Bob McCroskrie: Even the left are getting sick of the left-wing media bias

We always knew that the mainstream media leans heavily left.

And that’s not an opinion. That’s a fact.

But what happens when even the left get sick of the left wing bias. It’s happening!


In NZ they have researched the political leanings of newsrooms via a Massey University Worlds of JournalismStudy published in 2022, and they found that

65% of journalists admitted that they leaned left in their political views, and just 12% leaned right.

And there has also been research on the coverage by the NZ media of some recent crucial social issues. Coverage should be balanced and close to 50/50.

During the cannabis debate in 2020, an analysis of all the media coverage found that 66% of the coverage leant in favour of a yes vote.

During the debate about a conversion therapy ban and despite concerns about freedom of expression & belief, and the criminalising of parents and pastors and professional counsellors, there was a 78% bias in support of the law

And when the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, the media manifested their opposition to the decision with an 82% bias against the decision.

Shocking.

And that’s why trust in the media is at an all time low.

Now please note that is not just my personal view as a social conservative. These are from random sample professional surveys.

It seems that even those on the side of the media – the left – are getting sick of the bias.

And that was on display for all to see last week.

In 2019, I actually attended a conference in Atlanta Georgia, so I popped down to check out the head office of CNN. As someone who has been heavily involved in the media, CNN was always held in high esteem – up until about 10 years ago.

Last week, left leaning host Stephen Colbert in front of a left leaning New York audience make a comment about CNN being balanced – or “objective” was the word I think he used – to a host of CNN, and the audience burst out laughing. It was very telling. Have a watch

Ouch. Remember this is a left wing host with a left wing audience with a left wing interviewee.

They almost laugh as to say – yeah we’re objective – ha ha ha ha. Sarcasm!

A couple of days later, in an interview with the same CNN host on the HBO show Real Time with Bill Maher,

Maher called himself a big supporter for CNN – but he also argued that many consider CNN extremely biased and he completely understands why.

“CNN is the place where both sides can watch, and I think my show is evidence of that. We have lawmakers on from both the parties. We’ll have Elizabeth Warren on one night and we’ll have Ted Cruz on another night. I think lawmakers from both parties should take questions, and you should push both of them,”

Well, that sounds nice in theory – but let me explain how that actually works. And it’s a case in New Zealandinvolving me as the token conservative.

During the same sex marriage debate back in 2013, I was invited onto 1 News Breakfast. My understanding was that it would be an interview with me. Just me v the interviewer. But for the last 18 years of doing this job, the interview is never balanced and definitely not tilted in our favour.

Not only do they bring in someone from the opposite side as another interviewee, but usually the interviewer is also against our position.

So the interview was with the breakfast host, who, of course, was certainly not on our side. But they also bought inpop psychologist Nigel Latta. Now in my view, he was deliberately positioned behind me so I couldn’t see what he was up to, but he was making faces and gestures when I was speaking. I didn’t realise this until after the interview.

But not only that. They timed the interview to the exact day when a pro same sex marriage campaign was launched by none other than the weather presentator on the breakfast show – Tamati Coffey who is gay.

And so leading into the interview, they did a puff piece. On this new campaign.

So that makes it the interviewer, one of the guests.

AND even the weather guy.

And me. The token conservative.

3 to 1. And they called it balance.

(Plus the famous people in the promo campaign.)

Have a watch of the first 2 minutes of the interview that followed the campaign advert. This is from 2013.

That sounded really fair eh

But not only were they 3:1 biased, but they were also promoting the website for the pro gay marriage website in the ribbon along the bottom.

Are you feeling sorry for me? No – don’t. These types of biased interview setups are typical of the mainstream media these days. They can’t win 1-1 so they have to stack the table.

But they claim that they’re balanced because they’ve had a stack debate with a token social conservative.

As Bill Maher said to the CNN host,

“When you look at the panel, it does look like tokenism…”

“They come across that way. In a moment like that. It was like 5 to 1..”

MSNBC make no excuse that they are rabid left wing.

But in NZ, 1News and Stuff and Radio NZ and the NZ Herald and the Newstalk ZB newsroom pretend to be balanced. But they’re not.

We all know that.

But even the left are getting sick of the left wing bias, it seems.

And that’s a good thing.

In fact, there was a study which has just been released in the US. The US Media Research Center study looked at all 2024 presidential campaign coverage on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts from July 21, the day Biden exited the race through the next four weeks. 194 reports with a combined airtime of 437 minutes.

84% positive for Kamala

89% negative for Trump. So just 11% positive.

Shocking eh.

Now you know why trust in the media is at an all-time low and will continue to deteriorate.

Just to give you one more example, let me show you the Editorial from the Press (formerly the Christchurch Press) at the weekend. It’s truly one of the most biased pieces you will ever read.

Entitled “Now the race is really on”, let me quote some lines from it

𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑢𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑏 𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑑, “𝑤𝑒𝑖𝑟𝑑”, 𝑏𝑦 𝑉𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒’𝑠 𝐷𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑐𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑐 𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑡, 𝑇𝑖𝑚 𝑊𝑎𝑙𝑧, 𝑡𝑜𝑝𝑢𝑛𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑇𝑟𝑢𝑚𝑝 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝐵𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛 ℎ𝑎𝑑 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑠 𝑡𝑟𝑦𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑢𝑛𝑠𝑢𝑐𝑐𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑓𝑢𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑡𝑜 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟.

.. 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑒 𝑉𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑘𝑒𝑠 𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑎𝑠 𝑎𝑛 𝑒𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑒 𝑠𝑖𝑚𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑛 𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑟𝑦, 𝑠𝑚𝑎𝑙𝑙–𝑡𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝐴𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑛, 𝑾𝒂𝒍𝒛 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈. * 𝐼𝑛 𝑎 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑝𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑠 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑏𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑑𝑜𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑐𝑦𝑛𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑠𝑚 𝑎𝑛𝑑 ℎ𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠, “𝑎 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑠𝑢𝑐ℎ𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑓𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑟”, 𝑎𝑠 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑒𝑟 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝐵𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝑂𝑏𝑎𝑚𝑎 𝑝𝑢𝑡 𝑖𝑡 𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐷𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑐𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑐 𝑁𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑖𝑛 𝐶ℎ𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑔𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑘, 𝑾𝒂𝒍𝒛 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒂 𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒅𝒐𝒕𝒆.

..𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑤𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑜𝑓 𝐵𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝐻𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑖𝑠, ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑙𝑒𝑓𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑇𝑟𝑢𝑚𝑝 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑉𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑐𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑎𝑖𝑔𝑛 𝑓𝑙𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑦𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝒐𝒍𝒅 𝒄𝒖𝒍𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒓 𝒈𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒗𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆𝒔.

𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦 𝐻𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑖𝑠 𝑡𝑜𝑙𝑑 𝑖𝑛 𝐶ℎ𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑔𝑜, 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒔𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒈𝒐𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒅𝒔 𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒃𝒂𝒄𝒌𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒅𝒔. 𝐶𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑇𝑟𝑢𝑚𝑝 𝑎𝑛 “𝑢𝑛𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑚𝑎𝑛” 𝑖𝑠 ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 ℎ𝑖𝑚 𝑤𝑒𝑖𝑟𝑑.

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑹𝒆𝒑𝒖𝒃𝒍𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒂 𝒗𝒖𝒍𝒈𝒂𝒓 𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒂𝒄𝒍𝒆 𝒃𝒂𝒔𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅 𝒄𝒖𝒍𝒕–𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆, 𝒏𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒍𝒚 𝒊𝒎𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒍𝒂𝒅𝒖𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒐𝒇 𝑻𝒓𝒖𝒎𝒑 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒇𝒂𝒎𝒊𝒍𝒚. 𝐸𝑣𝑒𝑛 𝑎𝑠 𝑝𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑤𝑏𝑖𝑧, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐷𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑐𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑐 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑤𝑎𝑠𝑐𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑒𝑟, 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑎𝑟𝑦.

𝐵𝑢𝑡 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑖𝑛𝑣𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑑, 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑒 𝑚𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑎𝑠 𝑎 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑓, 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑖𝑡 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑𝑠𝑖𝑔𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑛𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑒, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑚𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑠𝑜 𝒔𝒊𝒈𝒏𝒂𝒍 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒆𝒏𝒅 𝒐𝒇 𝑻𝒓𝒖𝒎𝒑𝒊𝒔𝒎 𝒊𝒕𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒅𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒖𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒅𝒆𝒄𝒆𝒑𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆 “𝑴𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝑨𝒎𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒂 𝑮𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕 𝑨𝒈𝒂𝒊𝒏” 𝒎𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕.

𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑜𝑛 𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑒 𝑢𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑇𝑟𝑢𝑚𝑝 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅 𝒘𝒂𝒔 “𝑾𝒉𝒚 𝒅𝒐 𝑨𝒎𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒏𝒔 𝒌𝒆𝒆𝒑𝒇𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒉𝒊𝒎?” 𝐴𝑛𝑑 ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑑𝑖𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑅𝑒𝑝𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑃𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑦 𝑙𝑒𝑡 𝑖𝑡𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓 𝑏𝑒 𝑠𝑜 𝑑𝑒𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑒𝑑? 𝑊𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑎𝑠𝑘 𝑖𝑓 𝑇𝑟𝑢𝑚𝑝 𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑠 𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛 𝑖𝑛 𝑁𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟, 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑖𝑠 𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑦 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒, 𝑑𝑒𝑠𝑝𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑤𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝐾𝑎𝑚𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑎 𝑤𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔.

How truly embarrassing. Editorials are usually written by the senior journalists at a newspaper. It is quite evident that the newsroom at The Press is controlled by a bunch of activists, and you’ll be able to hear the sobbing and wailing in their newsroom from Auckland if Trump does win in November.

If you pay to read the Press, you may have no cents left.

And if you rely solely on the mainstream media for watching and reading the news, maybe its your head that needs reading.

Bob McCoskrie is the National Director of Family First New Zealand, he has a Masters of Commerce with Honours from the University of Auckland and a Diploma of Teaching from the Auckland College of Education. He posts regularly on McBlog - Where this article was sourced.