Monday, September 15, 2008

The Tobin Challenge -- Entry Number 3

Here's my third submission to Democrat and Chronicle Deputy Editorial Page Editor Tom Tobin, responding to his recent call for actual examples of anti-Republican media bias.

This one's courtesy of this morning's Instapundit: a Hollywood director shows how ABC News manipulated photography of Sarah Palin's interview with Charles Gibson, to present her unflatteringly.

This must be catching on: a photographer for The Atlantic also resorted to photo trickery to make John McCain look threatening for a cover shoot.

OK. So, come on, Tom Tobin! You asked for examples. I've picked three from the fecund cornucopia of choices over the last two weeks.

What's your take on these examples? We'll print it in its entirety.
 

1 comment:

Rottenchester said...

If you want to go on this goose chase, give it a shot. But I think you'll find that Tom will be able to pick apart your examples and it will end up being a waste of time. And I say that as no big fan of Tobin or the D&C.

The reason is that almost every major media story has an attempt at balance. If the story wants to show X, Some yahoo who believes the opposite of X will invariably be quoted.

The real bias is selection bias: what they choose to cover, not how they cover it.

BTW, the Charlie Gibson example, to me, only shows that Obama is physically larger than Palin. Which he is, by probably 1.5 feet.