For those of you who don’t believe that the establishment media is biased, a little exercise: listen very closely to the “reporting” on the proposed reforms to Social Security.

This week, while gathering footage for my film, I drove from New York City to several stops around the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York. During the trip, I spent around 12 hours in the car, so I had plenty of time to listen to the radio. And, because I don’t know the stations up there, I did plenty of flipping around trying to find something interesting.

I did find something interesting, but it wasn’t what I expected. What I found was a full-on media assault against Social Security reform disguised as news. Sure, it isn’t a scientific survey, but I listened to news reports on about ten different stations during my drive. Each and every one of them included a report on Social Security. And each and every one was strongly negative about President Bush’s plan. There was zero effort made to balance the discussion, and the reporters used the usual tricks: citing unnamed detractors using the “some people say” device, and using man-on-the-street interviews where five of the interviewees opposed the plan and, if I was listening to a slightly less biased report, maybe one person on the other side to add a thin veneer of balance.

In each case, the people who opposed the plan recited the Democratic talking points, and there was no effort made by the reporters to refute those points. Most often, people talked about how the plan would “drain the Social Security trust fund.” But the reality is, there is no trust fund. Any money collected Social Security above what is needed to pay out benefits is spent for other government purposes. People also talked about the risk of letting people control their own money, but nobody talked about the risk of letting the government operate a Ponzi scheme that will undoubtedly collapse in the future. There was certainly no mention of the fact that under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the creator of Social Security, the system was intended to become very similar to the one President Bush is now proposing.

In other words, the reports contained only the arguments against the plan, but none of the arguments in favor of it. This is what passes for news these days.

Pay attention to how the media is reporting the proposed Social Security reforms. If you want to see media bias in action, you’ll get a prime example. And if you’re one of those people who think the only biased media outlet is Fox News, you’ll get an education.