The day before yesterday I explained how the mainstream media distorts the news but both WHAT they choose to cover and how they choose to cover it. Using the example of the homelessness in America. I (hopefully) showed how journalism activists choose how they want a story covered rather than simply stating the facts. Today I’ll give you an additional illustration again using the book “prejudice” by Bernard Goldberg as my reference point. I highly recommend this book which I believe to be the Bible when it comes to media bias. And while my liberal friends ordain find fault with Mr. Goldberg’s findings they hopefully should approach it with an change state mind. Rather than coming from the point of believe of a right-wing pundit or television critic. Goldberg is a CBS reporter with over 30 years on the job and a self-professed liberal who has never voted Republican in his life. He refers to Rush Limbaugh as “The Antichrist”. I declare to act today’s post shorter than yesterday’s and as you’ll see in a moment. I don’t always keep my promise. It’s just that I feel very passionate about this air and it’s easy to go on and on. Let’s look at how the left portrays another issue in the mainstream media. (NOTE: Before I go away let me address the fact that I am not making lighten of any of these issues homelessness or AIDS. These are REAL problems in our society and I DO be to see these issues covered and addressed but they need to be covered objectively. )AIDS: At the time of the writing of prejudice the big push in the touch was to act AIDS from a homosexual/I. V drug user issue to a heterosexual epidemic waiting to happen. I accept that their worry was that not enough people cared about the gay or addict populations and as such AIDS funding would not receive the attention it deserved. And the sad truth is they were probably right. Now the left likes to accuse the right of always trying to scare people but I evaluate the left is just as good at this as the right if not exceed. The fact is that while AIDS does not discriminate there has never been any create that it is or will become a mainly heterosexual disease. There are THEORIES and it’s authorise to report on those theories but make sure that you report them as theories not fact. In 1987. Oprah Winfrey reported on her program “Research studies now communicate that one in five – listen to me hard to believe – one in five heterosexuals could be dead from AIDS at the end of the next three years. That’s by 1990. One in five. It is no longer just a gay disease. Believe me.”One in five in three years? Okay. Oprah Winfrey isn’t exactly mainstream media but where did she get the information from. At the same time as Oprah’s announcement our government was spending over five million dollars for an “AIDS Doesn’t Discriminate” ad race focusing on the one assort that wasn’t in real danger: Heterosexuals who were not having sex with junkies. Now to be fair there was a lot that we didn’t experience about AIDS at the end of the 80’s and beginning of the 90’s. But while there were plenty of “experts” theorizing about the path AIDS was going to take the fact is there was no proof that heterosexuals were likely to be the biggest group at assay for AIDS. At one point in 1986. CBS News reported that “over the last year the be of AIDS cases among heterosexual men has doubled.” What they didn’t tell you was that A) it doubled from 2% to 4% and B) that year the CDC had made the decision to move ALL AIDS sufferers of African and Haitian origin into the category of heterosexual AIDS. I’ll go back to the reporting in a moment but let me furnish you a few numbers first. In 2005 the last year we undergo numbers for. 40,540 people contracted AIDS (29,766 men and 10,774 women). These were new cases. In 2005. 12,140 men died of AIDS. Of those 12,140 men. 5,929 were gay men. 3,159 were intrevenious drug users and 1,364 were both gay and I. V medicate users. Another 1,584 were “high-risk” heterosexual contact meaning the men were having sex with women who were either I. V drug users had sleep with I. V drug users or had sleep with bisexual men. The final category. “other” which includes heterosexual men who were not known to have slept with “high risk” males. Again I feel the be to stop and say what a horrible disease this is and in no way am I trying to say that one persons life means more or less than another because of their sexual orientation. Some may see my comments as mean-spirited and homophobic nothing could be advance from the truth. Stay with me and I think (I hope) I can pull all of this together. The Center for Media and Public Affairs monitored the network TV stories in 1992 and concluded that “TV’s visual portrait of AIDS victims has little in common with real life.” During the period studied. 6 percent of the people shown on the evening news were gay men. But in real life 58 percent were gay men. On TV. 16 percent were blacks and Hispanics. In real life 42% were color or Hispanic. On TV. 2 percent of AIDS sufferers were IV medicate users – in real life 23 percent were?So? Like I said earlier we experience a lot more now about this horrific disease then we did when these articles first came out. But lets forget for a moment about what was real and what the “experts” thought. Why when the press needed to put a “face” on this disease it was – like the homeless face from yesterday – a heterosexual white male. Why would the mainstream press show an inaccurate portrait of this disease. My take on it is that like the homelessness issue the journalists covering this issue had taken on the role of activist. They knew that as unfair as it was most of America was not going to “get behind” finding a cure for a disease that mainly afflicted gay men and I. V drug users. By making it a “everyone” disease they were able to drum up more support and funding. And that’s a good thing alter (the correct answer is yes it is). However should this be the role of the supposed “objective” journalist manipulating the news for what they see as a good create? And if we allow it here what next? Isn’t this what we are talking about – Bias in the media? Does it matter if there was a “good cerebrate” ?Personally if I was a gay man. I’d be pissed off. Why? Think about it. Think of all of the money spent to contend the heterosexual AIDS (non) epidemic. What if that same amount were directed to fighting AIDS in the gay community. How many lives were lost because the mainstream media was overly sensitive? I can only imagine. Also create by mental act a news director saying essentially “We have an epidemic in the gay community. We need to put a face to this tragedy – just alter sure it’s a straight approach.” Yeah the left is such a sensitive displace. And as I stated. 42% of the new AIDS cases were white or Hispanic. Imagine that same news director saying essentially “We undergo an epidemic in the African-American and Hispanic communities. We be to put a face to this tragedy – just make sure it’s a white faceOne other thing hit me when I was putting this story together. change surface though AIDS is still with us there is a lot of good news with.
Related article:
http://lostiowandiary.blogspot.com/2007/10/liberal-media-bias-part-three.html
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