By Russell Collins Stiger, Black Voters.org

We can’t let the Media continue to make our life choices. Too many times we have allowed Fox News or CNN to tell us who is good, bad or guilty! Like the rest of America, I once believed that the images I saw on TV were the absolute truth. I did not realize other images and interviews were left out for the sole purpose of slanting the story – often to benefit to the corporations that own the media outlet For example, we are seeing increasingly more stories about big retail chain store or business openings with supposed balanced and unbiased anchors broadcasting live remotes from the business site.

We see this sort of bias in politics too.

In the 2004 presidential election, the media decided if a candidate yells in a loud, crowded hall after an upset victory, he’s crazy and not fit to run this country. For the 2008 election, the media has already decided the only true democratic candidates are a woman and a black man. As I attend their rallies (where they are careful not to yell) I wonder, is this a set up? Although my friends, family and I are prepared to support the phenomenon that is Barack Obama, is the rest of America?

Is the corporate owned media clever enough to give so much coverage to presidential candidates Obama and Hillary Clinton that they will set up that party for failure, betting after an Obama or Clinton victory in the primary election the victor would be unable to garner the votes from the southern, northern or northwestern states necessary to win the general election?

Is their plan to discourage the underdog democratic candidates like they did with former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton or 2004 candidate for Vice President John Edwards because they would be more palatable to those now Red States?

You have to ask yourself why 2008 Democrat president candidate Edwards, the number two democratic candidate from the last presidential election, is virtually being ignored save for the page 2 press he has received regarding his wife’s cancer.

That sort of primary presidential “coverage” is a sad testimony to the state of affairs of America’s newsrooms.

Russell Collins Stiger
Founder and CEO
BlackVoters.org