Big Dogs Weblog

What Media Bias?

by Big Dog on Feb 1, 2007 at 17:55 Political

San Fransisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has an appointments secretary who happened to be the wife of his re-election campaign manager, Alex Tourk. As if this was not enough nepotism to raise an eyebrow a new scandal has emerged as the three were part of a love triangle. Tourk’s wife, Ruby Rippey-Tourk, admitted to her husband that she and the Mayor had a sexual affair during the time the Mayor was in the process of divorcing his then wife Kimberly Guilfoyle (a Fox News babe). Tourk confronted Newsom with this and then quit his position. Rippey-Tourk says the affair was short lived.

What is interesting is that in the entire news article exposing this scandal the party affiliation of Newsom is not mentioned. I automatically assumed that he was a Democrat because the MSM rarely mentions the party affiliation of Democrats who get in trouble. This is not the case when a Republican is in hot water. Take the Mark Foley case. Nearly every story indicated that Foley was a Republican. The Herald Tribune mentions it in the second paragraph so that readers are made aware it is an evil Republican involved in the sex scandal.

One could certainly argue that the Tribune is not a San Fran newspaper so they probably have different reporting styles. However, a quick search of the San Francisco Chronicle (the same paper with the Newsom story) shows that their stories mentioned that Foley was a Republican. You can see them here and here.

It comes as no surprise to those of us who follow the news but there are still a number of Liberals who will claim that the news is biased toward the right and that they do not portray Democrats differently. Since studies show that an overwhelming number of members of the media consider themselves Liberal (and are registered as Democrats) it is easy to see why they report favorably on Democrats despite the mindless prattle from the left.

I don’t really care what Newsom did because that is between him and the involved parties. His political future is up to his constituents and I am not one. Given that he lives in San Fransisco and will be hailed as a hero for his decadent ways, it was probably not necessary for his allies in the MSM to cover his party affiliation. Except of course, to prevent the rest of the nation from seeing that scum runs across both sides of the political aisle.

UPDATEThe AP failed to mention it as well

Tags: Political