My right-winger friends love to talk about how biased the media is, which I guess explains the complete love-in over the whole Lewinski/impeachment deal a while back. Of course, it’s not that simple. As case in point, I direct you to a piece in Salon today about the very selective media coverage of the Clinton’s gift fiasco. There’s plenty of very interesting data that never made it to print, largely because a whiff of scandal sells papers. For instance:

• No, HIllary didn’t register anywhere.
• Contrary to most of reports, the $190,000 haul is actually the accumulation of several years’ worth of stuff, not the result of a loophole-exception gift frenzy.
• No, Senatorial gift guidelines don’t play into this at all.
• No, the didn’t take items belonging to the White House.

This feeding frenzy is good food for thought the next time someone babbles about “the liberal media.”