Media Bias: Only Report the Bad News

The choices CNN makes for the front page picture of CNN.com continue to fascinate me. If I had funding from some wasteful government agency, I'd spend it just cataloging those pictures and doing analyses.

During the recent stock market woes, CNN has often run with photos of Wall Street investors with their heads buried in their hands. It certainly is an effective way to capture the mood and in the case of those stories is entirely appropriate. The following image isn't from CNN but it is similar to the images they showed during the crash.


Today, the DOW index is currently up +675.73, which is an increase of 8.27%. That's pretty big news, right? So what story is CNN leading with? A story about the woes of mental patients in Iraq. This is just astounding. First, here is the picture they are running currently:

Please note the following.

1. The markets being down is well-known to help Obama and are front page news. The markets are up and it only mentioned in the business section.
   
   
2. Military news out of Iraq is good. StrategyPage declares the war is over and that we won. But good news cannot come out of Iraq. That would look bad for Obama, who opposed the surge. So instead we do a sad human interest story about Iraq and make that the news.

It seems that right now, if CNN can't show someone with their hands buried in their heads, they don't run the story. Remember the message is that things right now are horrible--you need hope and change. Vote Obama.

The bias is disgusting. Don't let it affect you.