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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. -- Amendment I


Thursday, April 28, 2005


Let’s play a game

It’s called “Let’s Spot The Media Bias!”

Starting with this

Iraq’s National Assembly on Thursday approved the country’s first democratically elected government, a Shiite-dominated body that excludes the Sunni minority from meaningful positions and could hamper efforts to dampen the deadly insurgency.

Note the subtle shift from the FANTASTIC news that Iraq’s VERY FIRST democratically elected Parliament approved the Prime Minister’s choice for a government to the vaguely threatening tone of the second phrase. While true in and of itself, the author fails to point out that the Parliament roughly matches the ethnic makeup of the nation, and that the rules require some sort of agreement between the parties, since none of them have a real majority, and even when phrased along “Shi’a/Sunni” lines, the Shiite majority is still short of the amount necessary to run the government. There has to be some cooperation between the groups, much like we have in our current House membership (which roughly represents the actual political makeup of the nation as a whole, by forcing the apportionment to be based on population).

So our young writer is showing a bias, trying to downplay the incredible news - that Iraq has more of a government than Canada does (right now, anyway) - by including threatening sounding phrases, gambling that the people who actually read the story won’t know how amazing an achievement it actually is. Well, that’s why I’m here.

Moving on…


Posted by Drumwaster at 06:28 PM | (0) Trackbacks
Category: What Liberal Media? |
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