Yesterday Drew Griffin a reporter with CNN sandbagged Gov. Sarah Palin with intent, liberal bias and sloppy journalism, referencing a story in the National Review, but distorting its meaning in a high-profile interview.  It was but one more example of the bias left-wing media coverage in the race for president, a statement supported by a recent study.

CNN’s Griffin: ”Governor, you’ve been mocked in the press.  The press has been pretty hard on you, the Democrats have been pretty hard on you, but also some conservatives have been pretty hard on you as well.  The National Review had a story saying that, you know, I can’t tell if Sarah Palin is incompetent, stupid unqualified, corrupt or all of the above.”

Palin: “Who wrote that one?”

CNN’s Griffin: “That was in the National Review.  I don’t, have the author.”

The article Griffin was referring to was written by Byron York and entitled How Palin Governed. The lead from which Griffin distorted the story actually read: “Watching press coverage of the Republican candidate for vice president, it’s sometimes hard to decide whether Sarah Palin is incompetent, stupid, unqualified, corrupt, backward, or — or, well all of the above.  Palin, the governor of Alaska, has faced more criticism than any vice-presidential candidate since 1988, when Democrats and the press tore into Dan Quale.  In fact, Palin may have it even worse than Quale, since she’s taking flak not only from Democrats and the press but from some conservative opinion leaders as well.”

As you can see the tone of this piece is totally different than what Griffin portrays or leads Palin to believe.  Judge for yourself at, National Review Online.

The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism point’s out in its study, “In the six weeks following the conventions through the final debate, unfavorable stories about McCain outweighed favorable ones by a factor of more than three to one.”

For Obama during this period, just over a third of the stories were clearly positive in tone (36%), while a similar number (35%) were neutral or mixed.  A smaller number (29%) were negative.

For McCain, by comparison, nearly six in ten of the stories studied were decidedly negative in nature (57%) while fewer than two in ten (14%) were positive.

Orson Scott Card, a journalist and registered Democrat, recently sent an open letter to local daily papers across America entitled, “Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?” He rightly points out that a journalist’s job is to tell the truth — but that is not what’s happening today.

He cites the housing and financial crisis as examples of the lack of honesty in today’s journalism

“This housing crisis didn’t come out of nowhere.  It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

“It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990′s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people.  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans . . .

“This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.”

Sen. Hillary Clinton often makes reference to a ‘right-wing conspiracy’.  But it’s more like a left-wing conspiracy that goes beyond the Democratic Party and the Government, it includes the media — the public relations machine of Democrats.

Perhaps it is too much for us to expect the liberal biased left wing media to get it right, or for journalism ethics to play a role in honest, fair and balanced reporting when we have fraud and a lack of ethics in our financial markets, government and corporations.

And, as we move closer to socialism, as Barack Obama advocates, the check and balance within our democracy will fade as is the capitalism we once knew.