The story I heard:

Memorial Day, 2003. The yearly family get-together. Horseshoes, barbecued beef, and Jello dishes with fruits suspended awkwardly inside. Black sheep Susan Lindauer packs away a few too many wine coolers and confronts her cousin about the Iraq War.

"Come on, Susie," Grandma says. "Let's not spoil the day with politics."

"You want a preemptive strike, Andy? I'll show you a preemptive strike!" Dollop of potato salad on flexed plastic fork. Fingertip removed, tension released: the mayonnaise-based artillery shell traverses the picnic table in a graceful arc. Splatters on Andrew Card's tie — those are grease stains. Susie's cry of triumph: "What you get for showing up here dressed like The Man!"

Card rises from the table, puts on his sport coat, and walks toward his black car. Its tinted window powers down: "There a problem, boss?"

"No. No problem. I can take care of this myself." Card looks over his shoulder at Susie. "You just messed with the wrong chief of staff. See ya at Gitmo."

Grandma pushes away an untouched plate of broccoli casserole and, sobbing, drops her head to the checked tablecloth. Another family picnic ruined.

Rich, now you're sounding like those paranoid right-wingers who complain how large corporations are promoting left-wing propoganda through the liberal press. Hmmm, why would disney want to promote a left-wing agenda through ABC, or GE through NBC . . .

You took exception to one headline that mentioned the Bush connection. I first learned of the story by seeing the "Ex=Mosely-Braun aid" headline. I did a quick run through of the first three pages of headlines in Google and found:

- Four headlines mentioned a Bush/White House connection.

- Thirty-one headlines mentioned a Braun/Congress/Senate connection

- Five mentioned an anti-war activist connection

- The rest just headlined with "activist"

Only someone with conservative bias could look at this data and conclude that the media has a liberal bias.

Mike,

The first that I saw, via Google News, was the AP story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. I thought, and still think, that the headline was completely ridiculous given the story. Go back and read that particular version of the story. The headline just looks like it was tacked on to connect it to Bush somehow. It's absurd.

Now, I'm not part of the group that thinks that there is a vast left-wing conspiracy in the media. On the other hand, I do think that there is a bias towards liberal positions because a) human beings can't help bringing personal biases into their reporting and analysis (no matter how objective they try to be) and b) most journalists are Democrats (some polls show as high as 90%). Combine that with a desire to sensationalize and polarize everything to increase ratings (which the corps do like) and you get some crap (like, I think, this ridiculous headline) that's worth pointing out.

Now do I think that FoxNews finally brings unbiased, objective news to the viewer. Of course not. But I do think they bring a different perspective than you are likely to see on ABC, NBC, CNN, etc. and I like to bounce back and forth between it and the others – partially just to see how differently they are covering the same thing. Both bring evidence to bear, both interpret it differently, both sometimes editorialize and/or cheerlead. But I think we're better off for having both perspectives.

Anyway, that's all. I still the headline is bad journalism.

I particularly like how Fox's caption for anything happening in Iraq is "The War on Terror." They're clearly buying what Dick Cheney's selling. And on the flipside, is the Post-Intelligencer's relationship to intelligence the same as post-modernism's to modernity?

Dunno if this helps, but I used to spend Tuesday nights crafting headlines for The Princetonian, and the preeminent concern was to cram a coherent summation into the limited space provided over the article, for which someone hours ago had selected the font size and gone home (a fact that used to really piss me off). Presumably for consistency's sake newspapers carry over the same headlines into the online issues. In this case, the headline may have focused on "Bush" because his name was an easier fit than "Moseley-Braun."

But even assuming ill intent, I don't see why this is, in particular, something to get all riled up about. Well, I can see why, as a general matter, this kind of misdirection is objectionable — smacking as it does of press manipulation. But you clearly haven't read the Boston Herald, or you'd be well-inured by now to such whip-to-frenzy-without-supporting-facts strategies.

I guess I don't know what "good" journalism is.