No Media Bias Here -- Part I

Ready to Play America's Newest Game Show?

It's Spot the Media Bias!

Here, we examine a news article to see if we can find the blatant liberal bias!

The first one might be a bit tricky. See if you can tell what is wrong with this statement, the opening paragraph on an article about Sarah Palin's speech in Florida over the weekend:

Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin told wildly cheering, flag-waving, chanting supporters that John McCain is "the only great man in this race" and promised Sunday he will fix the nation's economy if voters give the GOP four more years in the White House.

Catch it?

But, Red, you say; the article describes a cheering, flag-waving, chanting crowd! How can there be any liberal bias here? Maybe some conservative bias..

Need a hint?

The problem lies in this key phrase:

...if voters give the GOP four more years in the White House.

Sarah Palin never told the crowd to "give the GOP four more years." She told the assembled throng to "elect John McCain the next president of USA."

See the difference? Subtle, but the bias is certainly there.

The four more years of GOP leadership phrasing is a calling card of the Democratic Party this election season. Obama's entire campaign is based on the notion of tying McCain to Bush and the GOP. And, remember Hillary's line from the DNC: we don't need "four more years of the last eight years"?

According to this paragraph, the crowd was cheering Palin's call for four more years of GOP/Bush policy.

I heard this story read on the radio news this morning over a bowl of raisin bran. I nearly choked on the bran flakes. Palin would never draw that connection between McCain and four years of the GOP in the White House. It would be politically fooish. This line was added by a reporter, using his own words and his own BIASED opinion.

This was no mistake.

Need further evidence of the liberal slant using the reporting around this event? Good luck trying to figure out how many people were in the crowd. The Associated Press story, as evidenced by this report on ABCNews.com and repeated in many newspapers and broadcast outlets, doesn't even mention the number of people in the crowd.

More than 60,000 turn out for a VP candidate in the 90-degree heat, and AP can't be bothered to post that number!

This Orlando Sentinel piece describes the crowd as low as 25,000. A local television station had the crowd at 70,000. The Orlando Sentinel writer must have left early!

But, no media bias here!

That is, assuming you can find this story on the major media websites. It ain't there. When it is, it calls the campaign stop safe.