. This was potentially a bombshell report, one that could alter the trajectory of the presidential race.

This was Dan Rather and CB's news at the peak of the media profession, delivering objective, hard hitting reporting to keep the public informed and help preserve democracy.

This was a top tier example of expert journalism at work.

Or was it?

You ever wonder why things are the way they are in America? Welcome to the Beck story, my podcast about how our past informs our present. How did we get here? Where are we going?

The first season is about a cult of expertise developed in America, how it permeated our government, and how this allegiance to so called expertise has far reaching implications for our nation right now.

A remarkably consistent through line extends from the original progressive movement right through the actions of the left wing elites today.

When the United States was founded, its newspapers were almost entirely partisan.

Historians often refer to the period from roughly the 1780s to the 1860s as the party press era in America. Because newspapers were mostly aligned with political parties, campaigns, and candidates, and they were completely open and blatant about their partisanship, there was no golden standard of objectivity. In fact, it was the exact opposite.

The press thought they were performing a public good by promoting their political positions and criticizing their opposition.

Before the Civil War, many american newspapers were partially or entirely funded by the political parties. Sometimes reporters and editors even worked part time for state and federal lawmakers. When Andrew Jackson was elected president, he rewarded several loyal newspaper editors with jobs in his administration.

When Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, won the 1884 presidential election, the Los Angeles Times, which was considered a republican paper at the time, actually refused to report the results for several days.

That was the lay of the land back then, and Americans didn't really complain about the partisanship it was expected.

Newspapers, however, gradually became less partisan as a result of the free market at work. As big city newspapers expanded their operations, subsidies from political parties no longer covered the cost, so advertisers filled the void. Wider readership meant that advertisers pressured editors to tone down the extreme partisanship. This general aim by newspapers to capture as many readers as possible was one side of the equation that led to the journalistic ideal of objectivity, the idea that reporting the news should stick to the five ws. Who, what, where, when, and why?

The other side of the equation was the coming coming together of journalism and academia before the late 18 hundreds. If you were a journalist in America, you most likely worked your way up as an apprentice, depending on the size of the newspaper, you might work all of the aspects of the operation before eventually maybe getting to try your hand at covering some low level event.

It was very much a working class profession.

Well, that slowly began to change when in 1879 the University of Missouri offered their first college level journalism course in the US. By 1908, it had the nation's first school of journalism.

Four years later, Columbia university started the first graduate program for journalism, funded by a grant from the publisher Joseph Pulitzer. Within eight years, eleven other state universities across the country had journalism departments.

This academic influence on journalism meant that a new generation of reporters began to see their craft as fitting right in with a new scientific rationalism and expertise. Progressivism, the scientific approach to journalism emphasized objectivity. Historian Richard Kaplan described it this way. He said, under objectivity, journalists adopt the pose of scientists and vow to eliminate their own beliefs and values as guides in ascertaining what was said and done, supposedly avoiding all the subjective judgments and analysis. The journalist strives to become a rigorously impartial expert, a collector of information, end quote.

That was the academic theory of objective journalism at least.

But since this new journalism was coming of the age at the same time as progressivism, it couldn't help being influenced by the progressive obsession with expertise.

The progressive mindset was not content to provide facts alone for the public because the public was too ignorant and impulsive to act responsibly based on those facts. Especially when it came to voting for progressives. Then the proper role of the press was to shape public opinion.

Under the influence of progressivism, this new academic journalism became a cause in objectivity. Clothing.

The new journalism and progressivism seem to go together like peanut butter and chocolate.

Historian Richard Hofstadter put it this it's hardly an exaggeration to say that the progressive mind was characteristically a journalistic mind and that its characteristic contribution was that of the socially responsible reporter reformer, end quote.

Those reporter reformers found their ideal collaborator when Theodore Roosevelt suddenly ascended the White House in 1901, Theodore Roosevelt understood, probably better than any other president before him, the power and the usefulness of the press to the White House.

On his first day in office, Roosevelt invited the heads of Associated Press, the Scripps McRae Press association, and the New York sun to the White House. He offered to keep them in the loop concerning his agenda as long as they promised not to betray his confidence or publish anything. He thought this shouldnt be published.

Theodore Roosevelt started the first informal press briefings at the White House every afternoon while he reclined in his barbers chair for a shave. Reporters were allowed to pepper Tr with questions. Then, at the end of the workday, he invited reporters into his office while he signed letters and documents. When the new executive office building, later known as the West Wing, was constructed in 1902, Roosevelt designated a room for the press that was adjacent to his office.

No president had ever done that before.

One historian later described the White House under tr as, quote, a reporter's paradise. End quote.

Theodore Roosevelt made friends with a lot of reporters, but he was especially tight with Lincoln Steffens and Ray Stannard Baker, two of the Star progressive journalists at McClure's magazine.

Steffens and Baker, along with their colleagues at McClure's, Ida Tarbella and William Allen White, essentially invented activist journalism. They were really good at it, and they inspired a cottage industry of copycats.

Lincoln Stephens was born to a wealthy California family. The mansion he grew up in eventually became the California governor's mansion. His father bankrolled years of study at european, where, according to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, the young Stephens, quote absorbed radical social ideas.

When his father finally pulled the plug on his son's european study life, Stephens moved to New York City and landed a job as a police reporter with the New York Evening Post.

That's where Stephens first got to know Theodore Roosevelt, who was police commissioner when TR later became governor of New York, he gave Stephens special insider access, allowing Stephens to accompany him to meetings when TR visited New York City almost every weekend.

Roosevelt once sent a letter of recommendation for Steffens that said, quote, he is.

George Dealy
A personal friend of mine and he has seen all of our work at close quarters. He speaks at firsthand as an expert.

Jeff Bezos
In 1902, Steffens wrote a six part investigative series for McClure's titled the Shame of the Cities. It was about corruption in state and city governments. The series made him a celebrity. Later, a glowing article by Steffens about Wisconsin's progressive governor, Robert La Follette, was credited with helping La Follette win re election.

La Follette wrote Steffens a thank you letter that said, quote, no one will ever measure up to the full value of your share in this immediate result. End quote.

Across America, Steffens was held up as a crusading journalistic hero. One article raved, quote, instead of having his news and his editorial on separate pages, Steffens welds the two into one so that the fact and the meaning and the portent of it strike you simultaneously. For progressives, strict objectivity wasnt necessary if you had the right kind of progressive expertise.

Steffens relished in his new status as a hero, expert, and presidential influencer. When one of his anti corruption stories threatened to derail the reelection campaign of Ohios republican governor, Roosevelt wanted to send someone from his administration to give a speech in support of the governor, but Stephens wrote to the president begging him not to help the governor, whom Stephens described as weak. Stephens wrote to his father, if I'm to have so much influence, I want to make it a power for the possible and worthwhile flush with this new celebrity status and influence, Steffens was invited to join President Roosevelt for lunch at TRS Oyster Bay home on Long island. The president later gave Stephens a sort of all access pass to talk to anybody in his administration.

On this pass, Roosevelt wrote, quote, to.

George Dealy
Any officer or employee of the government, please tell Mister Lincoln Steffens anything whatever about the running of the government that you know, not incompatible with the public interest and provided only that you tell him the truth, no matter what it may be. I will see that you are not hurt. T. Roosevelt.

Jeff Bezos
Thanks to the type of reporting that Roosevelt eventually labeled muckraking, McClure's became the leading progressive publication at the time. A competing magazine called it one of the greatest moral factors in America.

President Roosevelt invited Sam McClure, the magazine's publisher, and Lincoln Stephens to dinner at the White House, where Roosevelt pitched them article ideas on his battles against trusts and unions. A new era was dawning for the press and for what would eventually become known as the media.

Journalism had become powerful in Theodore Roosevelt's mind, at least, he, and only he, wore the pants in the progressive family. Eventually, he somewhat resented the booming influence of these activist journalists. By 1906, he was criticizing Steffens for his habit of, quote, repeating as true.

George Dealy
Unfounded gossip of a malicious or semi malicious character.

Jeff Bezos
As historian Doris Kearns Goodwin described it, quote, it had seemed that crusading writers were intent on usurping Roosevelt's authority, creating the intolerable impression that rather than summoning Roosevelt, was being dragged.

And yet, by the time Theodore Roosevelt decided to run again for president in 1912, he had fully joined forces with the leading progressive journalists and their ideas for giving America a makeover.

For a speech titled the New Nationalism. Roosevelt collaborated with William Allen White, one of the four big journalists at McClure's, as well as with Herbert Crowley, the editor of the Uber progressive magazine, the New Republic. President William Howard Taft warned that the platform of Roosevelt's new Progressive Party showed, quote, of an entire willingness to destroy every limitation of constitutional representative government.

The one thing that remains true of progressivism today as much as it was true from the outset, is the self importance of its experts. The McClure's writer Ray Stannard Baker said they honestly believed that he and his fellow progressive journalists were saving the world.

McClure's magazine was so influential on public policy in the early 19 hundreds that William Allen White said it was like America had, quote, a government by magazine, end quote.

In 1906, a friend wrote to Ray Stannard, it is through writers like yourself and Mister Steffens that the country as a whole is beginning to understand.

In the future, your influence on the life of the republic will be held to be greater than that of the men who now rule our Senate and our house.

It was a rather prophetic statement because once the Pandora's box of progressive journalism had been flung open, and with it the clear bias toward left wing causes, it would never be shut.

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Thank God I found out about relief factor, eventually gave it a try. My wife made me try it. I didnt think it would work, but I got my life back. And you could get your life back as well. Theres only one way to know if youre living with aches and pain. See for yourself how relief factor, a daily drug free supplement, could help you feel and live better every day. Join the over 1 million people who have turned a relief factor and you could start feeling better in three weeks or less. Visit relieffactor.com or call 800 for relief. 800 the number for relief. Save on your first order. That's relieffactor.com dot by the time Franklin Delano Roosevelt was sworn in as president on March 4, 1933, what we call the media had been revolutionized. Print media was still hugely influential, but radio and movies now created enormous new industries.

If Americans remember a line from any of FDR's speeches, it's probably this one from his first inaugural address.

George Dealy
So first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Jeff Bezos
But FDR said a lot more in that speech that you won't find quoted in history textbooks, like this alarming statement near the end.

George Dealy
And it is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be fully equal, fully adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us.

But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed actions may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure.

Jeff Bezos
It was the classic progressive justification at work. Trust us. We're the government. We're here to help. We just need to press pause on some of the Constitution for a little while until we get through this crisis.

Just a few weeks after FDR made that unconstitutional declaration about what he might have to do, an odd movie was rushed into american theaters. Called Gabriel over the White House.

It was made during the height of the depression's economic upheaval, when banks were failing daily. The movie made an overt suggestion that a brand new president like Roosevelt should take over as dictator.

The movie's clear message was that this was the only thing that could save America from sloppy democracy.

In January 1933, movie producer Walter Wanger, who was a strong FDR supporter, bought the rights to the futuristic novel called Gabriel over the White House by british author Thomas F. Tweed. He got financial backing from the media magnate William Randolph Hearst to rush the movie into production. Hearst was also a huge FDR supporter and helped him get the democratic nomination in 1930. Hearst even wrote some of the fictional president speeches in the movie version.

In the movie, Walter Houston plays just elected President Judston Hammond.

At first, hes indifferent to the nations problems like crime, corruption, and unemployment. But then, as hes speeding back to the White House one night, he crashes his cardinal. As President Hammond lies in bed, something mysterious happens. The angel Gabriel enters his body, and he wakes up with renewed purpose. He fires his cabinet. And instead of suppressing a million man march of the unemployed in Washington, he works to turn them into an army of reconstruction.

Sound familiar? Massive government works programs were linchpins of the new deal.

Soon, Congress wants to impeach President Hammond, so he marches in to confront them.

George Dealy
Mister President, there is a movement in Congress for your impeachment. Hardly time for making any requests, however small.

Very well. I shall withdraw that request, but I would like to substitute another. I ask you gentlemen to declare a state of national emergency and to adjourn this Congress until normal conditions are restored.

During the period of that adjournment, I shall assume full responsibility for the government.

Mister President, this is dictatorship. Senator Langham, words do not frighten me, but the United States of America is a democracy. We are not yet ready to give up the government of our power.

And if what I plan to do in the name of the people makes me a dictator, then it is a dictatorship based on Jefferson's definition of democracy, a government for the greatest good of the greatest number.

This Congress refuses to adjourn.

I think, gentlemen, you forget that I am still the president of these United States.

And as commander in chief of the army and Navy, it is within the rights of the president to declare the country under martial law.

Jeff Bezos
On the radio, President Hammond announces his plan to save banks and farms and repeal prohibition.

Almost as if he was following the same script, FDR started his famous fireside chats on the radio, announcing his own bank and farm savings plan during the first hundred days as president. Oh, and prohibition was also repealed during FDR's first year in office.

In the movie, President Hammond uses a secret army and tribunal to bring crime lords to justice, having them executed by firing squad with the Statue of Liberty in the background.

George Dealy
You're the last of the racketeers, diamond. And why? Because we have in the White House a man who's enabled us to cut the red tape of legal procedures and get back to first principles. An eye for an eye, Nick Diamond. A tooth for a tooth.

A life for a life. Fire.

Jeff Bezos
Despite these left wing fantasy elements, FDR and members of his administration screened an early version of the film at the White House and even suggested revisions. The day after the movie was released in theaters, FDR wrote a letter to William Randolph Hearst saying, quote, I want.

George Dealy
To send you this line to tell you how pleased I am with the changes which you made in Gabriel over the White House.

I think it is an intensely interesting picture and should do much to help.

Jeff Bezos
The progressive magazine the Nation wrote at the time that the movie's, quote, all.

George Dealy
Too evident purpose is to convert innocent american movie audiences to a policy of fascist dictatorship in this country.

Jeff Bezos
The movie's dangerous message seemed to be lost on most of the viewers because it was a commercial and critical hit. It would probably be much better known today if it wasn't for Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin ruining the benevolent dictator concept shortly after the movie was released.

But the movie was a harbinger of a new age in media messaging.

One journalist at the time understood the significance and wrote, quote, gabriel over the White House sets a precedent. It opens up, for good or for evil, a new channel of influencing the mass emotions and judgment of a people. We know now that a most dangerous weapon of propaganda can be forged.

Another dangerous weapon of propaganda, when Franklin Roosevelt became president was radio.

Not that he had too much to worry about from the biggest players in radio at the time, as historian David Beatto recounts in his book, the New Deals War on the Bill of Rights. The day after FDR took office, CB's NBC and the National association of Broadcasters announced that all radio facilities would be on an instant's notice should the White House need the airwaves for anything.

The vice president of CB's, who was a Democrat and FDR classmate when they were at Harvard, vowed that his network would not air any program that in any way was critical of any policy of the administration, end quote.

When FDR became president, us radio stations had to renew their federal broadcast license every three years. But in 1934, the new Federal Communications Commission changed the rules so stations had to renew their license every six months.

This gave the FDR White House powerful authority over which stations got renewed. And during FDR's first re election campaign in 1936, he got word to the FCC chairman that he should decline renewal for any stations considered to be hostile toward his administration.

The clampdown was effective, as historian David Beethove describes, quote, in 1938, some 375 stations carried over 8000 hours of transcribed programs of the Federal Housing Authority and the Federal Housing Administration, while the Works Progress Administration had its own network radio show.

When journalist Stanley High asked a local radio station owner why they ran these programs for free, the typical reply was, we know what's expected of us. Bending over backward in this way was also an understandable strategy to win favor at license renewal time.

Despite this lopsided advantage for FDR in controlling the airways, he still went after the rare radio personality who dared question the regime.

George Dealy
Ladies and gentlemen, botter. Hello everyone. Bottle speaking.

Italy and Japan signed an agreement.

Jeff Bezos
As we know, a top CB's commentator named Boak Carter had been a strong FDR supporter until 1937, when he dared to criticize the administration for its court packing plan and foreign policy.

Through backchannels, FDR was able to get the advertising agency for Carter's main sponsor, General Foods, to get him to sign an agreement to tone down his rhetoric. When Carter's criticism continued, however, he suddenly found the Treasury Department investigating his taxes.

FDR even bragged during a dinner conversation that Carter was being thoroughly investigated and that it, quote, would put an end to Carter's career.

Just a few months later, CB's canceled Bo Carter's show.

Hugh Johnson was another casualty of FDR's effort to control the airwaves as well as the effort of the networks to appease the president. Hugh Johnsons situation was strange because he had worked for the FDR administration as the head of the National Recovery Administration for the first two years after it was created as part of the new deal.

But after he began daily radio commentary on NBC in 1937, he was frequently critical of FDR and his policies.

The vice president of NBC called the White House to apologize for Johnson's commentary and to assure the president that the criticism would stop.

Five months after his show began, NBC pulled the plug on Johnson's show and replaced him with a committed new dealer.

The FDR administration had the precedent of the Woodrow Wilson White House during World War one to serve as its guide in using media and propaganda to serve its agenda.

In case you missed it, I explored that dark chapter of us history in episode three of this season.

In that episode, I mentioned George Creel, whom Woodrow Wilson appointed to the head of the committee of public information, which was the governments massive propaganda arm during World War One.

FDR also loved George Creel and used him to write articles that outlined his policies and tested public reaction. Sometimes FDR even dictated whole paragraphs for Creel to include.

FDR also adopted Theodore Roosevelts tactic of making gentlemens agreements with journalists that often kept them from printing negative stories. He cultivated loyalty among journalists by giving them off the record information.

This often resulted in positive coverage from those wanting to maintain FDRs confidence.

Just like with radio, if a publication dare go after FDR for any reason, he went after them with a vengeance.

Even first lady Eleanor Roosevelt got involved in at least one occasion convincing the IR's to investigate conservative newspaper publisher Frank Gannett.

FDR tried to get his attorney general and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to go after what FDR termed right wing publications.

Historian David Beato points out that the president even regularly sent his attorney general newspaper clippings of articles he considered to be, quote, problematic, with a note attached saying, what are you doing to stop this?

In April 1942, during one of his fireside chats, FDR said, this great war.

George Dealy
Effort must not be impeded by a few bogus patriots who use the sacred freedom of the press to echo sentiments of the propagandists in Tokyo and Berlin.

Jeff Bezos
Note the idea that anyone who did not toe the FDR progressive line wasn't simply a fellow American exercising the right to air a different opinion. No, no, no.

They were bogus patriots.

Eventually, FDR wore down Attorney General Francis Biddle, who had the Department of Justice formally analyze the newspapers that FDR was talking about in that fireside chat, the ones he felt were most against him. The New York Daily News, the Washington Times Herald and the Chicago Daily Tribune. But this official analysis found that the papers were not echoing enemy propaganda, and the whole matter eventually faded away.

The fact that Roosevelt FDR occupied the White House for twelve years solidified the culture of the biggest forces in media, tilting firmly to the left in their coverage. The vast majority of media figures and the journalists simply loved FDR. He was their gabriel over the White House.

Wouldn't it be nice if you lived in a country where you didn't have to constantly worry that your government was lying to you? A country where you could take it for granted that they weren't making decisions based on what they think is in your best interest and not what you think is? History shows us, unfortunately, that the more bloated a government gets, the more this happens. I make it a point to make critical decisions for myself and my family, and you should too. You should get a Jace case. It is a personalized emergency kit that contains essential antibiotics and medications that treat the most common and deadly bacterial infections. It provides five life saving antibiotics for emergency use. And all you have to do is fill out a simple form online and you'll have it in case you need it. There are also add on options like epipens and ivermectin Jace medical they encourage you to take your family's health into your own hands. Go to jace.com today and enter the promo code beck at checkout for a discount on your order. That's promo code beckase.com dot.

George Dealy
And that's the way it is. Friday, March 24, 1978 this is Walter Cronkite, CB's news. Good night.

Jeff Bezos
At the end of every newscast on CB's, Walter Cronkite signed off with that phrase, and that's the way it is.

But was it really the way it was?

Cronkite admitted in a 1998 interview 17 years after he retired, that his catchphrase maybe should not have indicated with such certainty the way it was. This is Cronkite telling the story about his boss at CB's initially disapproved of the sign off when he came in.

George Dealy
He complained the next day that he didn't like it, and he didn't like it primarily for a very good reason.

He said. You're telling people that's the way it is. Well, we can make mistakes in that broadcast. It's not necessarily the way it is. You're bragging about something we can't produce.

Well, I realized he was right about it. But by that time, a couple of days had gone by and people were already commenting on it. It just caught on instantly. And I pointed out to him that distinguished broadcasters like Edward R. Murrow would have their sign offline. His was good night and good luck, and Lowell Thomas so long until tomorrow and so forth, and all these guys had them, and why shouldn't I have one? Well, he yielded to let us try it. And it did just, it built. It snowballed into something people seem to appreciate. So we went ahead and did it, despite the fact that he was right, that maybe we shouldn't have made that statement.

Jeff Bezos
Cronkite unintentionally created a motto for the mainstream media and its left wing bias that persists today more than ever.

The volatility in America in the 1960s and seventies further embedded left wing bias in the national news media, illogically, for a business supposed to be anchored in objectivity, it also further cemented the partnership between the media and the democratic politicians.

An all too predictable pattern was established. Democrats, especially the presidents, were generally given the benefit of the doubt, while virtually every move by Republicans was treated with suspicion.

When John F. Kennedy was president, he maintained a very close relationship with Ben Bradlee, a Newsweek correspondent at the time who would go on to become the legendary editor of the Washington Post. Here's Bradley's third wife, Sally Quinn, in a 2017 interview talking about her late husband's friendship with the Kennedys.

George Dealy
You know, he loved Kennedy. And they were, Ben and his then wife. Tony and Jack and Jackie were neighbors. They lived next door to each other. They were best friends. And so when the Kennedys moved into the White House, Jack Kennedy said, you know, it's really hard to make friends in the White House. So they were over there three nights a week having dinner.

Jeff Bezos
In a 2012 book titled Yours. In a personal portrait of Ben Bradley, former Washington Post journalist Jeff Himmelman recounts an instance in 1959, before Kennedy had officially entered the presidential race, when Ben Bradley was assigned to cover a speech by Lyndon B. Johnson in Pennsylvania, Johnson was considered Kennedy's main competition for the party's nomination. Bradley wrote his report for Newsweek, then sent Kennedy a private memo ripping apart Johnson's speech and Johnson himself and giving Kennedy campaign advice. He described LBJ as being like, quote, somebody's gabby, texan cousin from Fort Worth, end quote.

According to Jeff Himmelman's detailed account, when Kennedy became president, he gave Ben Bradley FBI files on some organizations he wanted to discredit. In return, Kennedy demanded approval over anything that ran in Newsweek. Bradley and Newsweek agreed. Bradley later wrote, quote, this is a right all presidents covet, but which they should normally not be given.

This one time the book seemed worth the candle, however, and we decided to strike the deal.

Its hallmark characteristic of progressive journalists and politicians alike, that they have the necessary expertise to be the exception to the rule, or that the uniqueness of the times demand that they be the exception.

In 1974, just over a decade after Kennedy's assassination, CB's news reporter Mike Wallace asked Ben Bradley about his friendship with the Kennedys.

George Dealy
Lots of people in and near the White House think Ben Bradley is too friendly with the Democrats, especially the Kennedys, and is using the post in a personal vendetta against Richard Nixon. Were you too close to Kennedy?

I think I was, yes.

People are trying to draw some comparison between Ted Kennedy and I and Jack Kennedy and I. And I don't know Ted Kennedy very well. I'm sure I know who he is and I see him and we say hello.

Think he'd be a good president?

No ideas. I'm not political, Mike. What? I am not political. I don't care who's president. I really don't care who is president of the United States. I want to know all about him and what he's doing and how he's getting there. But who is president makes absolutely no difference to me. Well, I found really, truly that is a fact.

Jeff Bezos
Maybe Bradley really was as non political as he claimed, but his defensiveness seems a little too on the nose in that report, and it illustrates the enormous transformation that had taken place since the party press era of the early 18 hundreds. While the old party press was still blatant and unapologetically partisan, the modern media was still partisan, but worked hard to maintain a public veneer of objectivity. And this is still the norm today.

In 1964, that veneer of objectivity became difficult for the media to maintain when Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona became the republican nominee for president.

Quotes like this one from Goldwater and the campaign trail sent the media into panic mode.

George Dealy
I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.

And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

Jeff Bezos
Just two months before election day, a magazine called, and it's impossible to miss the irony here, fact magazine published an entire issue devoted to their assessment that Barry Goldwater was mentally unfit to be president.

The COVID headline read, quote, 1189 psychiatrists say Goldwater is psychologically unfit to be president.

George Dealy
The unconscious of a conservative, a special.

Jeff Bezos
Issue on the mind of Barry Goldwater.

In the fact magazine issue, psychiatrists from across the US characterized Goldwater as, quote, paranoid, a megalomaniac and grossly psychotic.

One called him inwardly a frightened person who sees himself as weak and threatened by strong, virile power around him. Fact magazine the editor Ralph Ginsburg, went on to compare Goldwaters paranoia and his danger as a leader to who else? Adolf Hitler.

Understandably, Goldwater blasted the media on the campaign trail, insisting that their liberal bias distorted his positions. He gave pins to the journalists covering his campaign that read eastern liberal press.

Lyndon Johnson seized on the portrayal of Goldwater as an extremist, which culminated in the infamous daisy ad that ran only once on network tv on September 7, 1964.

The ad depicts a three year old girl in a field picking petals off a daisy until something catches her attention in the distance and an ominous countdown is heard, leading to a nuclear blast and a mushroom cloud.

George Dealy
Six 8910 987-654-3210 these are the states to make a world in which all of God's children can live or to go into the dark.

We must either love each other or we must die. Vote for President Johnson on November 3. The stakes are too high for you to stay home.

Jeff Bezos
Two months after that ad aired. Once, Johnson won the election in a landslide.

A major turning point for the media's alignment with the left and for the public's perception of media bias came during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Several radical left wing groups converged in Chicago to protest youth international Party, better known as the Yippees, the national mobilization to end war in Vietnam, and the Students for a democratic society.

They got the fight and attention they came for when violence broke out and the Chicago police force cracked down with a vengeance.

George Dealy
Thus, the night that Vice President Humphrey was to receive the Democratic Party's nomination for president was also the night of the bloodiest confrontation.

But whatever the reason, a clash did occur, and this is what it looked like. It speaks for itself.

The whole world is watching. Chance to crowd on the side.

Jeff Bezos
Perhaps in part because dozens of reporters were injured in the crackdown. The media's coverage largely laid the blame for the violence on Chicago's mayor, Richard Daley, and the police force.

Historian Stephen Hayward concludes, quote, the Chicago police reacted to a calculated provocation.

And like the case of fighting schoolchildren, where the second child to strike a blow is usually the one caught by the teacher, the media caught the police reaction and attributed it to the cause of the violence, end quote.

Based on the deluge of calls and letters to newspapers and tv networks, however, Americans watching from home were far more sympathetic to the police and detected media bias that favored the radical protesters.

Later that year, Richard Nixon was elected president, and highlighting bias in the media became a recurrent theme of his administration.

It wasn't just a Nixon political perception, however. In 1971, a woman named Edith Ephron, who was the writer for TV Guide, one of the most widely read magazines in the US at the time, wrote a book titled the News Twisters, which was one of the first examinations of media bias of its kind, of specifically concerning the 1968 presidential election. One of the most enthusiastic promoters of Ephron's book was President Nixon's former television advisor, a man named Roger Ailes. You may have heard me mention him before, because more than two decades later, he went on to become the founding CEO of a new cable channel called Fox News.

Two other major events in the life of the nation, Vietnam and Watergate, helped solidify the media's left leaning bias. Vietnam was a disaster, no matter what side of the political aisle you were on for.

George Dealy
It seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and did the best they could.

Jeff Bezos
While there had been a general consensus across party lines concerning the cold War, during the 1950s and the first half of the sixties, Vietnam ripped up that consensus, especially among democrats. The far left came to view Vietnam as not just a fight to contain the spread of communism, but America acting like an imperialist oppressor supporting a corrupt south vietnamese government that was trying to destroy its own people's liberation movement.

As the conflict wore on, the media saw it as their duty to correct the naive wrong think of Americans. And when the US ultimately left Vietnam without decisively winning the war, the media felt vindicated.

As historian Bruce Thornton explains, quote, despite the political bias of much of its reporting of the Vietnam conflict, the media congratulated themselves for ending the war and confirmed their status as the righteous watchdogs, monitoring the government, speaking truth to power, and protecting liberties.

To the media elite, certain events, like the Vietnam War and later the Iraq war during George W. Bush's presidency, were so horrible that they cannot be reported as regular news. They must be interpreted for the masses through the progressive lens.

George Dealy
If there is one newspaper the White House is less than enchanted with, it is the expletive deleted Washington Post, whose diligence and persistence, almost single handed, flushed out the Watergate story.

It's a pretty good story. Cor it is Bradley who said go only after he had grilled his two young reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. He insisted they come up with two independent sources to verify every revelation they had dug up. Bob Woodward. Bradley said at the time, he was going to hold our heads in a pail of water until we came up with a story. And I mean, he said that literally. Bradley kept pushing. And Woodward and Bernstein did come up with the stories that broke Watergate.

Jeff Bezos
That was a 60 minutes report from 1974. Woodward and Bernstein went on to turn their reporting into a book titled all the President's men. Then the 1976 Academy Award winning adaptation of their book augmented the legend of the reporter with the righteous cause.

George Dealy
All the president's men. The story of the two young reporters who cracked the Watergate conspiracy. White House. Howard Hunt, please.

And piece by piece, they solve the greatest detective story in american history. There is no way the White House can control the investigation.

Jeff Bezos
Robert Redford played Woodward. Dustin Hoffman played Bernstein. And remember the Washington Post editor Ben Bradley?

He was the one played by Jason Robarts, who won an Academy Award for the role.

Watergate turned the Washington Post into a national media power player. The Watergate story became legendary, no more so than in the collective mind of the media elite.

It was like the perfect superhero origin story.

This is what the media existed for, to root out corruption, to expose the unscrupulous, powerful. And to the left, the fact that the powerful in this case were Republicans was just the cherry on top of the superhero origin story.

Watergate became the Holy Grail, the prize that both media elites and wide eyed journalism majors aspired to. And the effort to capture that lightning in a bottle again and the glory that comes with it, would lead to a spectacular disregard for the truth.

On September 8, 2004, CB's aired the Dan Rather 60 Minutes story about the alleged memo denigrating George W. Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard during the 1970s. It was a competitive decision by CB's to go ahead and air the story because the following morning, USA Today was set to publish their own story about the memos.

It didn't go the way Dan Rather and CB's had hoped.

The media world was in the midst of another shift, a digital revolution.

Bloggers online scrutinized the memos and labeled them forgeries. CB's and Dan rather received fierce blowback. Where had the mysterious memos come from? Well, Bill Burkitt, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Texas National Guard, he first gave the memos to Mary Mapes, who was Dan Rather's producer at CB's. But Burkitt lied to CB's about exactly how he got the memos. Here's Dan Rather a few weeks after the 60 Minutes report was first aired, asking Burkitt why he changed his story.

George Dealy
Why did you mislead us?

Well, I didn't totally mislead you. I did mislead you on the one individual.

You know, your staff pressured me to a point to reveal that, well, we were trying to get the chain of possession I understand. You said you had received from someone. I understand. And we did press you to say, well, you received from someone and that someone was whom. And it's true we pressured you because it was a very important point for us. And I simply threw out a name that was basically, it was, I guess, to get a little pressure off for a moment.

Jeff Bezos
Birkitt originally said he first heard about the memos from a mysterious woman who said her name was Lucy Ramirez. USA Today did its own additional digging trying to find this Lucy Ramirez, but she never turned up. Then, on September 20, 2004, Dan Rather had to share this update on the air.

George Dealy
The documents purported to show that George W. Bush received preferential treatment during his years in the Texas Air National Guard. At the time, CB's news and this reporter fully believed the documents were genuine. Tonight, after further investigation, we can no longer vouch for their authenticity. The failure of CB's news to do just that, to properly, fully scrutinize the documents and their source, led to our airing the documents when we should not have done so. It was a mistake. CB's news deeply regrets it also. I want to say personally and directly, I'm sorry.

Jeff Bezos
Dan Rather's producer, Mary Mapes was fired. Three other CB's executives were forced to resign.

Six weeks later, George W. Bush beat John Kerry by two points in Ohio to win re election.

CB's conducted an internal investigation which did not determine whether the memos were real but blamed Mapes and others for not vetting the documents.

Agreed to resign. In his last broadcast as an anchor on CB's Evening News was March 2005.

Rather later sued CB's, but the case was dismissed. Rather has never stopped insisting that the memos are genuine.

Mary Mapes wrote a book about the ordeal titled Truth and Duty, the press, the president and the Privilege of power.

In 2015, it was adapted into a movie called truth. Kate Blanchett played Mary Mapes. They do not get to smack us just for asking the question.

George Dealy
They want to talk to your source now.

Jeff Bezos
It's bad.

George Dealy
I never should have asked a question. You gotta make your case, honey, you have to fight.

Somebody has got to confirm those memos.

Jeff Bezos
And guess who plays Dan Rather.

Robert Redford, who also played Bob Woodward in all the president's men. The legend of Watergate lives on. Dan Rather and his team seemed desperate for the Bush memo story to be the next Watergate, but it wasn't.

But the scandal surrounding their coverage of the story was a preview of things to come for America.

Yuri Berliner he was a senior business editor at National Public Radio. In April of 2024, he published an essay titled I've been at NPR for 25 years, and here's how we lost America's trust.

He proceeded to describe how NPR's blatant left wing bias led to the misleading reporting on the Trump Russia collusion hoax and how they turned a blind eye to the COVID origin stories, as well as ignoring the hunter Biden laptop. Scandalous. Naturally, Berliner resigned shortly after publishing his essay.

Such a confession came as no surprise to most Americans, especially conservatives. Left wing bias in mainstream media is anecdotally obvious, but has also been confirmed by diverse studies over the past few decades. One such study, in 2004, conducted by professors from UCLA and the University of Chicago, concluded that the media are skewed substantially to the left of the typical member of Congress.

Thus, if the opinions of viewers and readers are similar to those of their representatives, the media slant is far to the left of that of most of their customers.

In 2024, the London based economist magazine commissioned a study of language used by american news outlets and found that journalists tend to prefer the language used by democratic lawmakers, and that the disparity has grown since the start of the Trump presidency. The economist concluded, quote, are conservatives right to see the media as a whole, rather than just specific outlets, as hostile terrain?

Our results suggest so. Of the 20 most red news websites with available data, 17 use democratic linked terms more than republican linked ones. The same is true of America's six leading news sources on tv, of which Fox is the only one where conservative language predominates.

The mainstream media workforce is trained almost exclusively in the leftist worldview by american universities, and one of the key components of such an education is political activism. That that is the highest calling.

When that's at the core of your belief system, it's incompatible with old fashioned journalistic ideas of objectivity, balance, and fairness.

That is what created a distinct shift in media news coverage in 2016. It's not a theory. This was actually advocated for in a front page New York Times article in August 2016 written by the media columnist Jim Rutenberg. It rallied american journalists to, quote, throw out the textbook american journalism has been using for the better part of the past half century, if not longer, and approach it in a way you've never approached anything in your career.

Rudenberg wrote that journalists may need to take an oppositional approach to covering Donald Trump, even though, quote, it may not always seem fair to mister Trump or his supporters.

For the next four years, it seemed all of mainstream media took his advice as marching orders. The Pew Research center examined news coverage from major media outlets for the first 60 days of Trump's presidency and found 62% of the coverage was negative.

The same research found just 20% negative coverage for Obama over the same period, 28 for George W. Bush and Bill Clinton at the start of their terms. And it only got worse from there.

Five weeks after the inauguration of Donald Trump, the Washington Post adopted its first slogan in the newspaper's nearly 150 year history, democracy dies in the darkness.

It's the slogan now on the masthead. The Post insisted that it had nothing to do with the new president, President Trump, Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos said. And he got the slogan from Bob Woodward, who used the phrase during a conference presentation in 2015. Woodward said he first came across it in the US Court of Appeals, a ruling that predates Watergate.

Well, maybe they're being truthful in their insistence that democracy dies in darkness is not a reaction to the Trump era. But in the ensuing years, their coverage of everything from Russiagate to the Biden family scandals makes it nearly impossible believe perhaps the Washington Post and every other american media outlet would be better served by adapting the quote etched in the granite outside of the former Dallas Morning News. Building a quote from George Dealy, who was the papers publisher in the early 19 hundreds, he said, and I quote, build the news upon the rock of truth and righteousness, conduct it always upon, upon the lines of fairness and integrity.

Acknowledge the right of the people to get from the newspaper both sides of every important question.

George Dealy
We constantly rely on experts to make decisions for us, because even eyewitnesses and experts can get it wrong.

Jeff Bezos
But experts do get things wrong.

George Dealy
You have to seek out sources from other points of view and then critically examine their motivations and credibility as well.