With Wisconsin suddenly a swing state thanks to Ryan's Janesville ties, it's especially important that Wisconsin newspapers start covering the lies. The big question: Will they? Will the state's talented political reporters, including the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Craig Gilbert, Dan Bice, Patrick Marley and others across Wisconsin be unleashed by their editors to truly check and report the facts? Or will the papers just print more Paul Pablum and keep their customers and state residents in the dark?
Fact checkers and media in general have an unusual problem with Romney/Ryan, according to this great Washington Post piece: How to report the "the epic dishonesty of Romney’s campaign." The piece, entitled, "Call out the lies right in your headlines,"starts with this:
This doesn’t happen every day, but good for the Los Angeles Times for calling out the ubiquitous falsehood about Obama supposedly waiving welfare reform’s work requirement right in its headline:
"Rick Santorum repeats inaccurate welfare attack on Obama"
As Kevin Drum says: “it’s about time reporters and copy editors started putting this stuff front and center.” And, indeed, the LA Times does this, in its headline and with this highly placed sentence: “In fact, Obama did not waive the work requirement.Here's hoping for some tough Wisconsin reporting -- despite the challenge of an unprecedented blizzard of lies and the natural tendency to boost the local guy. Let's get beyond the fact that Ryan is from Wisconsin. Let's get the facts about what he says and has done, and let the facts fall where they may. Let voters know what's true and what's not -- and let them decide who Wisconsin will choose in November.
dear america,
ReplyDeleteif you want more of the same vote for Obama again. it's that simple! he has my vote, I'll tell you that. I think he's the most underrated president ever!
Why not have a genuine Idealogical Battle between the Left and Right this election instead of the standard old personal attacks and character assasination that remind me of 3rd grade? it sounds like two groups of playground children - "doo-doo head!" and "poo-poo head!" And yes, I include the writer of this blog in the above. Eddie Munster CGI counts as 3rd grade : )
ReplyDeleteWouldn't it be great to have a real, intellectually stimulating debate on the merits and downfalls of each sides idealogy?
As an (I) voter; "I" will help to decide this election. I am sick of the personal attacks on the current white house and administration, sick of the personal attacks on the republican candidates, and sick of people diving on stupid comments that everyone makes in conversation. "He abused his dog!" "She thinks Chairman Mao was a great leader!" How impressive. People say dumb things sometimes.
Challenge us, don't take us to the playground. Oh wait - since both L and R suck so bad, maybe the playground is where you both belong....
Cheers / Robert - an "I" voter
It's simply not true that the Left and Right are equally bad. You might get that impression from the popular media that usually are afraid to point out mistruths. If the Right claims the earth is flat, and if the Left says facts prove that the earth is round, the media will report "Opinions differ on the shape of the earth" because the media fears appearing partisan. But the reality is that there is much more dishonesty on the right, as the case of Lyin' Paul Ryan makes painfully obvious.
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