Today is a fascinating day to begin my watch, as both stations’ top stories are the same.
I must admit though, the word “same” must be used very loosely.
Let’s begin with each news site’s headlines.
Fox News: “READY AND WILLING? U.N. Report Warns Iran Has Ability To Make Nukes”
MSNBC: “Ahmadinejad Refuses to Rule Out Weapons”
Ok, the basic story here is that there is new reason to believe Iran is potentially capable of making weapons. However, which of these headlines terrifies you to your very core? Clearly, Fox News is a big fan of the scare tactics. Score one for liberal media.
Let’s continue on to the secondary top stories, shall we?
FOX News: “Congress Turns on ACORN” and “Exotic Travel on Taxpayer’s Dime”
Ok…blatantly catering to the conservative viewer…to be expected. We hate ACORN and Congress(unless they’re messing with ACORN). Both worth reporting. But are these really the top news stories of the day? After telling us that Iran might possibly be building nuclear weapons, the next most pressing issue is the status of a liberal organization tainted by a group of rogue members during the 2008 election?
Let’s see if the other side has anything better to report….
MSNBC: “Banks’ Tighter Lending Rules Not Likely to End Soon: Some analysts fear that lenders will become even more strict as government aid winds down” and “Housing Construction hits highest in 9 months.”
Hmm….interesting. Exact same level of catering to a perceived(?) viewership, but using completely different stories! (note that the Lenders headline makes you wish the government would continue aiding banks indefinitely, and that the Housing Construction story may be the only good piece of economic news in recent weeks) I don’t even see each site’s secondary stories on the other site’s news pages at all, let alone near the top! Is news that doesn’t fit our particular political opinions not valuable??
No wonder viewers for each station are thought to have skewed views of reality! They’re only being told half the story! Should this be allowed? Should news stations be forced to report the same top stories based upon each story’s relevance to society? If so, who decides which stories are relevant? And then, who reports the stories deemed irrelevant?
Thought for the day: Are blatantly biased news stations taking on the much-needed task of reporting stories that would otherwise fall through the cracks?
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