According to Clarence Eckerson Jr. of Streetsblog NY, "television and print media portray cyclists as if they were a menace to society, like bedbugs in need of extermination. The constant barrage of late has been unrelenting, depressing and biased." That goes for the coverage in New York City, as far as Eckerson is concerned. Why? He explains:

The big problem is that all television news crews have a bias that they cannot ignore: They drive nearly everywhere to file their stories. They see the expanding bike infrastructure and pedestrian plazas as eating up road space. To them this is a growing threat which makes it harder to drive their news vans and do their jobs. Thus, they have a vested interest in being critical of bike lanes, which affects who they decide to interview, what footage they use, the edits they make, the “facts” they accept.

As an example of better coverage, he points to a news report about cyclists in the Netherlands, one that treated its subjects with the utmost sensitivity - and rightfully so. However, another more logical reason for MSM to cover bike stories? They're a surefire way of landing loads of comments and page views. The news van theory, we suspect, is utter nonsense.

Here in the Bay Area, we've seen an increase in cycling stories over the last couple of years. Streetsblog SF sticks to biking as its main focus. Mission Mission and Uptown Almanac both cover local cycling news and preciousness with regularity. Bay Citizen jumped on the bandwagon recently with a bike accident map and "Pedalers in Peril: San Francisco's Most Dangerous Streets for Cyclists," a complicated (albeit misleading) look at bike safety. Even Rob Anderson, a strange anti-bike zealot, creates a predictable stir with District 5 Diary, a rant space against anything to do with peddling in San Francisco.