wow. that’s amazing. It may not be *precisely* bias (one points the camera where one gets an interesting and well-composed shot, and empty chairs ain’t it) BUT it sure ain’t reality, either, and it does graphically *illustrate* the unreality in which slant and spin thrive. Great find.

Thanks! I’ve seen this done so many times. Abortion protests are a classic example. For example, the cameras excluding the Pro-Life crowd and the reporters barely mentioning them, all the while inflating the numbers of the pro-aborts.

You get the same thing with Islamic protests too — the camera focusing in tight to inflate the appearance of the protest.

You’re right, of course, that the photographer wants the most appealing shot possible. But then honesty demands an accurate representation of the crowd size. Otherwise, it’s lying by omission.

I found an article today which makes one of the points that has concerned me so much about Obama:

“So why the disconnect? Why is Obama allowed to campaign as a reformer, virtually unchallenged by the media, though he’s a product of Chicago politics and has never condemned the wholesale political corruption in his home town the way he condemns those darn Washington lobbyists.”

very much so. My post this morning partly addresses this, albeit in a roundabout and theory-laden way. But Obama *is* roundabout and theory-laden, like his pastor. And as Marxist as the market will bear.