Man-bites-dog vs Dog-bites-man. That’s one that the leftwing news media like to trot out to excuse themselves when they’re trying to cover up Democrat scandals or manufacture Republican ones. They need man-bites-dog stories for the front page, they tell us.
So here’s Charlie Gibson of ABC news explaining why he decided to lead with a dog-bites-man story and play down the man-bites-dog one. Jerry Falwell was controversial; therefore his story didn’t deserve coverage:
From the Washington Post, May 17:
“NEW YORK, May 16 — After word arrived Tuesday afternoon that Jerry Falwell had suffered a fatal heart attack, Charlie Gibson was determined not to lead his newscast with the preacher’s death.
“”It lends importance to a figure whose legacy contained a lot of positives and a lot of negatives,” says the ABC anchor, who was once a reporter in Falwell’s home base of Lynchburg, Va. “It venerates the subject to an extent that I didn’t think belonged there. He was a controversial figure.””
The parody page of The Weekly Standard (May 28) gets credit for bringing this item to our attention.
Formatting edited, 6-Jun-2007