X-posted from NMFBIHOP
By now you've heard out-of-town Ed Tinsley talk about how his opponent, Harry Teague, wants to cut the throat of our troops (if not, click here). The move, for good reason, earned Tinsley mention as Keith Olberman's Worst Person in the World designation.
The comment was so out-of-bounds that it threatens to put the Southern District race on the map - if only for long enough to draw a breath. It's no surprise to anyone who has stopped at Disenchanted 2nd that Tinsley is an ideological wing-nut masquerading as an escaped lunatic wrapped in a layer of - well, Grandma would prefer that I use the term "bovine manure". But if you get your news in New Mexico, you're only going to hear about the best possible spin from Tinsley's moron-icy. Make the jump and watch a news clip that supposedly "covers" the brouhaha.
Notice how the focus shifts away from Tinsley saying that Harry Teague wants to kill his nephews to Cut-Throat Ed's contention that his outrageous statement somehow made Harry Teague decide to change his position on funding our troops. The problem with that is that it is an outright lie.
Take a look at this criticism of Teague from the primary:
The Democrat in our swath of the state who's been on the air the most is Harry Teague, running against Bill McCamley for the Second District nomination. Like Democratic contenders in the northern part of the state, Teague's commercials have lately emphasized his opposition to the war in Iraq. But he doesn't say he'd vote to cut off funding for the war, and Teague resists even setting a timeline for withdrawal — which McCamley supports — making his stance pretty toothless.
LP has already pointed out that certain "power players" among the chattering class think that it's somehow in bad taste to point out that Cut-throat Ed is accusing an honest, hard-working American businessman of wanting to slaughter our troops. Note that it isn't even worth saying anything about Ed the Pirate saying something like that. It's only wrong to say that he said it when he actually said it.
Do I think that the state's media is bought and paid for by the GOP? No, the NMGOP couldn't raise that kind of money selling dates with Tila Tequila. The point is that the NMGOP doesn't have to buy the media. Whether it is pure ineptitude, rank stupidity, or just plain embarrassment over missing something a Journalism freshman at UNM would have splashed in the headlines doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter if it's some kind of misplaced push for the mythical "fair and balanced" unbiased middle.
The fact is that the media has a responsibility to report the news. The fact that Ed Tinsley was booed for calling his opponent a terrorist does not make the crowd "pro-Democrat" any more than putting out rat poison makes someone anti-cat. It makes them pro-common-sense and pro-decency!
Here's some tips on writing a headline. The idea is to get attention and draw the reader in. But, of course, the person writing the headline can only do that if the journalist actually covers the story as it really happened. As I recall from my high school journalism class, "Who did (or said) what to whom from where."
It isn't hard. Unless, of course, it violates your personal bias to report reality.