Check out the picture of Newt Gingrich on the cover of the New York Times Magazine today. As always when they feature a conservative, he is made to look something like the devil. He's somewhat hunched over, his hands clasped in front of him, with a ghoulish half-smirk (how many pictures did they have to take to get one so unflattering?) Most pictures of the Times' opponents in the culture wars are focused so well that you can see their every last pore and skin blemish, and the preferred angle of viewing is from front and below, so you're looking right up into their nostrils.
Ah, the always subtle New York Times.
Speaking of media bias, how did Democratic states ever get assigned the color blue, while Republican states got red? Exactly who first made that decision during the 2000 election coverage?
Traditionally, red was the color of communism -- the red menace. And politically, it's the Democrats who have always leaned in a more socialist direction, and were generally much more sympatico with the communist countries -- which is why lefties were sometimes referred to as pinkos from the 1950's to the 1990's.
Yet somehow, the media decided to appropriate the color blue for the Democrats since it has much more positive connotations:
A loyal person is known as "true blue."
"Blue skies" are a metaphor for happy times.
Colors which are variations of blue all sound attractive as well: azure, cerulean, lazuline, sky blue, and aquamarine.
Red, on the other hand, has negative connotations:
When you're angry, you "see red." (When a toreador wants a bull to charge, he waves a red cape in front of it.) In fact, when you're angry, you may even turn red.
Red was the color of the Evil Empire itself, the Soviet Union, which collapsed under its own weight after its people grew tired of the communist dictatorship.
A red light means you have to stop.
A red alert means something bad might be about to happen.
And red is the color we see after someone has been killed in a particularly gory fashion.
Tass never really died. It just split into three divisions: ABC, CBS, and NBC.
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I saw a prominent newscaster comment on this subject years ago (I think it was Peter Jennings) – he said that originally they used the color blue for Republicans (for blueblood) and red for Democrats, but somehow that got switched around. My guess is that the convention was changed for exactly the reasons you present – that blue is a soothing color and red is an alarming color. Wikipedia notes that, the world over, blue is the conservative color and red is the color of socialism and communism. Its also noted on Wikipedia that the color swap between Democrats and Republicans occurred during the 2000 election.
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