A university is just a group of buildings gathered around a library. ~Shelby Foote

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

More Bias in the media

Just to pile on a bit. One measure of bias is to look at how the media handles similar controversies when they are created by liberals as opposed to conservatives. My current case in point relates to the Terri Schiavo controversy. When a "talking points" memo from a mid-level republican senate staffer was discovered to include the phrase "great political issue" there was a fair amount of hue and cry from the media. Editorials in papers across the country decried the Republicans for their crassness and the situation was hashed over in the nightly news for a few days.

Now, along comes Howard Dean, newly selected head of the DNC. In Saturday's LA Times, Dean is quoted as saying, "'We're going to use Terri Schiavo later on,' Dean said of the brain-damaged Floridian who died last month after her feeding tube was removed amid a swarm of political controversy." A search through the Proquest Newspaper database I have at work, which yielded a dozen or more editorials condemning the Martinez memo on Schiavo, yielded precisely none condemning Dean. I will keep scanning for editorials condemning Dean in the next week or so, but I'm not holding my breath that any will be forthcoming.

Granted, we're again talking editorials here, but the editors are the people overseeing the reporters, right? So, I find it interesting that newspapers merely "report" that Dean says that Schiavo will be a campaign issue while editorilizing at length about the bad old Republicans for even thinking about making Schiavo a campaign issue. Personally, I think both parties should be ashamed of how they handled, and continue to handle, Schiavo's case, but if the media is going to take one party to task for "grandstanding" as Dean puts it, shouldn't they also take the other party to task for doing precisely the same thing? Often times bias is as clearly demonstrated in what isn't written as it is in what is written.
Comments:
Once again, your incredible bias keeps you from realizing the point. The reason that the memo was a big deal was it showed that the Republicans wanted to make Terri a political issue because it was tough on the Democrats. The reason Dean said that Terri will be an issue in the future is BECAUSE the Republicans wanted to make her a political issue. Apparently, the media is also smart enough to see this.
 
Well said, Troy

I'd also like to point out that the Martinez memo was floating around for over a week while the blogs were flogging the 'Democrat forgery' meme, before it started to seep into the regular media.

Dean's comments were yesterday (and I must say, bad form Howard. It may be true and all, but just ill considered). I would expect the typical feed line to start: the right hand blogs will condense a meme, which will spread to talk radio and then to print, eventually becoming a televised news item.

Give it a bit of time, Tim. Your boys will get the job done.
 
"The reason Dean said that Terri will be an issue in the future is BECAUSE the Republicans wanted to make her a political issue. Apparently, the media is also smart enough to see this."

Ah, this is a clever, if absolutely ineffectual point. Using the dead for politics is using the dead for politics. This is like President Clinton blaming the Oklahoma City bombing on Talk Radio: ridiculous, and in bad taste. Which describes Howard Dean perfectly.

BTW, did Howard Dean make the disclaimer "Terri will be an issue in the future is BECAUSE the Republicans wanted to make her a political issue" in his own words, or is this just so much TROY spin?
 
Well John, you claim that Dean is an asshole because 'using dead for politics is using the dead for politics.' But is using what Terri represented (the Republicans pushing a religious agenda to screw with the Democrats and the court system) the same. Just wondering.
And I guess we can take Reagan's name off all those buildings and airports and shit since he told all those wonderful stories about people who fought bravely (and died) in World War II in an effort to get elected and get more money for military spending, because he 'used the dead for politics.'
 
Well John, you claim that Dean is an asshole because 'using dead for politics is using the dead for politics.' But is using what Terri represented (the Republicans pushing a religious agenda to screw with the Democrats and the court system) the same. Just wondering.

JIH: I haven't seen any evidence of the republicans pushing a religious agenda at all. Perhaps religious people voting their consciences scares you? Should they not be allowed to vote as they see fit?

And I guess we can take Reagan's name off all those buildings and airports and shit since he told all those wonderful stories about people who fought bravely (and died) in World War II in an effort to get elected and get more money for military spending, because he 'used the dead for politics.'

JIH: I can understand the difference between honoring the dead who died for their country, versus using a human tragedy to get political gain. Can you?
 
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