Since 2000, the mainstream media has conducted a war against the Bush Adminstration the likes of which have not been seen since their equally vitriolic campaign against Richard Nixon. They have refused to publish anything positive about Bush or his Administration, they have manufactured scandals out of nothing (Valerie Plame) while doing their best to expose secret operations that are protecting Americans and they have consistently refused to accurately report the good economic news.
Today comes even more evidence of just how badly the press has failed in their duty to report to the American public. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft corporation, spoke to a forum to discuss fighting malaria. As reported by Power Line, Gates said,
Today, malaria kills more than one million people every year, most of them children in Africa. That's the equivalent of losing every student in the New York City public school system in one year.
We know that eradicating malaria is an audacious goal. But advances in science and medicine, new political commitments, and the dedication of people like you have given the world an historic opportunity to conquer malaria. It won't be easy and it won't happen quickly, but I'm optimistic that we can make this disease history.
At the forum in Seattle, Melinda and I called on the U.S. presidential candidates to commit to expand the President's Malaria Initiative, a great program started by President Bush. I hope you will join us in asking all of the candidates to make this pledge and keep the fight against malaria on the national agenda.
Funny- I don't recall any press organization ever mentioning that President Bush had started an anti-malaria program? Just as they prefer to downplay this Administration's efforts in Africa (which dwarfed the better-known efforts of Clinton), and snipe at the President whenever and wherever they can. As one example of the disparity in how Bush and Clinton were covered on the topic, The Washington Post published an article on Bush's African efforts in 2005- on Page 22. A less-expansive Clintonian intiative received Page 2 coverage.
I would wish that the Press would perform their duty to inform and report fairly, but alas that is a duty that the Press is all too unfamiliar with. So we can only hope that the citizenry relies less and less on these dinosaurs of the Old Media, and remove their patronage from the corporations who employ these propagandists. The sooner, the better. Cross-posted on StoneHeads.
