Least coast bias

A lot of people this year have finally started to realize that the American media is heavily biased. What many of these people still haven’t seemed to figure out is that bias isn’t just about politics.

The American media maintains a strong bias towards the least coast (east coast to those of you who don’t know any better). They give you the news that they feel impacts the east the most, and they tend to bury news that the West needs to know about. They also portray the east in a better light than the West.

Take a look at 9/11. We were hearing about all of the places that were hit hard by the terrorist attacks. New York. DC. Pennsylvania. In more recent years, Massachusetts has insisted that they were heavily impacted since two flights originated at Logan International in Boston. Noticeably absent is the fact that all flights were headed to California, three to Los Angeles. I would say that California was the second most heavily impacted state in the attack. But those two flights from Boston were more of a story than the three to Los Angeles.

Another instance was the DC sniper who gained attention one year. This was a man who spent time living all over the country. If I remember right, he spent about a year in Tacoma. He had very little to do with the state. When he was finally caught, the news portrayed his as a Tacoman.

I could also go into the horrible Olympic coverage that NBC has provided over the years. The network never takes into consideration the interests of those who live on the Best Coast. We are given a three-hour delay of a least coast feed. If there is an event occurring live in prime time for us, they will give us a taped delay at a less desirable time slot instead.

Speaking of sports, why are West coast teams who reach their finals expected to play home games at 5:00? A lot of locals are just getting off of work. That’s right. Their start times are based off of hours that the least coast crowd wants to watch, and the media doesn’t care about what’s right as much as they care about cashing in on ratings from the least coast.

While I have spent most of my life in Washington, I have spent some time in Ohio. This gave me a chance to see if the bias was visible from the east. Yup. It’s just as obvious and just as inexcusable.

The media is probably the biggest reason that I have absolutely no respect for the least coast. Responsible journalism and providing respect to the viewers is just not as important as least coast ratings. Never mind that there are a lot of people living in the West, and we contribute to their ratings (which helps them sell advertising slots). The least coast is so much better for them to exploit in order to maximize their revenue.