BET.com - Head of the Nation's Largest Teacher Union Calls for Education Secretary to Resign

It is amazing to compare the BET version of this story about Rod Paige calling the NEA "Terrorists" with the CNN Version. While BET gives some credence to his remarks, they give the NEA the space to defend themselves against these charges. On the other hand, CNN frames it basically as a slip of words he shouldn't have said but ends with a series of quotes--not from the NEA themselves, explaining what it is they are upset about at the current moment, but from some stats such as "The NEA is headquartered in Washington where every year the organization spends about $1 million lobbying, according to The Associated Press" which seems to underhandedly support the secretary's frustration as legitimate. This is nothing compared to their lead in to the story:

"WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Education Secretary Rod Paige called the National Education Association a "terrorist organization" Monday as he argued that the country's largest teachers union often acts at odds with the wishes of rank-and-file teachers regarding school standards and accountability."

CNN leaves this sentiment out there and lets it be the unspoken truth. It goes on to basically continue with this framing of the NEA as some sort of democratic lobby group, only briefly quoting the NEA director, but instead quoting only Democratic party officials who had criticism for the Secretary. More importantly, CNN makes absolutely no mention of the No Child Left Behind Act which is the center of the debate, instead framing it as only a political issue between intractable polemical positions. Nevertheless, since the Secretary and the Bush administration are given most of the space at the beginning of the story, the frame is set up so that there is obviously a more correct political position to be had--and what a familiar position it is: you are either with us or you are with the terrorists.