Noted Quote: The Media's Failures

For some reason, it seems that people believe in the veracity and fairness of a story based on whether they agree with the particular spin of the reporter. Since I am not "on the ground" in Wisconsin, I cannot say definitively whether the coverage by the mainstream media is fair or unfair. However, I had the chance to observe firsthand the media coverage of the last "flavor of the week" -- the (illegal) immigration debate in Arizona -- and can definitively say that many in the media were unfair in their original reporting and in the way that they mischaracterized the actual law. I also observed members of the media "choreographing" the protesters by "scrunching" a small and disparate group into a tighter shot so that there appeared to be a larger and more vocal crowd for live broadcasts. I can also say that I observed multiple "tea party" events on the lawn outside my Senate office and never saw a single racist sign. But that was not the perception that many in the media appeared to want to portray, so they created a "narrative" and their reporting stayed within those narrow confines. ~ Former Arizona Senator Ed Bunch, writing on Politico.

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