Slanting the news

Has anyone else been paying attention to the protests over pipeline construction in North Dakota? Native Americans have been trying to stop construction without much luck -- the pipeline construction crews keep right on moving, which appears to be standard operating procedure even when there is litigation in process that could kill the project. The philosophy seems to be that if they can manage to build enough of the pipeline, any court findings against it will be moot because the pipeline will already be in place.

Anyway, glancing at the news this morning, it appears things got interesting yesterday. A friend asked a question on Facebook about news coverage -- basically nonexistent despite the thousands of people involved in the protests in North Dakota and in Washington, DC -- so I did a quick search to see what was new.

Well, the list of search results was also a really nice illustration of the way the news can be slanted.

First up on the list was a link to an Associated Press article.

Four security guards and two dogs injured; protestors were obviously the aggressors.

Maybe. A couple other news sources had a different perspective. 

And then there's the perspective that focuses on that most American of values, money:

Although the Fox News article does indicate one of the reasons why the Standing Rock Sioux and other tribes are protesting the route in addition to fears about potential contamination of the watershed or the Missouri River.

I am curious to see if this finally makes the news on NPR. So far there's been dead silence on "Morning Edition," not a single word as far as I can tell. I also do not recall hearing anything on "All Things Considered." NPR has become as vacuous as the television morning "news" shows.