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By Tom Pain
Apr. 17, 2007 A couple of weeks ago, I posted an article describing the liberal media bias in ignoring the story of Charles Rust-Tierney, President of the ACLU in Virginia and outspoken proponent of unrestricted access to the internet by children. The man is arrested for possession of violent child pornography, some of the worst imaginable (vicious rapes of extremely young girls), and only two news organizations in the country had printed the story at the time although his arrest was weeks earlier. I compared it to Ted Haggard, leader of a lesser known, but conservative, organization, who was scandalized in thousands of newspapers for doing nothing illegal, and it’s debatable that what he did was even morally wrong. His "crime": he had sex with another man but spoke out against changing the legal definition of marriage. Liberals could not distinguish the two events, sane people understand how it is perfectly rational to believe two men should be allowed to have sex, but that the concept of legal marriage should not be corrupted to sanctify that relationship. My critics, just as I predicted in my article, claim that it was absolutely reasonable for the press to ignore the story of Tierney while blowing the other into a huge issue that generated major headlines for weeks. They claim that Haggard was well known – a public figure – but Tierney was not. I claimed that Haggard was only well-known to the extent that would substantiate their theory because the media chose to promote him as an extreme figurehead for the anti-gay marriage crowd, hoping to smear the significant majority of Americans who do not support gay marriage as being similarly extreme. Otherwise, Haggard did nothing to generate publicity for himself that tens of thousands of people don’t do, and save for the liberal media’s selection of him to promote, he would still be a virtual unknown to 99% of Americans. For example, Tierney was one of those ten thousand. He actively sought publicity for himself, as Haggard did, as an opponent of legislation that aimed to restrict Internet access by children of pornography through computers in public libraries. And he represented an organization, the ACLU, with more than 500,000 members. Haggard’s organization had 30,000 members. Unfortunately (?) for Tierney, the liberal media did not select him to promote, perhaps sensing that their desire to see pornography in children’s hands would never be accepted by the public. So, despite his erstwhile efforts that matched Haggard’s in scope, he did not get the publicity Haggard did. Yet, my critics would hear none of this. They just kept saying Tierney was not well known and that was the ONLY reason his story appeared in just two news sources, but Haggard appeared in thousands. I countered that the media has never cared whether an individual was well known IF any other component of a story was well known. I suggested, for example, that a story about Anna Nicole Smith’s manager, a literal nobody, being a child pornographer would get airplay because of the ANS connection, thus why should not Tierney’s story get publicity based on his prominent position in the ACLU – a hugely well known organization that positions itself, as Haggard did, as a spokesperson for American morals. Without ever making a coherent explanation, my critics just said that was different. Well, guess what? Today we have the proof that their pathetic excuses for the liberal media were all wrong. According to our site’s liberals, the media would never publicize nationally the boring story of a virtual nobody being arrested – especially for crimes against children, one of our contributors wrote, that are just not "controversial" enough. That is the explanation why Tierney’s deeds eluded public knowledge. SOOO, why does this headline appear in my local paper, the Dallas Morning News: "Child Psychiatrist Accused of Abuse" It is the story of San Francisco shrink William Ayres, who was arrested (why only "accused"?) for molesting his juvenile patients. It was given considerable column space, almost a quarter of a page. Is he more prominent than Tierney? Absolutely not, he was virtually unknown outside of his profession. Yes, he had a local and short-lived television show on the local public station – but that was over 40 years ago. Were his crimes more "controversial" than Tierney’s? Absolutely not, they were, in fact, very similar. So, why did Ayres story gain legs and Tierney’s didn’t? The copy I read first appeared in the NYTimes, written by Jesse McKinley on its staff. Why did a NY paper cover a smalltime local event from San Francisco? It was syndicated by Wire Reports and I would guess appeared in hundreds, if not thousands of newspapers. Why would they distribute a story with only local interest (according to our liberals), that did not involve a "controversial" issue (according to our liberals)? I can only imagine what excuse our liberals will provide for this exposure of the fallacy of their previous arguments. ------------ About the author Tom Pain: Just an American boy with so much common sense, it hurts. Email: thomas.pain@hughes.net Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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