Those of you who have fond memories of the heyday of Spiro Agnew and his merry band of media maulers may be in for a trip down memory lane. The polls are beginning to reflect what atmospheric evidence has suggested for six months: that the average American is once again concerned with the issue of media bias. The conflagration awaits only a single politician willing to strike the match and toss it into the woodpile of mounting public resentment.
That resentment began with coverage of the hostage crisis. Time after time, as it seemed to the domestic audience, the networks were more than willing—eager—to turn themselves into conduits for Iranian propaganda. No scene was too contrived, no claim was too outrageous, no ground rules were too harsh for the ladies and gentlemen of the press in hot pursuit of The Story. To the audience in living-room America it must have seemed passing strange that the very same reporters who win prizes and prestige for sending U.S. officials to jail were winning intercontinental airtime for playing Ed McMahon to Sadegh Ghotbzadeh’s Johnny Carson. Tell us, just how bad are we, Sadegh?
Comments