Spitzer ID’d as Republican? MSM Still Covering for Dems

Posted on March 14, 2008

The two sex scandal cases involving Democrat Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick in Detroit and Democrat Gov. Eliot Spitzer in New York have really brought home the truth of the news media’s reticence to attach the Democratic party name to scandal ridden politicians from that party. We’ve seen story after story showing that neither Kilpatrick nor Spitzer have had to worry that their party would be identified very often. We’ve seen Newsbusters.org’s Brent Baker’s report showing that Spitzer’s party was mysteriously ignored by the Networks and we’ve contrasted that with Rich Noyes’ report on how Republican David Vitter’s and Larry Craig’s party was always noted during their scandals. Well, now we’ve seen the next stage in the media’s penchant to shield the Democratic Party: the media actually changing Spitzer’s party from Democrat to Republican. This way the media is giving the GOP as much bad press as possible while helping the Democrats to fly under the radar — even if they do have to lie about it.

Yahoo News UK gives us this ridiculously misreported headline:

Eliot Spitzer (R) holds a news conference in New York City with his wife Silda by his side

Along with the first few words of their caption:

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer (R) holds a news conference in New York City with his wife Silda by his side, on March 10.

Nice. So the AFP just made this John, er Eliot, a Republican. Thanks for the help, guys. Glad your reporting is of such high caliber.

**Click “more” for photo of screen capture next**

**UPDATE**

Well, it seems I made an assumption on this story. It seems that Reuters wasn’t saying that Elliot Spitzer was an (R) Republican. They were saying that Elliot Spitzer was (R) standing to the right in the photograph.

Apparently, Reuters has a habit of using (L) or (R) in their photo headlines in Europe to alert the reader as to where the person named in the headline is standing in the picture.

For instance, here is a recent Reuters headline about actressFarrah Fawcett.

Farrah Fawcett (L) is escorted by Anthony Pellicano as she leaves the courthouse after testifying against her former boyfriend, writer-director James

See what I mean?

So, Reuters wasn’t saying Elliot was a Republican, nor that Farrah is a Leftist (her “party” would be W… for Whackjob, of course). It turns out that Reuters wasn’t saying you need to know Elliot’s Party at all, they were saying you are stupid.

See, what Reuters was saying is that, in a picture of Elliot Spitzer and his wife, you might need to be guided as to which one, the male or the female, is an “Elliot.” Just as they felt you’d be too stupid to know in the picture of Fawcett and Anthony Pellicano, which one is Farrah (L) and which one is Anthony Pellicano!

So, I was wrong to say that Reuters got Elliot’s party affiliation wrong in the headline. I just didn’t realize that they thought their readers were so stupid that they couldn’t tell a male from a female.

» Filed Under Liberal Media/Bias, News