In my last blog post I talked about Steve Walsh's tweet. Today I want to direct your attention to Don Surber.
Today, the conservative blog world is talking about Harry Reid's comment earlier this morning, "Today is a big day in America. Only, only 36,000 people lost their jobs today, which is really good"
This comment is taken out of context.
Media Matters has the full comment:
Unemployment compensation -- today is a big day in America. Only 36,000 people lost their jobs today, which is really good. Unemployment rate around America has not changed. Prognosticators thought it would go up; it has not. So, we need to extend -- there are about 15 million people in America out of work. These extended unemployment benefits will help millions of those people.
Plus here is video of the whole comment
Don Surber of Charleston Daily Mail posted this blog under the title of "Liberal Compassion" about Harry Reid's comment. He only used the seven second video on youtube, not the media matters.
Below the video, he added this comment:
Senate Democratic Harry Reid: "Today is a big day in America. Only 36,000 people lost their jobs today, which is really good."
And it only cost us $787 billion.
(Side note: Did Don get too excited about his find? He forgot to add Leader between Democratic and Harry or he should have put Democrat)
I gave Don a call, because everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but I believe he crossed a line when he posted a misleading video on a newspaper website under the title of "Liberal Compassion".
Don wasn't really interested in adding the full quote of Harry Reid's comment. He said something like he would look at it, but it was highly unlikely he would make any changes.
So I emailed the Editor of Charleston Daily Mail, Nanya Friend.
Dear Mrs. Friend,
I read your newspaper today online.
One of your columnist Don Surber posted this on his blog: http://blogs.dailymail.com/...
The quote is misleading, because it is only one sentence of Reid's whole statement:
"Unemployment compensation -- today is a big day in America. Only 36,000 people lost their jobs today, which is really good. Unemployment rate around America has not changed. Prognosticators thought it would go up; it has not. So, we need to extend -- there are about 15 million people in America out of work. These extended unemployment benefits will help millions of those people."
http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/...
Can Don add this to his blog post? Dan is free to his opinion, but he distorts Reid's comment on your newspaper's website. I question whether it is upholding journalist integrity. I just called him and he didn't really care about adding the rest of the statement.
Sincerely,
GW
If you would like to contact Nanya Friend about Don Surber's comment, you can email her at nanyaf@dailymail.com or call her at 1-800-WVA-NEWS.
Lets keep columnists honest!