Topic: NewsBusters
A Sept. 18 NewsBusters post by Ken Shepherd repeats a claim by InsideCatholic.com blogger Mark Shea that "the mainstream media" has called Pope Benedict XVI "medieval" 169,000 times. Shepherd changed "mainstream media" to "biased secular media."
The problem is, the only evidence Shea and Shepherd offer in support is a Google search. Shea offers no indication that he narrowed Google's search parameters to focus on only "mainstream media," nor does he indicate that he weeded out articles in which the word "medieval" is not specifically describing the pope. Indeed, Shea appears to have done nothing more than plug "Benedict XVI" and "medieval" into the general Google search engine, which pulls in much more than the "mainstream media" (or even the "biased secular media").
Given the MRC's lax research standards, though, that appears to be good enough for Shepherd to declare "bias."
