Tonight I was lucky enough to have dinner with my parents. At one point during the meal, my mom made a comment that immediately caught my attention because it reminded me of our class discussions about biased media outlets. Particularly, when I wrote my first paper on the way the NY Times framed Obama's State of the Union, I noticed how the NY Times obviously supported Obama and the Democratic Party.
Well, going along with this, my mom commented that the front page of the New York Post today was about how President Obama attended Senator Sharpton's gala in NYC. Sharpton is notoriously known for not paying a huge amount of taxes on one of his vacation homes. Since Obama's attendance at Sharpton's gala is not something to be too proud of (showing Obama supporting a non tax payer), the NY Times tried their best to hide this article today in their newspaper. In fact, they had this story on the 16th page. Yes, 16. And it wasn't even an important headline, the title wasn't bolded or anything!!
My sister told me recently that she's going to start reading the newspaper. When I asked her which paper, she said the NY Times, as if there was no other answer. Considering she attends a very liberal school in Colorado, this didn't surprise me, and she doesn't know any better and isn't as educated as I am in the department of the media, particularly the biased content of the media. What is unbelievable to me is that if my sister only read the NY Times, she could easily skip over this story on the 16th page about Obama. She wouldn't even know it was a big deal. On the other hand, someone who only reads the New York Post could read this cover story and think it was the most important news.
Wise words of advice from my mother: you can never just read one newspaper if you want to get a somewhat accurate view of what is going on in this world of ours.
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