Bias? What Bias?

Okay, I'll admit right of the bat that this feels like fluff, but (as others have noted before me) I think it's a great example of modern media and what I like to call 'bias-bleeding.'

Now, normally, on recaps of the Miss USA pagent, you expect to hear the usual high-minded platitudes and rather naive expectations of the winners in their responses to the question about what they are going to try and do with their newly won position. The usual suspects generally file in here - world peace, starving children, save the whales, etc. So what did this year's winner say?

A Republican, [Shandi Fennessey] told Reuters she would use her position to help explain America's involvement in Iraq. "What needed to be done had to be done," she said.

Never mind the tautology, the point she's obviously making is that she supports the US's actions in the liberation of Iraq. Now go take a look at the Associated Press' version of the story. Notice anything? Huh. The quote's not there. Matter of fact, they don't mention what she'll be doing with the title at all.

Now either the reporter wasn't at the press conference for the pagent (yeah, right) so she didn't hear the question and response, or she decided that it wasn't important enough to include in the story. Get that? According to the AP reporter (or, to be fair, editors), what the newly crowned Miss America was going to do with her title wasn't important enough to include in the story.

I wonder, would they have taken note if Miss USA had held the opposite position?

[HatTip to the BlogFather and Joshua Clayborn.]
-- posted by Austin @ 10:57 AM (PermaLink/Comment) ¶