Today, I sent the following letter to the editor of the Akron Beacon Journal, in response to their coverage of Troopergate:
I was astonished that the Beacon Journal did not put the news that Gov. Sarah Palin was found to have abused her power on page 1. I was even more surprised that you gave it equal billing to a story about Barack Obama’s links to a group under investigation for voter fraud. The two are not even remotely comparable.
In the first case, as you reported on p. 4, a “bipartisan panel” found that Palin “abused her power as governor” and was “found in violation of a state ethics law” for trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as state trooper.
The other story connects Sen. Barack Obama to the Association of Community Organization and Reform Now (ACORN), which has been accused of generating fake voter registration forms. The implication of wrong-doing by Obama in this story comes not from a bipartisan panel, but from Rick Davis, Sen. John McCain’s campaign manager.
The supposed “close links,” which you trumpet in your headline, are flimsy at best. For instance, Obama did, as you note, represent ACORN in a lawsuit 13 years ago. What you don’t say is that he was on the same side as the U.S. Justice Department and the League of Women Voters, and he won the case — making it easier for citizens to vote.
The Palin story covers a breach of voter trust that was a direct, conscience-less act by the candidate herself; the Obama story refers to a tenuous link to a group that by-and-large is doing good work on behalf of poor Americans. There is no suggestion that Obama knew of ACORN misdeeds, let alone condoned them.
Now more than ever, it’s critical that America has leaders of integrity who use their power for the people, not to serve personal agendas. Palin’s actions are all but disqualifying for the office of vice president. Shame on the Beacon Journal for positioning these articles in a way that suggests to readers they are somehow on par.
Tags: Palin, Troopergate
Great letter, ND!! We must continue to be vigilant. The press in general, in the name of “fairness” often equates very unequal behaviors. Way to hold their feet to the fire!
le plus ca change le plus la meme chose….the more things change the more they are the same.
The pitch is growing more fevered.. the cadance cascades over us. Voter drives always turn up wrongful registrations, so it is an easy place to aim a barb at one’s opponent. By extension, even Obama himself used this when he challenged his opponent’s petition signatures to get on the ballot.
Bottom line, if a registration is illegal it is usually caught as in this instance except when “the machine” wants to vote “dead” lists….
The worse outrage is paperless voting and no way to check the vore and people can hack into the machines etc. And how about the Republican who went to jail last election for jamming democratic phone lines?
Have we ever really had a clean election?
Ah, would that politicians weren’t so political….
We need to man (and woman) the voting places….count all the votes…compare the numbers we get with the machine at days end and if there is a discrepency do not leave your post…call the authorities…
Keep it up Josh…keep ‘em honest…our democracy needs truth tellers especially in times like these. Love your blogs!
Barb!
Thanks! It’s my second letter to the editor this cycle. I’ll have more before it’s all over.
mom rolnick:
Re: your proposal to have a guaranteed way to count all the votes: I couldn’t agree more! We need to have some fundamental trust in the system!
Newspapers that struggle to be objective often blunt legitimate news in an effort to bend over backwards to show they are not biased. I’m going through it daily in our newsroom.
Because of too many claims that we have a liberal bias, our editors hesitate anytime they put a news unfavorable to Republicans in the paper. I had an editor check with me tonight if a story on the McCains getting a free cell tower near their ranch in Arizona (despite John McCain heading the commerce committee that oversees the FCC and telecoms). Got an e-mail from the executive editor yesterday about a headline “Bush critic wins Nobel Prize.” I told him it seems to be an accurate and legitimate headline. Dropheads, sidebars, and teasers highlighted Paul Krugman’s job at Princeton and work as a leading economist, but the Bush headline is the one that caught hell.
My feeling is that if you play it perfectly down the middle, both sides will claim you are favoring the other side. That goes for presidential politics and just as much for local elections and even high school football. All we as editors can do is be fair, make sure our consciences are clear, and do the best we can without blunting our news judgment.
NJEditor,
Can’t thank you enough for posting — great comment.
I used to work in one of those newsrooms, for The News Tribune, before it merged with the Home News, so I know where you are coming from.
I know that newspapers get criticized by both sides, especially in a polarizing election campaign, and, to some extent, that’s the proof that they are doing a good job.
I have to say though that this cycle, I just can’t escape the feeling that the Beacon Journal, in particular, is going out of its way to portray McCain in a more flattering light — in mostly subtle ways. When McCain was in Strongsville the other week, he was on p. 1, and he’s been on p.1 often. When Obama had his two-day bus tour of the state, at no point was he on p. 1.
The Palin thing just seems like such an extreme example to me: A VP candidate, running with a reformist message, is found by a bipartisan panel to have abused her power and violated state ethics laws (in less than 2 years as governor), and somehow, that gets shunted to p. 4?
That said, credit where credit is due: This morning’s coverage of the final debate was evenhanded, and included an analysis ap article with this headline: “McCain jabs at opponent but misses a knockout.”
NJ — would you mind if I took your comment and turned it in to a post, so people don’t miss it?