Cable News soft on Bush, heavy on pervs

Broadcasting & Cable notes comments by Rep. John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, who charges that "big media, especially cable news channels, are giving the Bush Administration a free pass by focusing on celebrity news and other 'trivial matter' rather than examining White House policies." This "celebrity news" and "trivial matter" is doubtless related to the prevalent kind of "pervert"-heavy news that Ted Turner was complaining about last week when he urged CNN to "cover international news and the environment, not the 'pervert of the day.'" (He continued: "You know, we have a lot of perverts on today, and I know that, but is that really news? I mean, come on. I guess you've got to cover Michael Jackson, but not three stories about perversion that we do every day as well.")

As for Rep. Conyers: his assertions are based on a recent Congressional Research Service survey of cable news services and their treatment of high-profile stories. (The CRS "gathers data at lawmakers’ request to help them write bills or prepare for hearings.") Conyers used the CRS data "to charge that cable news outlets gave big play to some inconsequential stories while largely ignoring a lot of news casting Bush Administration policies in a negative light." He focuses attention on the lack of coverage of the British government's leaked Iraq memo:

For instance, according to the study, April 28 revelations of a British government memo indicating intelligence services had concluded prior to the start of the Iraq war that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction were ignored by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Reports and Anderson Cooper 360, MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olberman and Fox’s Big Story. Days later, those same shows were leading or devoting a lot of time to the runaway bride saga.

(See here for more information from Media Matters for America, as well as a downloadable PDF file with data included.)

Btw: Turner, who was speaking at the CNN 25 World Report Conference in Atlanta last Wednesday (to celebrate the cable network's 25th anniversary) had this to say about the network he founded:

"I wanted to be The New York Times of the airwaves. Not the New York Post, but The New York Times. And that's what we set out to do, and we did it."

Now CNN - at least in the United States - is undoubtedly back in the New York Post frame.