Bias And The Media

All of us know the effect of the media in politics and in political campaigns.  We believe that it is true to say that media coverage can make or break a candidate, depending on their feelings towards the person.  The most blatant example of media bias was seen during the candidacy of Barack Obama.  All three of the major networks clearly favored him as the candidate and did little to support the GOP. 

The election of 2012 is probably the most important election of our (the Two Sisters) lifetime.  The Democratic candidate will be unchallenged and announced his bid for reelection earlier than most.  The GOP field is having a much more difficult time shaping up, and the media have already begun to choose their favorites.

We began to think about this subject when we noticed that  our particular favorite, former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty is seldom mentioned in the media, particularly in the conservative media.  Governor Pawlenty is described as a "milquetoast," lacking "charisma." Have we as a nation lost our moral fiber and character to such an extent that we choose our candidates according to the sort of "dog and pony show" they can put on during the campaign?

Would Barack Obama have been elected had he not had the amounts of money, the celebrity backing, and the "Hollywood movie sets" with free concerts and free food to lure in the star struck crowds?  Every event his campaign team put on received full media coverage and adulation, while the Republican candidates were shown at slim crowds shaking hands and kissing babies.  It was coverage not intended to send a "thrill up the leg" of Republican supporters!

While reading up on the subject of media bias, we came across an essay written by a student named Tatum Wilcox.  It was written in 2007 but the facts presented in the article, and the role of the media in politics is just as true today as it was nearly four years ago.  The media hasn't changed its ways, and the American public have not changed theirs.

Isn't it time that we as Americans become independent thinkers?  We often think about how former presidents campaigned before the age of electronics, and media domination.  There was certainly another criteria used to choose our presidents and "charisma" did not enter into it.  We were a young nation then, and Americans voted for the man they felt would be the best leader for our nation.  Two hundred years ago we were an emerging nation trying to get a foothold in the world.  Today, unfortunately, we are a nation hoping to re-emerge unto the world stage.  We appear to some as a bankrupt country, we dare say, a morally and financially bankrupt one. 

Our next president, regardless of media coverage should be one with experience, integrity, Honesty, (with a capital H) a respect for the Law of the Land, and a love of country that is unsurpassed by any other allegiance.  We truly believe that a leader who possesses those qualities can begin to restore our nation to its former greatness.
Two Sisters


Media influence on politics and government

by Tatum Wilcox
December 14, 2007

The media plays a substantial role in the development of government. The media gives people access to be able to choose a political party, devise attitudes on government parties and government decisions, and manage their own interests. From newspapers to television to radio to the Internet, the media is the leading factor in political communication and fund-raising.

The mass media performs six main functions, almost all with political insinuations: 1) entertainment, 2) reporting the news, 3) identifying public problems, 4) socializing new generations, 5) providing a political forum, and 6) making profits. Its influence is more prominent during political campaigns because news coverage of a single event could turn out to be the most significant factor in putting a candidate ahead. In fact, countless national political figures, including the president, plan public appearances and statements to expand their influence through the media.

Candidates and their consultants consume much of their time devising strategies to get the most impact on television viewers. Types of coverage used by candidates for any office include advertising, management of news coverage, and campaign debates. The appearance of candidates in presidential debates is as important as the news coverage itself.

In general people already have their own ideas when they view television, read newspapers, or log on to websites. This leads to "selective attentiveness" and acts as a type of filter that allows the viewer to pay attention to the details that agree with his or her own opinion. The media are more effective with those who have not formed a stable political opinion, whether it is on issues or candidates. Studies show that commercials and debates aired right before election day have the most effect on undecided viewers. Voters who have already formed their opinions are hardly influenced by the media to the point of changing their minds.

Not only does the mass media have extensive authority in political campaigns, but they can even exercise power over government officials and affairs. The media and the president both need each other; "The media need news to report, and the president may need coverage." Therefore, both the president and the media work hard to utilize one another. Public problems that receive the most media coverage are considered to be the most important ones by the public, giving the media an important role in the public agenda. The media provides the government with a better understanding of the need and desires of the society.

Several studies have taken place to decide which way media bias sways. Some say they lean more towards the liberal side, while others say they go more towards the conservative side. Even so, some say there is no notable bias. Yet others agree that the media has a bias toward the "status quo" or towards candidates labeled as losers- making it difficult for candidates labeled as such to regain their ground. Calvin F. Exoo "concluded that journalists are constrained by both the pro-America bias of the media's owners and the journalists' own code of objectivity."

Overall, the media are always present with new stories on political activities. Political discussions cannot be avoided in the print media, political stories are aired on television everyday, commercial radio airs political news every hour, and paid political announcements are encountered in all media during campaigns. The media remains important since they are the means by which people obtain current affairs both inside and outside of the United States- however biased it may be.


Copyright 2007 - Tatum Wilcox

 Two Sisters are delighted to have found this gem of an essay by a young student.  We often do not give our young people enough credit for being able to think and express themselves in such an honest, objective fashion.  Reading Tatum Wilcox's essay reinforced our belief that we are often manipulated by politicians, campaign managers, and above all a media that has lost its direction and its objectivity.

Allahu Akbar

Allahu Akbar represents the tribal pride of the Muslim, submitting to Allah.


by Daniel Greenfield

No sooner does a Yemeni Muslim begin hammering on the cockpit door shouting “Allahu Akbar”, than the media speculates that he must have gotten confused looking for the bathroom. And on September 11, four groups of Muslim men with boxcutters got confused looking for the nearest post office.

The lead is invariably buried. Paragraphs fly by until it’s mentioned that the confused fellow may have been a Muslim. If it’s mentioned at all. And his cry of Allahu Akbar is translated as God is Great to render it more acceptable to readers. But like so many Islamic translations, it’s right enough to be wrong. Allahu Akbar doesn’t mean Allah is Great, in a “Isn’t ‘Allah and the Virgins of Paradise’ a great band”. It’s more like Allah is Greatest or Superior. And if you’re on the right side of the cockpit door, the one doing the shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ means that Allah is superior to your country and to you. And one of his followers is about to do his best to show you why.

News stories which, like fruit punch, carry 70 percent propaganda to 30 percent juice, are always eager to explain to their readers, that “Allahu Akbar” is just one of those things that Muslims shout at random occasions. Feel happy, shout, “Allahu Akbar”, feel sad, shout, “Allahu Akbar” till you feel better, feel a touch of homicidal rage against the infidels coming on, shout “Allahu Akbar” and open fire. If you believe them, then “Allahu Akbar” is the Swiss Army Knife of Arabic ejaculations. Whether you’re at a soccer game or a beheading, it’s the verbal black dress that fits any occasion.

The message of Allahu Akbar is the message of the Koran 61:9. “He it is who has sent his Messenger with guidance and the religion of truth to make it victorious over all religions even though the infidels may resist.” His messenger is Mohammed, the religion is Islam and the infidels who resist get beheaded or have planes rammed into their buildings.

Allahu Akbar represents the tribal pride of the Muslim who, in submitting to Allah, becomes greater than all the infidels who haven’t gotten around to falling on their knees and paying tribute to the ghost of a long dead pedophile. By asserting the exceptionalism of Allah and of Mohammed as his prophet, they assert the exceptionalism of all Muslims. The Slaves of Allah become the masters of the entire world. Not as individuals, but collectively.

George Orwell described a very similar phenomenon in 1984;

You know the Party slogan: “Freedom is Slavery”. Has it ever occurred to you that it is reversible? Slavery is freedom. Alone—free—the human being is always defeated. It must be so, because every human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of all failures. But if he can make complete, utter submission, if he can escape from his identity, if he can merge himself in the Party so that he is the Party, then he is all-powerful and immortal.

Islam is that utter submission. A frustrated act of individual suicide that in the case of a suicide bomber involves actual death. But by dying, he proves himself immortal in the collective. When Muslims boast that they don’t fear death, and even demonstrate it by committing suicide, what they are really doing is embracing a collective existence, by rejecting individualism they shout their omnipotence. The individual killing himself to become immortal is one of the perverse paradoxes of tyranny. And it lies at the heart of Islam.

The Takbir emphasizes Allah’s superiority, not to praise the superiority of their creator, but to assure themselves of their own superiority. In a slave culture, willing slavery becomes a badge of honor. The willing slave is superior to the unwilling slave. In a slave culture there are no free people. Only ones higher up on the ladder. The house slave and the field hand. The eunuch bureaucrat and the stable boy, the Janissary and the street sweeper, the harem dweller and the woman lying moaning in a field after the armies of the Jihad have passed.

Muslim freedom is relative, not absolute. It is relative to the more comprehensive slavery of the non-Muslims under their dominion. And so for them in their own lands, slavery is indeed freedom. An illusory freedom that comes from the difference between their status and that of the non-Muslim.

That’s why the American model translates poorly to the Muslim world. Democracy to Muslims means the rule of majority. And they like that fine, so long as they are in the majority. And if they aren’t, they use the sword, the gun and the suicide bomb until they are. But notions of freedom or equality don’t translate. Muslims will tolerate Jewish or Christian populations at an inferior level—so long as they know their place. And their place is at the back of the bus. They are the slaves or the slaves of Allah.

Allahu Akbar is an assertion of individual superiority through collective superiority

Allahu Akbar is an assertion of individual superiority through collective superiority. “I am better than you because Muslims are better than you, and Muslims are better than you, because Allah is better than you.” It’s a long-winded way of getting to the point in English, but it’s concisely implicit in the Arabic.

The Libyan national anthem, ‘Allahu Akbar’, begins with a cry of “Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest” and neatly segues into “Allah is the Greatest Above the Conspiracies of the Enemies” and off to the usual killing and dying business. Allah’s superiority renders all others inferior. That’s the message of Allahu Akbar. And it’s shouted much more often as a battle cry, than by people looking for the bathroom in the cockpit part of the plane.

For the same reason it flies on the national flags of Iran, Iraq and the new Afghanistan (the Saudi Wahhabis go the extra mile by writing out the whole Shahada, but that is an elaboration which means much the same thing.

Conveniently this makes the national flags into sacred symbols, as hapless soccer ball manufacturers and one German brothel found out when they tried to promote international brotherhood and sales with the friendly use of Muslim flags. The brothel had meant to promote peace and love by including Saudi and Iranian flags among all the others in the World Cup, and the hooded Muslims who came bearing knives and sticks showed their own version of peace and love. For a religion that rewards mass murderers by fornicating with virgin demons in paradise, it was not so much a show of prurience as exclusivity. Only Islam holds the key to the eternal demon brothel of paradise. And to wave the Shahada or the Takbir above a mortal German brothel cheapens the value of a divine commodity, and blasphemously cuts into Allah’s monopoly.

The tactic of Islamic propagandists and their Western enablers has been to mainstream and normalize. In their translations, “Allahu Akbar” becomes “God is Great”. Not Allah, but God. And not Greater, but Great. The differences are significant. Every news story takes great care to explain that AA, (Allahu Akbar not Alcoholics Anonymous), is a common Arabic phrase shouted at various occasions. Which is true. Muslims don’t just shout Allahu Akbar when they’re killing people. The problem is that they do shout Allahu Akbar when they are killing people. And that shout reveals motive.

No one shouts Allahu Akbar when trying to get into a bathroom, but they do shout it when they think have a shot of getting into a cockpit. An invocation of omnipotence and a battle cry. “Know your place, infidels, Allah is on our side.”

The normalizers insist that Islam is no different than Judaism or Christianity, but what they can’t explain is the global body count, except by twisting the signposts around until it’s all the Hindus, Jews, Christians, Animists and Zoroastrians who are to blame for being murdered. And the body count like the “Allahu Akbar” pilots shows up as an anomaly on the normalizers’ radar. A blip that says something is wrong. The normalizers and their diligent pupils pay no attention to it, but everyone else does.

The normalizers say that all religions kill, but which religion hasn’t stopped killing. They say that all have made war in the name of religion—but who starts war in the name of religion today? They say that members of all religions have raped—but which religion’s founder openly kept sex slaves? They say that all religions have their bad seeds, but Islam began with a bad seed who used his religious authority to rob, rape and kill. To perpetrate ethnic cleansing and genocide. And over a thousand years later, that same religious authority is being used to rob, rape and kill in Africa and the Middle East. That authority is best summed up with a single cry, “Allahu Akbar.”

The Janjaweed militias who carried out much of the Sudanese genocide rode shouting joyfully, “Hail the name of Allah”. That much is recorded in the docket of the International Criminal Court. The hundreds of thousands murdered, countless more raped and mutilated, in the name of Allah. Indonesia’s 1950’s and ‘60’s massacres which claimed over a million lives began with shouts of “Allahu Akbar” and moved on to parading their heads around, disemboweling their bodies, burying them alive and even cannibalism. Obama’s beloved stepdaddy, Colonel Lolo Soetoro, likely played a role in directing these atrocities. And these are only two drops in an ocean of blood still flowing to Mecca. A red tide that threatens to sweep humanity away.

If Islam is no different than every other religion, and their deity is no different than every other deity, why are so many members of those religions and worshipers of those deities being murdered by the followers of a single religion. Not once or twice, but constantly. Year after year. A bloody faucet whose left handle reads ‘Allah” and whose right handle reads “Akbar” that never turns off. That bloody faucet is the best evidence that Islam is different and that its deity is different. Why else can’t the faucet be turned off?


Daniel Greenfield is a New York City based writer and freelance commentator. “Daniel comments on political affairs with a special focus on the War on Terror and the rising threat to Western Civilization. He maintains a blog at Sultanknish.blogspot.com.



Copyright 2011 - Daniel GreenfieldDaniel can be reached at:  sultanknish@yahoo.com