Unless you are completely avoiding news coverage of politics lately, for which I can’t completely blame you, you are aware of Gov. Mitt Romney’s speech last night. The coverage is front page material and having comparisons drawn to the famous speech given by John Kennedy years ago under similar circumstances.
As I checked out the various news sites for their coverage of the speech, as is typical I was disappointed in the bias shown by the placement and content included excerpt leading to the article.
The first thing that bothers me is the headline of the “related” article directly beneath the front page feature. This related article spot is not always present, but often. Look at the content, “Equality talk often lip service.” If you read the article, overall it is an interesting dialog on some issues at hand in our society, but including this summary headline with the negative slant directly beneath the Romney coverage creates a slant by association. In no way be fooled into thinking this is not an intentional, calculated placement.
Second, though I find the title of the article creative and applicable, there is one statement that bothers me. The summary “…explained how his faith would affect his presidency…” is again misleading; the point of the speech was to say his religion would not influence his presidency. Of course, he did cover the essence of what value his having a strong religious belief contributes to his morals, ethics and a backbone that should be considered an asset to a presidential candidate, but the theme was to instead point out that religious affiliation should not be a consideration or criteria when considering a candidate.
It is subtle and often not-so-subtle things like this that irritate me in all news coverage. Being a major news organization, I always hope to see bias relegated to the opinion section, but in truth, it is nearly impossible not to include your own viewpoint when writing. I wish when it came to politics we could see the straight story rather than being fed what we should take out of the facts.
