What is the media's angle???

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I have mentioned ocassionally on the blog that the media has an agenda when reporting various issues (big surprise there). Specifically, I have pointed out that the media give vast amounts of airtime and newsprint space to any advance in embryonic stem cell research while almost completely ignoring any advances, even major advances, from adult stem cell research. Fortunately, this is finally beginning to be noticed in the public.

There are a few recent articles pointing out the media bias on pro-life issues from embryonic stem cells to cloning, which is a sub-issue of stem cell research. One prominent name that is exposing the media bias and the Culture of Death is Wesley J. Smith. This attourney is the author of 11 books, including Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America. He has written articles for many publications and has appeared on numerous television programs. such as Larry King and CNN Crossfire. Mr. Smith, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute , a consultant for the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide and a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture (http://www.wesleyjsmith.com/). The reason I point out his extensive credentials is to show that this man knows what he is talking about.

Two of Mr. Smith's articles within the last five years that got my attention concern various forms of media bias. The first is an article from 2002, but it is no less relevant today. The title is Spinning Stem Cells and in it he seeks to point out some of the ignored advances in adult stem cell research. 

While he doesn't go into the specifics of the media bias in that article, he does in this next one. Titled, The Silent Bias, he discusses the various sneaky and cunning ways in which the media hide the truth of cloning, especially in its use of vocabulary. This may be one of the most in-depth articles I have read on how the media skews its 'news' to suit its needs.

Lastly, the Minnesota Daily - from which I posted a similar article on media bias in my March 28th blog entry - recently had an article on embryonic stem cells and the media bias titled, Embryonic Stem Cell Fairy Tales. In this article, among other things, a couple of reasons for the media bias are brought forth. The article says, "People who want the government to fund embryonic stem cell research are expecting taxpayers to pay for science projects that knowledgeable investors will not." The embryonic stem cell advocates actually have the audacity to acknowledge the bias that they are spinning, but as Natl. Institute of Health researcher Ronald D.G. McKay said, "To start with, people need a fairy tale. Maybe that's unfair, but they need a story line that's relatively simple to understand." Children’s fairy tales are good because it helps them learns morals and to build a healthy imagination. Spinning fairy tales to adults to deceive them and give them false hope is evil...period! Until next time...God bless.

posted by: crossman at 09:59 | link | comments |
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