Media Bias, Oh no, Never

One item crossed my path today that grabbed me and bugged me. Item one, media bias in the reporting of the words of any public, conservative person, this time William Bennett, to promote the idea that conservative people are foolish, racist and unworthy of consideration.

First, the currently popular book, Freakanomics, promotes a view of the world not fully understood by many casual reviewers and the section on crime demographics and abortion is particularly problematic as Bill Bennet found out today. He commented that the book hypothesizes that the increase in abortion has contributed to the decline in crime in America. He went on to theoretically comment that abortions of black males would reduce the crime rate. He carefully extended his comment to include the statements that such an idea is morally wrong, empty of any value and reprehensible.

The author of the book responded to Bill Bennett's comments on the authors blog.
http://www.freakonomics.com/2005/09/bill-bennett-and-freakonomics.html

Then the 24 hour news system of America picked up his remarks and edited them down to just the salacious words with no context and began to condem the man as a racist pig on the far right of the spectrum.

The entire little episode seems to show up the new media and reporting style more the the possible poor choice of words on talk radio. It also follows on the heals of the news medias cheerful and entirely wrong reporting of all the rapes and assaults and murders and chaos in the New Orleans Superdome that never actually happend. Never mind checking the facts or getting it right. Getting it first, fast and emotionally is what keeps the viewers. Issue the corrections later.