Ah the biased news
I read three news websites religiously: CNN, BBC, and Aljazeera. The three typically have the same facts in the articles, but often the content of the article skew the reader one way or the other. CNN typically skews their stories towards “the U.S.A. new does wrong” bias, BBC skews the news towards “the U.S.A. messes things up sometimes, but let’s ignore the fact that Brittan Is helping them out, ‘cause Brittan is great”, and Aljazeera is usually good at just laying out the facts with no crap attached. However in in-depth analysis of situations BBC does a damn good job of looking at all sides of the field. Aljazeera is much more critical of the West (mostly in a reasonable way, but sometimes unfairly). CNN’s analysis is almost always unenlightening dribble.
What brought this up in my mind was the vote in Venezuela. I have been following news about the Venezuelan constitutional reform vote pretty closely. Over the past few weeks the article shave been getting more and more biased in some news sources, which irritates the hell out of me. I think the whole business was a power grab for Chavez, and I honestly I think he is an egocentric nutball jackass, but I don’t want the news to state this! I expect media outlets to provide me the facts and let me decide who is a wacko and who is not.
Just for fun, here is a list of the headlines for the results of the Venezuelan vote. I have listed the titles in order of bias: unbiased on the top to really fucking biased on the bottom. It is kind of fun to read the spectrum…
Aljazeera “Chavez loses constitution vote”
China Daily “Venezuelan president admits defeat in referendum”
San Francisco Chronically “Big Loss for Hugo Chavez”
BBC “Chavez defeated over reform vote”
Fox News “Chavez Defeated”
CNN “Voters narrowly foil Chavez's plans”
My favorite is the last, which makes me picture Chavez, sitting behind a wrought iron desk in his presidential palace twisting the tips of his oversized moustache and hiding half his face behind his cape while manically laughing as he planned his constitutional reforms, only to be defeated by at the last minute by a heroic 51% of the voters, all of whom where clad in shinning armor made of pure democracy.
What brought this up in my mind was the vote in Venezuela. I have been following news about the Venezuelan constitutional reform vote pretty closely. Over the past few weeks the article shave been getting more and more biased in some news sources, which irritates the hell out of me. I think the whole business was a power grab for Chavez, and I honestly I think he is an egocentric nutball jackass, but I don’t want the news to state this! I expect media outlets to provide me the facts and let me decide who is a wacko and who is not.
Just for fun, here is a list of the headlines for the results of the Venezuelan vote. I have listed the titles in order of bias: unbiased on the top to really fucking biased on the bottom. It is kind of fun to read the spectrum…
Aljazeera “Chavez loses constitution vote”
China Daily “Venezuelan president admits defeat in referendum”
San Francisco Chronically “Big Loss for Hugo Chavez”
BBC “Chavez defeated over reform vote”
Fox News “Chavez Defeated”
CNN “Voters narrowly foil Chavez's plans”
My favorite is the last, which makes me picture Chavez, sitting behind a wrought iron desk in his presidential palace twisting the tips of his oversized moustache and hiding half his face behind his cape while manically laughing as he planned his constitutional reforms, only to be defeated by at the last minute by a heroic 51% of the voters, all of whom where clad in shinning armor made of pure democracy.