McCullough: Not a party person, dutiful son, loyal Alabama commitment My thoughts:Alfred McCullough has talent and a good attitude. I’ve said many times McCullough could turn out to be the best player in this class. He didn’t waver during the Alabama coaching search debacle (the Rodriguez flirtation) that coincided with his Super Six performance.
Media Bias
A Zogby poll finds 83-percent of likely voters believe the media is biased. The vast majority of those polled believe there is a liberal bias, while a smaller percentage believed the press held a conservative bias.
It is an interesting survey because it once again wounds the traditional media’s image. It shows that a strong majority of the nation perceives bias in reporting. And that shouldn’t shock anyone since the media is biased.
Here is where I’m a contrarian. I think media bias is a good thing, not something of which to be ashamed. The problem isn’t the bias in the press, but the arrogance amongst reporters who obstinately insist they aren’t biased.
Please. Our perceptions color how we view our sources, and how we construct our stories.
Think about how some members of the press at major Alabama newspapers told us Mike Shula was safe. What motivated this insistence, despite growing indications from some power brokers that Shula was in trouble. These reporters believed certain factions who were leaking information over other factions within the Alabama program. The preconceived beliefs on who was trustworthy biased the stories to the pro-Shula camp.
A newspaper’s editorial decisions on what to cover, what reporter gets an assignment, etc. play major roles in how the public perceives a story. In regular editorial meetings, the staff will decide what events warrant coverage, how much space to dedicate to it, where to place the coverage and in many instances what writers get an assignment.
Each of those decisions warp the community’s view of an event (or events.) And each of those decisions are influenced by the editorial leadership’s pet projects.
If an editorial board has decided teen pregnancy or illiteracy or economic development are the major issues of the day, then a disproportionate amount of coverage would be given to those issues.
In fact, that is not a bad thing. But a newspaper (or television network) should admit its bias. Today, what undermines the media is the insistence that these editorial decisions are not biased. Please.
The great days of newspapers can be seen in the early part of the 20th Century. Newspapers representing every political party and pet issue were on the scene. They actively embraced their bias, and went to work to uncover scandal, corruption, crime and evil.
Today’s newspapers are lost. They are not aggressive in the pursuit of evil, and they spend more time on entertainment than on giving people information that they can use. People don’t trust the media because while we all see their bias, they don’t. And if they can’t see the beam in their own eye, how can we trust them to point out the speck in someone else’s eye.
Alabama whips Auburn, again, in another sport
AUBURN, AL – Little brother got schooled again Tuesday night by the Crimson Tide in another sport, on its own [...]