"Well, the saints might go marching into New Orleans, but the scientists are marching right on out. A group of more than two thousand biologists have decided NOT to hold their 2011 annual meeting in the Big Easy," "Evening News" anchor Katie Couric noted at the open of her February 18 video blog entry.
Couric proceeded to turn a biologists convention's PR stunt into evidence that Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-La.) is an enemy of the "scientific community.":
The reason? Louisiana has a law that allows teachers to use supplemental materials in science class - things other than the state approved curriculum. Republican-up-and-comer Bobby Jindal signed it last summer after it passed the state legislature with overwhelming support.
The scientific community says the law is nothing more than a free pass for the teaching of creationism, and that religion has no place in a biology class.
In closing, Couric noted that the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) was moving its 2011 convention to Salt Lake City before joking:
Salt Lake City is more progressive than New Orleans? Now there's a clear argument - that evolution exists.
Okay, so Katie's no comedian, but she is a master at packing a dense amount of bias into a short news item. Consider that in a one-minute video brief she:
- panned as scientifically bankrupt religious conservatives who believe that God created the universe
- painted potential GOP presidential hopeful Jindal (R) as an enemy of "the scientific community"
- made a joke that slammed both Utah and Louisiana as backwards, albeit the former less so
