1. Is the Dan Rather/Texas National Guard story an example of "media disinformation" (see text for definition of disinformation)? Why or why not?
             Biased? A source of deliberate 'disinformation' or exciting interest in a story in a way that encourages a misinterpretation than points views to the truth? Not a deliberate act of disinformation, necessarily. Despite the allegations of the text, there is no indication that Dan Rather wanted to 'get' George Bush, even if the conservative media may have 'felt' that was the case. Sloppy reporting and poor fact-checking on Rather's part? Undoubtedly.
             What the text fails to note is that the media's ultimate bias is in favor of getting a breaking story, barring certain networks like Fox News that generate their audience by presenting a profoundly one-sided point of view. The idea that 'if it bleeds it leads' does not mean that networks have an anti-criminal bias or a pro-police bias, rather they have a bias in generating ratings. The idea that the hawkish president George Bush had a questionable military record was a good story, but was poorly evaluated according to most standards of ethical reporting. But sloppy reporting in and of itself does not indicate bias any more than the recent trumpeting of scantly evidence, based on a few questionable studies, that water bottles may leak carcinogenic substances after years of the news spouting scientific evidence that drinking more bottled water is good. The news did not suddenly decide that it did not need the revenue from bottled water companies, after happily drawing advertising revenue from such companies for many years. Rather scare or shock techniques, even if substantiated with only dubious evidence generates more ratings-one reason why certain products as well as people are said to be miracle cures one year, then demonized the next, based on a few small studies.
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