CleverMonkey

The Opposition Press

What’s Important? Madonna Adoption vs. the Military Commissions Act October 27, 2006

Just a quickie during lunchtime. I decided to take a look at the level of coverage various stories get on popular News websites. Today we’ll pit the Madonna Adoption against the Military Commissions Act.

CNN – www.CNN.com

The term Madonna Adoption brings up this:

CNN.com results for Madonna Adoption
27 total results, quite conservative for a website as popular as CNN.

Next, a search for the term Military Commissions Act returns this:

CNN.com results for Military Commissions Act
That’s two (2) results. That’s right, an act that, “makes possible the permanent detention and torture (as defined by the Geneva Conventions) of anyone – including American citizens – based solely on the decision of the President.”

Surely this is an anomaly, Fox News is supposed to be Fair and Balanced, surely they’ll have more coverage of the Military Commissions Act than this.

Let’s see

The same search using the terms, Madonna Adoption returned this at the FoxNews website (www.foxnews.com)

FoxNews.com results for Madonna Adoption

Six Hundred and Sixty (660) results. Somewhat more what we’d expect for a web search.

Now, the term Military Commissions Act

FoxNews.com results for Military Commissions Act

One hundred and fifteen (115) results. Significantly more than CNN, but still only 17.5% or just over 1/6th of the coverage that Mad gets. Well I guess now we know what’s really important, or at least what the Mainstream “News” Media feels the American Public should be concerned with and it’s not the signing away of their Civil Liberties, not by a long shot.