Hunting The Muse

Slanted Media; News At Eleven

I've long felt that media bias was a real problem, but this last week has just been ridiculous. Atrios over at Eschaton has been railing against this most consistently. Earlier this week there was an article by Nedra Pickler on the AP wire that invented a quote for Dean which was precisely the opposite of what he actually said. I (among with hundreds of others I guess) wrote to complain, and actually got a reply when the AP issued a contraction. You can read the details over at my diary on dailykos.

Another entry of mine focuses on an article I found myself, but in the comments someone else pointed to another article - again, issued over the wires by the AP - which is nothing short of an editorial. The Associated Press is not supposed to be releasing editorials disguised as hard news. Looks like a lot of people are writing about this too.

Much of this is anti-Dean bias. This is all an example of the bias in the media - it's not so much liberal or conservative (read rhetorica for details) as it is their bias for an exciting story. The last thing they want is for Dean to make it not even a contest. So they pound on any made-up flaw they can until they can make the case that it's close again.

Really, they should just call it what it is and report on the horse race between the leading candidate and the press. "Will the press's latest misrepresentation cause Dean to stumble in the eyes of the public? Stay tuned!"

The Daily Show tonight made the point that they knew that Dean was "angry" because the media told them so. Plus, they heard the rumor that he ripped the head off of a goat. :-)

Posted by Curt at January 7, 2004 01:31 AM