Saturday, June 24, 2006

What media Bias? "Nightline"/"24" edition

Last night, as I was waiting for sleep to overtake me (or, actually, for the vcr to kick in & start recording Jimmy Kimmel, for the gratuitous censorship thing they always do on his show on Fridays), I caught the tail end of ABC's "Nightline". I stopped watching this show after... uh... I guess after the first week or so, because I found it just wasn't very informative, most nights. Well, the penultimate report last night was no exception.

Martin Bashir led into the report by saying that the tv show "24" has been popular among conservatives because it has "really good guys, really bad guys" blah blah blah... "and, of course, torture". And now the bigwigs from the right are meeting with the gods who make "24" for a weekend event sponsored by the "conservative Heritage Foundation", to discuss that appeal.

Now, I don't know how, precisely, Bashir thinks that torture is a primary appeal in this show, but apparently, he and the ABC news geeeeniuses seem to believe that conservatives get their jollies from contemplating others' pain. Why is it that there were so many issues being touched upon at this conference, and yet, the only issue even mentioned in the "Nightline" report is that one? Uh, my theory here is that that's simple projection. Anybody else have a theory?

Aside from that obvious issue, I'm wondering how it is that the media elites can continue to believe that they lack bias? Do they completely lack the comprehension skills to break down and analyze what they say, and see the content and slant? Are they so ignorant of the realities in life and language? How much more isolated -- and, dammit, unprofessional -- must they become before they render themselves into nothing but dross?

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