The headline at Fox News reads: "Two Americans, Briton Win Nobel Prize in Medicine for 'Knockout Mice'"
The headline at CNN, under "latest news" read: "Nobel Price in Medicine Goes to Stem Cell Researchers" (though on the Science page it reads: "Mice gene trio win medicine Nobel").
I could not even find the story on MSNBC.
The research that received the Nobel price had everything to do with a technique in recombinant gene technology, and was only tangentially about stem cells. Which makes me wonder why under CNN's "latest news" the reference was to stem cells and not to "knockout" mice, as did the Fox report. It is a subtle form of rhetoric -- to get the readers who won't bother to read the article to think stem cell research won a Nobel Prize. This is a prime example of the kinds of subtle bias we see in the media -- subtle enough to have "plausible deniability." Unfortunately, the result will likely be many people who don't understand the research talking about stem cells, when that's not what the research was about, fundamentally.
I won't even get into why MSNBC didn't seem to see fit to cover one of the Nobel Prizes at all. I guess great scientific breakthroughs that improve mankind's world aren't on their agenda.
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