August 4th 2008
Media Bias #27
Slip Slide-showing Away
MSNBC offers up two 24-slide slide shows, one of Barack Obama‘s life, one of John McCain‘s. An opportunity for a bit o’ the ol’ bias, you think? You bet! Of course, Obama is just so darn telegenic and McCain has looked old since he was young, so there’s a natural advantage to Obama going in, but MSNBC was not content to leave things only moderately skewed.
The Obama show deftly avoids any controversy until the 23rd slide (mentioning elitism and bitterness) and 24th (mentioning Jeremiah Wright). Anyone who doesn’t get that deep into the show will see nothing but the handsome, successful, concerned father, husband and new kind of politician who is running for President.
After just one childhood McCain photo (vs five for Obama) we see McCain in the military, then McCain in the Hanoi lake after being shot down. That’s as far as MSNBC can make it without weighing in:
A photo taken on Oct. 26, 1967, shows Lieutenant Commander John McCain, center, being rescued from Hanoi’s Truc Bach lake by several Hanoi residents after his Navy warplane [not "fighter," but "warplane"] was downed by the North Vietnamese. On Feb. 24, 2000, one of his rescuers said McCain was well treated after being pulled from the lake by villagers [Hanoi is a city in which city people live, not a village filled with romanticized villagers]. McCain said that upon capture he was beaten by an angry mob and bayoneted in the groin.
Is it really necessary to raise a bogus controversy here? The Obama slide show never questioned his inexperience or radical connections – no pictures with William Ayres – so why is MSNBC questioning McCain’s account of his ordeal, citing an unnamed (Communist) source?
Obama’s short legislative career is pictured by a mostly empty room of Illinois legislators giving him a standing O on his departure, and a picture of him in a Congressional elevator. That’s about all they could show; fair enough. But McCain’s? They show him with John Kerry – “who received three Purple Hearts while serving in Vietnam” (I kid you not) – more than they had to say about McCain in the photo. Then they show the McCain-Feingold victory party; selected no doubt to remind us we weren’t too happy at that moment. Finally, they show him at a hearing on the Abramoff/Indian lobbying hearings, reminding us that he’s GOP, and the GOP is corrupt.
A 20-year legislative career, and that’s what they show us?
Oh, and lest they allow us to forget that one of the candidates is young and one is old, they include a photo of McCain, his face stitched, bandaged and bruised, just hours after cancer surgery.
The most positive McCain photos in the 24-photo slide show? Number 23 and 24, natch. The ones they saved for Obama’s worst.
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