I like to look at issues from a different perspective, especially regarding the political arena in 2017.   I’m concerned with biased information and with the Fair and/or Equal concept that I wrote about in my blog last week.  I am trying not to lean in one direction or another, in fact, I’m still trying to find my way through the backlash of liberal protests and the cringe worthy rhetoric of President Trump and his conservative supporters.  I am not sure but I don’t think it’s fair at all to the American people.  When I looked at the issue of the press briefing of Friday, Feb 24, 2017, I found certain news agencies were uninvited to the news briefing or “gaggle” and others were invited in.  So I decided to try and figure out what was fair and what was equal instead of reacting emotionally. I searched for all the press that are normally and newly involved.  I have listed those that I could find and their biases below:

The Huffington Post-Left

New York Daily News-Left Center

The Hill – Left Center

Politico-Left Center

CNN-Left Center

Washington Post-Left Center

NY Times-Left Center

LA Times-Left Center

NY Daily News- Left Center

Buzz Feed-Left Center

Time Magazine-Left Center

BBC- Left Center

Bloomberg-Left Center

CBS-Left Center

NBC-Left Center

ABC-Left Center

Reuters-Least Biased

AP-Least Biased

Hearst-??

Wall Street Journal-Right Center

Breitbart-Right

Fox-Right

Washington Times-Right

One America-Right

Daily Mail-Right

I found 25 news agencies mentioned in concern with this White House gaggle.  16 of these were left of centered biased. 2 were least biased and I’m not sure about Hearst but I’m thinking they may be least biased.  6 were right biased and they were generally more biased than those to the left.  So, looking at numbers and numbers only, from left bias to least biased to right biased, they are 16 to 2(or maybe 3) to 6.  So my question is “Is the press and media coverage fair and/or equal?  Well it’s definitely not been equal, but is it fair?

This is just a hypothesis (of course I’m going to propose something in the more math/science realm) but maybe the White House was looking for more equal coverage.  An article in the left biased NY Times stated “We invited the pool, so everyone was equally represented” as said by the Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Those uninvited to the briefing were The Hill, Politico, CNN, NY Times, LA Times, Buzz Feed, BBC, The Daily Mail and The Huffington Post. The AP and Time media chose not to attend after hearing of the uninvited.  The Washington Post did not send a reporter to the gaggle. This left the ratios of press represented at 5 Left Biased to 2 or 3 Least Biased to 5 Right Biased.  So equal, but fair?  Considering that Hearst Newspaper gave full details to the entire press core and other media shared their whole audio, what do you think?

By the way, I read the Reuters report first, then I read FOX News report (right bias), then I read the New York Post (left bias).  The biases were easy to see.  Fox left out a good portion of the report, possibly to try to downplay the event.  The New York Post used language to cause outrage like barred, war, unprecedented, selective invite to conservatives (as if to say the liberal press was not there), assailed, breach, slammed, exclusion, unfair coverage, and attacks.  The word “response” was replaced with “protest”.  I recommend reading the least biased first, then the biased information on both sides.  It allows for critical reading skills and using thinking skills.  It’s only then we, as Americans, can talk in a civil way.

In addition, the most comprehensive article of those I read was:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/us/politics/white-house-sean-spicer-briefing.

It is a left biased newspaper but it had support for both views.  Very good coverage and I commend them.