Monday, August 31, 2009

How Partisanship Shapes Media Coverage

P.J. Gladnick at News Busters tells us how differently Teddy Kennedy's funeral is being covered than Ronald Reagan's was. While newscasters like Sam Donaldson and Tom Brokaw lamented that Regan's funeral was "overcovered" and eclipsed other real news, they have no such complaints about Kennedy.

Dan Rather called the coverage of Reagan "herd journalism". Brokaw said they needed to put Reagan's legacy "in context."

We all know how impartial Dan Rather is, though. He is the one that tried to derail George W. Bush's campaign with fake documents.

So figure this: while Reagan was popular and many people wanted the coverage, the anchors lamented that Reagan was over covered and they needed to put Reagan in context. But on the other hand, not as many people care about covering Kennedy and ratings are dismal, but the anchors have only good words for Kennedy. You can find the article about the Kennedy ratings here.

The original article from Gladnick is found here, while an article talking about the coverage of Reagan is found here.

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