Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Arizona and Coffee

Media Matters is a liberal media watchdog organization, dedicated to uncovering and documenting conservative biases in mainstream media. Often, they'll observe that something false or misleading has been claimed, then offer a detailed analysis of the inappropriate claim. (Here's a fairly typical example.) Or they'll point to a significant omission, or what they consider to be an inappropriate framing of the issue. (As here.) Sometimes, they don't even provide analysis -- they just point out that someone is saying something shocking or offensive, without even bothering to explain why it's shocking or offensive; it's that obvious. (Like calling Cornell West a black airhead.) Yesterday, Media Matters seemed to follow this last pattern, and observed that Gwen Ifill of PBS's Washington Week suggested the following:
IFILL: Before we go tonight, a different way of looking at the so-called Red State-Blue State divide. Perhaps you've heard of the gender gap. Well, our partners at National Journal have discovered, after an in-depth investigation, the caffeine gap. It goes this way: If Blue States are home to Democrats and Red States to Republicans, Starbucks may provide the key to the next election. It turns out there are nearly 4,800 Starbucks coffee shops in Blue States but only 3,200 in Red States. On a per-capita basis, that gives Democratic coffee drinkers nearly twice as many chances to snag a Frappuccino than Republicans get. The Red State with the most coffee shops? Arizona. Maybe that explains John McCain.
Media Matters doesn't provide analysis here -- they just point out that this was said. But I don't see anything obviously false or offensive or conservatively biased about it. It just seems kinda funny. What am I missing?

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