Brit memo story shows media "soft on Bush"

Broadcasting & Cable notes comments by Rep. John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, who charges that "big media, especially cable news channels, are giving the Bush Administration a free pass by focusing on celebrity news and other 'trivial matter' rather than examining White House policies." (This "celebrity news" and "trivial matter" is doubtless related to the prevalent kind of "pervert"-heavy news that Ted Turner was complaining about last week when he urged CNN to "cover international news and the environment, not the 'pervert of the day.'")

Rep. Conyers' assertions are based on a recent Congressional Research Service survey of cable news services and their treatment of high-profile stories. (The CRS "gathers data at lawmakers’ request to help them write bills or prepare for hearings.") Conyers used the CRS data "to charge that cable news outlets gave big play to some inconsequential stories while largely ignoring a lot of news casting Bush Administration policies in a negative light." He focuses attention on the lack of coverage of the British government's leaked Iraq memo (the increasingly infamous "Downing Street memo"):

For instance, according to the study, April 28 revelations of a British government memo indicating intelligence services had concluded prior to the start of the Iraq war that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction were ignored by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Reports and Anderson Cooper 360, MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olberman and Fox’s Big Story. Days later, those same shows were leading or devoting a lot of time to the runaway bride saga.

(See here for more information from Media Matters for America, as well as a downloadable PDF file with data included.)