The CBS evening news last night provided a classic example of media bias, at least in my view.
It was a story apparently aimed at “balancing” the positive press about President Obama’s visit to Cuba.
“In Miami’s little Havana, rancor over Obama Cuba trip,” was the banner headline.
The story consisted of video and several interviews of people protesting the president’s visit.
The print version of the story, available online, ends with one positive comment after the long protest segment.
But the print version leaves out a crucial fact, which CBS buried at the very end of its broadcast story.
The buried fact was a comment by the reporter that protests like this used to draw 10,000 or 20,000 people in Little Havana.
“Today, it was less than thirty,” he said before signing off.
What? They made national news of a tiny demonstration involving less than thirty people? And then buried the number at the end of the story to inflate the apparent significance of the protest, while using a headline that implies this small group was representative of the broader community?
I guess they knew the story they wanted–large numbers of angry protesters denouncing the president–but couldn’t find it, so they manufactured the news with dodge and weave editing to fit their desired story.
What if they had presented the story to actually fit the facts they had found?
Something like this.
“Tens of thousands of people used to come out here in Little Havana to protest possible normalizing of relations with Cuba. But today, with President Obama in Cuba to press his diplomatic initiative, less than thirty showed up. The tide of public opinion has apparently turned, even in this formerly anti-Castro stronghold.”
Not a good performance by CBS on this one.
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Agreed, wholeheartedly.
Any time there is any news about Cuba, the easiest thing to do is send a crew to the takeout window of Versailles Restaurant in Little Havana, where a dwindling crowd of cranky but colorful old emigres will inevitably gather to mutter and rant for the camera while many more Cuban Americans quietly cringe elsewhere and look forward to the future.
It’s classic Cheap Date Journalism.
But at least CBS bothered to go through the motions of gathering timely but misleading footage.
How many times did Hawaii News Now “report” on the recent Hawaiian aha using a voiceover and file footage from completely unrelated protests that occurred months or years before, with absolutely no explanation of time frame or relevance, as if any old group of marching Hawaiians is as good as the next, even if they have nothing to do with the story they’re used to illustrate?
Castro took power in 1961 so anyone younger than 55 has never known Cuba. They are Americans. While some might want to go visit the old country as tourists, few if any would really want to go live in the time warp that is present day Cuba. Thirty sexagenarians, not a story; thirty twenty-year olds might be a story.
1). So what are you saying? That CBS news has an anti-Obama bias? That’s a new one for me. Hasn’t CBS long been criticized by conservatives for having a pro-liberal slant to their reportinng?
2). I guess Obama really needed a diplomatic breakthrough like this in order not to have people snicker about him being a Nobel Peace Prize winner. But one has to wonder how long the good feelings will last when cracks were already showing at the news conference re: human rights violations and the status of Guantanamo. Will all this end up being a quickly discarded legacy like Obamacare is turning out to be? Time will tell.
The news is propaganda designed to sell advertising.
I am old enough to remember the Castro takeover of Cuba and all the terrible things that have happened since. JFK was murdered soon after and we’ve had so many Presidents since, with most of them aged now or deceased. But the Castros are still alive! It always amazes me, especially to see Fidel, even if he is quite decrepit, still alive. The older I get, the more I realize how strange life can be.
I never watch CBS or Hawaii Now News. It’s very appropriate for OBAMA to make this trip even if his family just wanted to sight see. Castro pushed out Dictator Batista. The US could have worked with him. Dumb foreign policy. Hawaiis Col. Ann Wright has visited Cuba several times recently and I think is scheduled on Code Pinks next trip in the near future. Hopefully GITMO will close and the land returned to Cuba.
Ian, my email to you at ian@ilind.net got bounced back with a “permanent error”–is something wrong with your email server or something? Please advise–thanks! chuck
When I wake up in the morning I am grateful for 3 things: BBC, Al Jazeera and that I am awake-but not necessarily in that order…..
Trump is right! Look his the media manipulated the facts. You may not like Trump, but much of what he has said is on the minds of many that the media is bias. We no longer have true. unbiased investigative journalism.