Media Coverage of First Lady’s Orange County Visit

Recently there has been much criticism of the “‘slanting” of the media. In these cases one thinks immediately as it applies to TV and radio, not the printed press. Newspapers for the most part have been spared from such criticism.

However, in the Aug. 28 edition of The Times there was one of the most blatant examples of slanting the news I have ever witnessed. I am speaking of the article about the rally for First Lady Barbara Bush in Irvine. I was there. So I know what really went on. There were hundreds of enthusiastic Bush supporters with as many placards for Bush. But what did The Times choose to show? The one person with a Clinton placard. I and those around me weren’t even aware of this woman and her one placard.

We expect better of the printed press, especially The Times. All the criticism of slanting is richly deserved when a newspaper chooses to “report” an event that was filled with cheering Bush supporters by zeroing in on a lone woman, who could very well have been a Clinton plant, and ignoring all the rest of those present.

BARBARA MCCARTHY, Capistrano Beach