The media Dictating the story and its coverage

This is a phenomenon I witness a lot when observing the media and how some members in the media will try to dictate what is said in a story.  Instead of showing the people what the story is, they will sometimes pick and choose facts to present a story more in line with their own or their company's (or network's) own agenda.  While the two examples of trying to control and dictate a story are from the right, it happens just as much on the left with organizations such as msnbc and Huffington Post, I just don't have good recent examples on hand,




This first video is from The Daily Show.  It shows how Fox News has consistently had disfavor of Ron Paul as a candidate and does not give him any coverage at all.  Jon Stewart was wondering why Fox doesn't love him because he is all small government, but I get it.  Fox is not all Tea Party, they cater more to the Faux Tea Partiers like Bachmann, Rick Perry, & Palin.  As Stewart said about the first two "they're just moral majorities in a tri-cornered hat", which is what Fox news is.  They have their candidates they like such as Bachmann, Santorum, and Perry and will push these candidates as hard as they can in their segments. I wouldn't be surprised if its in the liners at times to mention all 3.  Its dishonest journalism to completely ignore Ron Paul, especially when your audience likes him better than the candidates you feed them.
(here is the link, I cannot directly share video)

This second clip is Christine O'Donnell on Piers morgan's show.  Now, this isn't a case of a person in the media dictating a story, but a politician trying to dictate what the story is and getting upset when it doesn't go their way.  Its the reverse side of the coin and politicians are in a constant struggle for the media because both want to dictate the story to say only what they want it to say.  She is clearly a politician because she tries to use faulty logic to get out of a question she doesn't want to answer, the staple of any great politician.  She tries to avoid a question about a topic any way possible.  While Piers morgan is a bit pushy, he has a right to be as a journalist to find the story.  Its not his job to ask questions that she wants to answer, but what he thinks the public wants to hear.

She tries to argue that since she isn't campaigning that her views don't matter and since there isn't legislation on the issue, its irrelevant.  However, its in her book which she came onto the show to discuss.  The interesting thing about her is she is like Bachmann or Perry.  She has been a favorite of Fox News and the championed her throughout her election, the election she eventually lost by 17 points.  I hate to say it, but Palin is one of the more serious candidates Fox has championed in the Tea Party movement which shows the inherent problem of this media favoritism.

The Tea Party was once a libertarian movement that championed candidates like Paul and Scott Brown but now their "heroes" are as right as they come and the Faux Tea Party channel (Fox) has something to do with that.