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In a Morning Edition piece designed to show that women voters aren't paying attention, NPR's Audie Cornish casts, through the help of right-wing pundit Andy Smith's perennial "fluke" meme, woman Carol Shea-Porter as flotsam in a wave. Apparently, four years ago all Shea-Porter had to do was put her name on the Dem primary ballot to be a Congresswoman. And two years ago, it was Hillary Clinton's tears that clinched it for Carol.
This might be the sloppiest piece of distance reporting NPR has ever done on Granite State politics. It's also Exhibit A on how much work remains to be done in improving left-wing media infrastructure in New Hampshire. Whenever Smith is the first name on Villager speed-dial, Democrats lose.
Contact NPR's Morning Edition today to ask them why Audie Cornish buried Frank Guinta's several hundred thousand dollar mystery money at the bottom of the piece and treated it like it was campaign he-said she-said. Because here's what local political reporters are saying:
The financial disclosure issue is not going away. Since Guinta has refused to clear the matter up in the last two months, there is now a recent round of stories about it reported by WMUR, NHPR, AP, Concord Monitor and the Union Leader. If pro Shea-Porter groups were to only get involved this will be the issue to dominate the next three weeks.
1. The news tonight - the newsreader summarized: "President Obama wants to eliminate tax cuts for [the wealthy]." Not true: there is no need or opportunity to "eliminate" them. They expire under law. Obama wants to extend middle class tax cuts.
2. The "Planet Money" reports now carry their own advertising: "Brought to you by Allied Bank." This is a form of corruption - corporate sponsorship specifically of topical coverage of the corporation's industry - that any other news medium, including Fox News, would consider improper. Imagine the Union Leader running an "environmental update" section sponsored exclusively by BP. (Maybe car ads in Road and Track are close, if you view that as journalism.)
In the first instance NPR is blatantly promoting Republican false frames. In the second they have sold their own credibility: we can no longer believe that the Planet Money team is allowed to cover stories that reflect badly on big banks.
I'm usually fairly critical of NPR these days, but I have to join Olbermann and Maddow in bringing to more people's attention the slap-down Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep gave to GOP Chaiman Michael Steele on yesterday's Morning Edition:
INSKEEP: I'm still having a little trouble with the notion that you're going to write that you're going to protect Medicare, that you're going to preserve this program to make sure that this government-run health care system stays solid in the long term...
Mr. STEELE: Let's get it to run right.
INSKEEP: ...and yet you are opposing quote, "government-run health care."
Mr. STEELE: Exactly. Well, wait a minute. Just because, you know, I want to protect something that's already in place and make it run better and run efficiently for the senior citizens that are in that system does not mean that I want to automatically support, you know, nationalizing or creating a similar system for everybody else in the country who currently isn't on Medicare.
Steele:... And sure, there are issues in the insurance market that we can regulate a little bit better and that we can control better to maximize the benefits to the consumers. That's something that, yeah, we can rightly reform and fix. If the...
INSKEEP: Wait a minute, wait, wait. You would trust the government to look into that?
Mr. STEELE: No. I'm talking about the - I'm talking about private - I'm talking about...
INSKEEP: Who is...
Mr. STEELE: ...citizens. I'm talking about...
INSKEEP: You said that's something that should be looked into. Who is it that should look into that?
Mr. STEELE: I'm talking about those who - well, who regulates the insurance markets?
INSKEEP: That would be the government, I believe.
You can also listen here
Good job Steve! (In the interest of full disclosure, I helped Steve make the audition tape for his first job in the WBGO news department.)
(I generally don't promote non-local stuff, or cross-posted stuff, but I'm 20 minutes into this video, and it's a must see. Not necessarily shocking, but a forceful, coherent, tour-de-force of what we know, and what we must do... - promoted by Mike)
cross-posted at dailykos
Moyers went down to Memphis to open the National Conference for Media Reform for more than three thousand people yesterday. The group started as a means to address the issues of media consolidation and the "plantation mentality" pervasive in major news organizations which are killing today's media and in the process our country.
And our favorite American journalist gave a rousing speech. He started out strong, the middle was explosive and he ended with a major earthquake. He focused his remarks on class, the media, the media's performance in the run up to the war and he gave us an historical perspective on the magnitude of the problems that media reformers face today. He also informed me that nothing could be more vitally important to our country today than the needed reform of the our media.
As bloggers, we need to play an important role in that battle.