Fair and Balanced

The other day I was stuck in an airport. OK, in all reality I didn't wake up in time for my flight, and had to wait for the next flight. In the corner of the airport that I was at, Fox News Channel was on and I couldn't believe my ears. The news itself was presented with a slant. Trust me on this- This is something I have a background in and I know of what I speak.

I know that the perception is that Fox News is the Republican's channel, MSNBC is the Democrat's channel and CNN is straight down the middle. I've worked for NBC News (and MSNBC by proxy) and have always felt that their NEWS is presented objectively, without a slant or opinion coming through. When you would watch their primetime shows (Olbermann, Matthews for starters) that those COMMENTARY shows have a left wing slant to them. They are just that COMMENTARY shows. They're supposed to have a slant. I'll defend Fox News Channel's O'Rielly, Hannity and Combs on the same ground. A reasonably minded individual is watching that program for commentary, not hard news.

The newsreader was talking about the bailout bill that The House had just defeated, and EVERYTHING he was saying had a slant to it. This was breaking news, and instead of reporting what happened "Fair and Balanced" as they claim to be, the newsreader, reading off a Telepromter was assigning blame. He wasn't saying that person XYZ said it was the democrats fault, he said that the bill failed because of Nancy Pelosi. He didn't mention that Senator McCain had promised a certain number of votes, and couldn't produce them.

On MSNBC at the same time (I was able to watch via my Slingbox), they were saying that McCain didn't deliver the number of republicans he promised AND that several people were saying (and they had names of people) that it may have been because of Nancy Pelosi's speech.

I guess Fair and Balanced depends on your point of view.