BROADCAST BIAS: Networks show France burning but highlight ‘peaceful’ protesters

For decades, American broadcast news networks have touted the benefits of socialism in France, from government-funded day care to healthcare to a mandated five weeks of vacation. Then-NBC host Katie Couric summed it up in 2001: "The French, they’ve got it right, don’t they?"

Socialism is always a warm, comforting blanket. It can’t ever fail. So, when violent rioting recently broke out in Paris and other cities, the preferred TV term was failing "public services."

On Oct. 19, ABC foreign correspondent Tom Soufi-Burridge said...