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My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2007-03-24

How Media Betrays Its Sympathies

A major public figure announced today that they were going to undergo treatment for a health-related issue. Same public figure has overcome cancer in the last two years.

But it, apparently, only gets reported on Colorado's Number One News Channel if said public figure is female, or a Democrat.

See, today, Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, announced that he was going to be having surgery next week to remove a growth in his abdomen. Snow, of course, overcame colon cancer two years ago.

But this story shows up nowhere on the Channel 9 KUSA news programs at 4 o'clock or 10 o'clock (I was at dinner at 5). It also, somehow, managed to escape the notice of Channel 4 KCNC News at 10 o'clock, as well.

These, of course, are the same stations that put the news of Elizabeth Edwards' recurrence of cancer in the A Block yesterday, giving it a couple minutes of valuable broadcast time. In fact, Elizabeth Edwards was such the darling of Channel 9 that not only did she get four minutes in the A Block last night, she got another three minutes in the B Block of the 4 o'clock news tonight.

One has to wonder about the judgment of a news channel. Certainly, Edwards' story is worthy of air time. But when the most visible face of the Administration, aside from the President, has a similar sort of story, it should also merit at least a passing mention.

I also wonder why the story is the at the top of the "news" section on their website (or, at least, it was at 4:30), but doesn't manage to crack the broadcast.

I guess some cancers--or some cancer patients--are more sympathetic than others.
Posted by: Michael / 3/24/2007 12:28:00 AM

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