Media Bias

S-town Mike has a good post today about the problem with Channel 2 making a big deal out of the fact that some recent protestors came from out of state and he wonders if the media ever asks conservative protestors where they're from. It's only tangentially related to my point, but if you can't use the internet to make spurious, yet interesting, connections, what can you use it for?* So, to my point--media bias. I already watch a shit-ton of news. But being on vacation? I'm up to my elbows in news. And I've been watching with an eye on whether television media is biased towards a liberal or conservative viewpoint. And, I have to say, I've noticed something even more disturbing than blatant political bias--television news is biased towards the stupid. Yesterday, we watched a cat fall out of a tree at least seven times. Today, MSNBC briefly mentioned that the IRS is going to expand the companies to which it sells our tax returns. I thought they were saying that the IRS was going to sell our information to these folks without our permission. The Butcher was under the impression that we could opt out of the program. This would seem to me to be the kind of story that could use a little explanation if two smart people are confused by your fifteen second story. But no, if the news were to do more than just mention it in passing, if it had to take another thirty seconds to clarify, we couldn't spend three minutes talking to the girl who found money in the walls of a house hit by Katrina. On national news. No wonder we're a nation of ill-informed idiots. *Yes, porn. Very funny, smart-asses.