There’s an old joke that goes around about an Alabama student who sees a small child being mauled by a dog. He intervenes, killing the dog and saving the child. The Alabama student paper runs a story headlined “Heroic Student Saves Toddler’s Life.” The Auburn student paper runs a story headlined “Bammer Redneck Kills Beloved Family Pet.”
Sometimes, when someone insists to me that there is no such thing as media bias, that joke is where I start. It’s a clear, if somewhat comical, example of how wildly divergent two stories can be, even when they start from the same facts.
Now, take a look at this recent photograph of Sarah Palin at a cholera treatment center in Haiti.
This is an AP photograph with the original caption, which went all the way around the world saying “…Palin, center, has her hair done during a visit to a cholera treatment center…”
Ah, but see, it’s her daughter Bristol “(doing) her hair,” and isn’t it clear she’s not doing anything but securing it? Can’t have that, though. Let’s stoke the impression that Palin brought along a stylist to a cholera treatment center in Haiti.
No worries, though. Honest mistake, according to the AP. They’ve since amended the caption.
Well, then! No problem. Right? I’m sure that initially it was just an accident, and I’m all “wee-weed” up about nothing.
If you want your preconceptions reinforced, it’s not hard. In fact, many organizations are out to do just that. Please, be smarter than that.
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She probably thought Cholera was Haitian for collar, just wanted her hair up to show hers too….
Seriously tho, at this point AP is about as consistent as Wikipedia for fact checking. Under pressure to remain relevant they will confirm nothing more than she was there and toss it out for use.
I’d much rather she was not news at all.
I wish caribou barbie would just go away. Her voice grates. You betcha.
And the Irrational Palin Hatred Express rolls on…choo choo…
I’m falling back into like with her.
*sigh*
Would that the haters had a rational argument…. Silence would be so much better than the endless rant that echoes my seven-year old’s stream of consciousness.
If you were making a truthful list of the most fascinating political figures of the past five years, she’d be in the top two.
What’s going to happen? I don’t know. I hear and understand the objections to her that many of my friends raise, and yet I doubt her chances are all that bad, head to head against The One. Tell me she’s impossible for the nomination. After what happened at the ballot box last month, and after the backlash against the rumblings of same-old, same-old, do we really want to throw the next crusty old white guy in line up there?
FWIW, I doubt I would have major differences with President Palin. Most of what I hear that demonizes her is pretty superficial, and just as easily applied to our current president, whose primary qualification for the job is (lest we forget) that he gives a good scripted speech.