The issue: After an intense campaign that cost more than $75 million, California's voters have approved a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, dealing a huge blow to the gay rights movement and setting the stage for another round of court battles over the volatile issue.First approached by the Roman Catholic archbishop of San Francisco a few weeks after the California Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in May, the Mormons were the last major religious group to join the campaign, and the final spice in an unusual stew that included Catholics, evangelical Christians, conservative black and Latino pastors, and myriad smaller ethnic groups with strong religious ties. Shortly after receiving the invitation from the San Francisco Archdiocese, the Mormon leadership in Salt Lake City issued a four-paragraph decree to be read to congregations, saying “the formation of families is central to the Creator’s plan,” and urging members to become involved with the cause. interviews with the main forces behind the ballot measure showed how close its backers believe it came to defeat — and the extraordinary role Mormons played in helping to pass it with money, institutional support and dedicated volunteers.“We’ve spoken out on other issues, we’ve spoken out on abortion, we’ve spoken out on those other kinds of things,” said Michael R. Otterson, the managing director of public affairs for the Church. “But we don’t get involved to the degree we did on this.”
Fox News Admits Bias!
http://www.slate.com/id/2119864/
"The usually disciplined foot soldiers at Fox News have long maintained that their news organization is not biased in favor of conservatism. This charade is so important to Fox News that the company has actually sought to trademark the phrase "fair and balanced" (which is a bit like Richard Nixon trademarking the phrase "not a crook"). No fair-minded person actually believes that Fox News is unbiased, so pretending that it is calls for steely corporate resolve. On occasion, this vigilance pays off. Last year, for example, the Wall Street Journal actually ran a correction after its news pages described Fox News, accurately, as "a network sympathetic to the Bush cause and popular with Republicans." Getting one of this country's most prestigious newspapers to state that up is down and black is white is no small public-relations victory, and if we can't admire Fox News' candor, we can at least marvel at its ability to remain on message."
As this article states, while they claim to be fair an balanced, many of the stories from Fox News site are slanted one way or the other. FAIR themselves claim that Foxnews is the most biased name in news. I decided to try another news source to compare the article with theirs. I found another article on the same subject easily and it was slanted the same way. Both articles are overwhelmingly sympathetic towards pro gay marriage and paint a negative and cold picture of the mormon church. Sometimes I think that this station takes the blun for media bias when other stations present their information in the same way.
Here is the CNN Article:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/06/state.laws/index.html?iref=newssearch
I think that alot of bias comes from the journalists themselves, not necessarily the station. Especially when regarding issues as emotionally charged as this one, I think that it is really hard for a journalist not to keep ther own opinions out of their writing.
Present/Discuss How you read the media
16 years ago