Three Sources for the News, Three Different Stories

The Big Three cable news networks all reported on the February jobs numbers yesterday.  Though all three read the same report, you wouldn't know it from the three home pages.  Lets take a quick look at all three.

Here is CNN's take:

Taking a look at CNN.com you see that there are two main stories, one of which is the new jobless numbers at the left (although judging by the size of the graphic, you might determine that the jobless numbers are of equal importance as Bank of America's ad to the right).  CNN reports that the economy added jobs, but the unemployment rate didn't drop.  It's a pretty straight forward representation of the facts, with a little commentary added in for entertainments sake ("Stubborn unemployment rate no help to Obama").  

Here is the FoxNews.com home page:

Over at FoxNews, the new jobless numbers are unquestionably their main story (although Bounty sure does a good job of drawing your eye).  FoxNews reports the same facts as CNN, but with a different focus.  Instead of mentioning the added jobs first, their main graphic focuses on the unchanged unemployment rate, under which they mention the added jobs.  They add a third dimension to the story and tease "NOW READ THE REAL JOBLESS STORY."  You have to click into the article to learn how "the Obama administration's not telling the whole story."  That is straight up commentary.

Now lets take a look at MSNBC.com:

It isn't as easy to identify the main story over at MSNBC, as their headlines aren't necessarily accompanied with any graphics.  From what I can tell, according to MSNBC the top story of the day is that the Mormon Church is attempting to limit access to their database of deceased Jews, in to block people from attempting to baptize them post-death.  In the center of the page is the main focus of their homepage, a story about seaweed helping a Japanese village post-tsunami.  In the upper right hand corner is where you'll find the report about the jobs numbers, and the headline reads "3rd straight month of strong job creation."  The sentence below the headline reports that the "Recovery continues to chug along at modest pace."  This is mostly commentary, with none of the pertinent facts to accompany it.

So, out of the Big Three, who reported on the jobs numbers the 'best'?  

MSNBC reports that the economy is improving, but stops short of providing any specifics.  It is only when you contrast their headlines with those on FoxNews and CNN that you realize MSNBC didn't provide any of the facts with their headline, instead relying on 100% commentary.  While CNN and Fox both provide opinion on the jobs numbers, both sites also provided you with a quick summary of the facts (being that jobs were added, but the unemployment rate didn't drop).  MSNBC went straight to their commentary, reporting that the economy ''continues to chug along at a modest pace.''  "3rd straight month of strong job creation" isn't necessarily commentary, but you'd have to already posses the knowledge that 227,000 new jobs is by and large considered strong growth, as that isn't information MSNBC included.

FoxNews informs that jobs were created and the unemployment rate remained unchanged.  But they also imply that there exists hidden data the government hasn't included in their report.  You'll have to read the article to learn what that is (in essence, the unemployment rate doesn't include those who stopped looking for work, nor does it include those who are underemployed).  

CNN's headline is commentary, but their description below is straight up facts.  Well, the first sentence is at least.  What these numbers mean for Obama and Republicans alike is something you'll have to learn after clicking into the article, which based on the headline will presumably contain mostly opinion.  However you do learn the facts of the story just by reading the headline, if you can discern what is fact and what is opinion.

FoxNews and CNN report the results similarly: that while there is some good there is also some bad news.  MSNBC stands alone in painting an entirely rosy picture on the jobs numbers.  

In no way is this the summation of exhaustive research into the Big Three's reporting standards, so coming to a conclusion on who you can trust and who you cannot based only on this one story would be premature.  However, regarding this one story I am comfortable saying that while CNN and FoxNews would do well to remove their commentary, their headlines are vastly superior to MSNBC's.  MSNBC obviously believes our unemployment rate is of less importance than what the Mormons are up to, nor is it as important as the seaweed in Japan.  And when they do carve out space on their home page for the jobs report, they don't offer any facts in the headline or description, they just offer opinion.

To be fair, we aren't analyzing the body of the articles within.  Based on their headlines I wouldn't feel comfortable lambasting the entirety of any one of these networks.  However it should be pretty obvious to even the most casual observer that going to only one news source for information can provide you with drastically different information.  Additionally, it should be suggested that further research into reports like the recently release job information would be advisable.  By no means limit your exposure to just the Big Three.

The motivation behind pointing this out was, to be honest, Facebook posts.  I see a lot of posts about how "this network sucks" or "that network is unreliable."  Two things should at this point be obvious.  1) Each site will report on a given story with their own flair and own angles.  While they aren't necessarily misleading, you do need to be aware of the bias.  None of them on their own failed the reader entirely (though in this case, MSNBC sure didn't bring much to the table).  2) Going to all three of these sites (and others) will provide you with valuable information you wouldn't have learned had you received your information from only one source.  

Abandonment

Sin is no mystery.  Sometimes I allow myself to be shocked (or mystified) that we persist in our sinful ways.  Most of the time sin is pretty obvious.  "Thou shalt not commit adultery,"  "Thou shalt not steal," and other commandments have such obvious negative consequences that identifying the sin itself is not very difficult.  But there are those sins that we seem to have a hard time identifying.

Abortion.  Homosexuality.  Promiscuity.

These sins our contemporary society has a difficult time condemning.  If you're pro-life it is said you don't support women's rights or women's health.  If you believe homosexuality was not God's intent for humanity, you're labeled a 'homophobe'; someone who hates homosexuals.  They don't even bother labeling you anything if you preach against promiscuity.  Nope, that sin is so widely accepted that contemporary culture will actually mock you as 'one of ''those'' girls' if you have the audacity to remain virginal until marriage.

Sometimes this denial comes across as a shock to me.  After all, who could possibly witness the amazing way male and female reproductive systems compliment one another and not come away convinced they were designed in tandem?  Who could be witness to that and possibly determine that even nature (yes, small 'n') would desire it any other way than male/female?  And yet our culture has so convinced some among us that homosexuality is acceptable that those who disagree are labeled as bigots.  Indeed, homosexuality is often encouraged, especially that among women.  Quite amazing, is it not?

But why are we ever surprised by this?  God has warned us.  In something called the Judgement of Abandonment.

Romans 1:20 states "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what was made, so that men were without excuse."

Translation: The natural world around us proves God's existence.  Every single ancient culture believed in a God or gods; there were no atheists among them.  We often attribute this consistency to their un-evolved status, but in reality the opposite is true.  They were 'in' nature much more then we are, and so they acknowledged the obvious design.  Actually, it should be even more obvious to us.  We've looked inside the cell, something so beautifully complicated that the only logical conclusion is that someone designed it.  However rather than acknowledge God, we are not unlike those in the following verse which, to be honest, sucks.

Romans 1:21  "For although they knew God, they neither glorified God nor gave thanks to Him."

It is profoundly (ironically?) amazing that God says His very creation yells out "God made me", yet we have devised a 'theory' that replaces purposeful creation with random chance.  How insulting this must be to God, and pleasing to Satan.  We've seen God's proof, we've looked into the cell, yet we teach our children that it doesn't take a designer to create our universe, that a bunch of monkeys in a room given enough time would create the same environment.  How shameful.  What a blight on our 'intelligence.'

And what is the unfortunate consequence of our rejection of God?

Romans 1:21 b  "Their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened."

Paul continues:

Romans 1:24  "God gave them over to their sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another."

Romans 1:26  "Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts.  Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.  27  In the same way, men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.  Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversions.  28  Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.  29  They became filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice.  They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless"

Pretty horrible huh?  The interesting thing is their sin was not homosexuality, promiscuity, envy or even murder.  Their original sin was rejecting God.  Because they "neither glorified God nor gave thanks to Him," He gave them over to those subsequent sins.  Is it any wonder then why our elected leaders, so proud of their support of evolution and a 'tolerant society' have the governing wisdom of a dog in heat?  And then to cap it off verse 32, which I believe is the current condition of the heart of America:

Romans 1:32  "Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."

Have you heard anyone, either celebrity or elected leader, praise the bravery of those homosexuals pursuing marriage as though they were fighting for civil rights in the 60's?  You hear it every day.  Has it been long since you've read of one of these same people praising the mature way they handled their divorce, that they just needed to focus on themselves and that their marriage was holding them back?  Have you seen any innovative ways of sinning?  Have you been shocked to see babies cut from mother's wombs?  Are you surprised that after teaching our children that God did not create them unique and wonderful, but that they are evolved pond scum these same kids end up shooting their schoolmates?   Are you amazed that in the United States of America we now have an entire political movement devoted to the envy of others possessions and the entitlement for their own?  Or do you think that these circumstances are merely coincidental, that Romans 1 is overreacting?

The truth is that the sad state of American culture was foretold almost 2,000 years ago, because the human condition remains the same: reject God, and he will abandon you to your sinful ways.  Your mind will devolve to a place where you can't even discern that marriage was not created for two men, where you will encourage the sin of others (how popular is lesbianism in entertainment these days?), you will be consumed with envy, and you will do all of this willingly.  All the while thinking that it is God who is insane.

Of course the end result of all of this isn't good.  When leaders are men and women whose minds have become futile and whose hearts are darkened, and the nation is full of men and women whose minds have become futile and whose hearts are darkened, things aren't going to be comfy.  Unless the United States experiences a spiritual revival of sorts we can expect our culture to continue to devolve, sin to become more rampant, and people will encourage each other in sin ("What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas").  On this path, sin begets sin begets more sin.  Of course there is always hope of revival, and such revival has occurred in the past.  The alternative is God bringing his judgement as he did on Babylon, Egypt, Assyria and Rome before us.  Or as Thomas Jefferson put it:

"Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever."

Note: Since the publishing of this article, Hollywood has (predictably) reacted strongly against actor Kirk Cameron for his comments that Homosexuality is 'unnatural': http://www.eonline.com/news/marc_malkin/brad_pitt_george_clooney_star_in_gay/298608