From The InterNet.....

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I sent the following letter to the on-line access address of
the San Jose Mercury News.  I doubt they'll print it though.

=Mark

*****

>To the Editors:

Media bias is often portrayed as a straightforward matter of some
sort of left/right political slanting of the news.  Partisans on
either side of the political aisle are fond, those from each side
drawing from their own biases in their own way and in their own
chosen language, drawing on their own experiences of
disappointment with the gentlefolk of the press, of declaiming
against the putative bias of the media for the other guys and
against their own righteous agenda for improving on the general
public weal.

The reality, however, is that such bias as exists more often
takes the form of a bias toward government and central control
mechanisms, if only because that is where the reportorial action
is more easily found.  And it is more often a subtle matter of
selection, emphasis, and placement of news stories than of any
outright slanting of the ironically objective content of the
stories presented.  The fact is that bias can, and probably often
does, appear in the form of an editorial preference for news
items that support an underlying belief, perhaps unconsciously
held, perhaps not.  Sometimes the underlying belief involves a
stance against the prerogatives of citizens in taking matters of
personal protection with firearms and for governmental control of
citizen access to and carrying of guns for self-defense.

Today's San Jose Mercury News, Thursday-19-January Morning Final
Edition, embraces one such possible media bias.  It contains
within its pages two otherwise unrelated stories describing
events which in each case resulted in the untimely death of two
people from the effects of gunshot wounds at the hands of one of
their fellow citizens.

The first story recounts the utterly illegal, unconscionable,
and meaningless deaths of two innocent victims of a "mystery"
gunman who "opened fire inside the cashier's booth of a gas
station" for no apparent reason, although robbery is one possible
motive reportedly under consideration by police (what the gunman
was doing INSIDE the cashier's booth is not revealed).  

The point that I would like to make, which is of particular
interest with regard to media bias, is that this story of
senseless gun violence appeared prominently featured on the front
page, above the fold, and was continued inside the first section.
The incident was budgeted a total of approximately 35
column-inches for the story itself, in addition to another 15 or
so column-inches that the editors used for a sidebar on the
Christian virtues and all-around good-guyness (no doubt accurate,
my sympathy goes out to his family and loved ones for their
terrible loss) of one of the unfortunate innocents who fell
victim to the shooter.  In all, the editors felt that this
"bloodbath" deserved a full half-page of prime newsprint real
estate in our major metropolitan daily.

Perhaps the editors of the Mercury News are quite right in their
judgement of the newsworthiness of such an incident of
incomprehensible killing, horrible and senseless as it surely is.
Perhaps they are not.  Or perhaps they inadvertently serve to
promote violence by dwelling excessively on these relatively rare
and unusual occurrences of wanton murder and mayhem.  It is
certainly an arguable matter, upon which reasonable people might
well disagree.  But if they are right in their judgement of the
newsworthiness of death visited by the use of guns, then how do
we account for their editorial treatment of this second story.

In the same edition of the same newspaper the same editors
allotted to the following story the prodigious total of exactly
ONE single column-inch, including the minor-type "headline", and
relegated it to an inside page of the the second section,
squeezed into the filler area of the continuation to a story
about a home burglar and sexual predator at large in Milpitas.  I
have taken the liberty of reproducing the ENTIRE text of this
second story below, which as can be plainly seen was no great
challenge to my typing stamina:

"A video store clerk shot and killed two men who allegedly tried
to rob the store."

End of story.  End of our need for a free, unbiased, objective,
and unfettered press?  Or maybe it is just a coincidence that
legitimate uses of firearms by individual citizens for the
protection of their lives and property are given short shrift,
while criminal uses are prominently featured for the titillation
of the masses and for playing on the legitimate fears of the
people for their own safety and that of their loved ones in an
unsafe world.  Perhaps there are those who would derive political
or pecuniary benefit from the generation of public anti-gun
hysteria and the promotion of some or other sort of necessarily
ineffective (against criminals) or counter-effective (against
honest citizens) gun control agenda.

Coincidence or bias?  Who can say?

Sincerely concerned,

Mark 
Sunnyvale, CA   

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