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Now that Christmas is over and
the Thanks to Mitt Romney and Mike
Huckabee, the Republicans have become so pretzelated with religious brain burners that they’re
actually discussing whether Jesus is going to reappear in Mormonic Missouri
or whether Jews can get into heaven. Rudy Giuliani, meanwhile, is trying to
swim upstream against a tide of adulterous liaisons and moolah paid for protecting his then girl friend on
her trystic trips to On the Democratic side, while
important issues such as health care and immigration have actually been
discussed, the latest innuendoes from the Billary Clintons are replete
with opaque references to the fact
that Barack Hussein Obama might be in like Flynn with the Muslims. Obama is
fighting back with Oprah, who hopes to transform her political idol into a
best seller on Amazon.com. As in all election cycles,
those in the front lines who will have to make sense out of these mounds of
oral trash are media pundits and newspaper editors. The editors of the Des Moines
Register, already under attack from all sides, finally endorsed Hillary
Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Following newspaper etiquette, their
endorsement came after a long, tiring process in which all the candidates
were interviewed and the wheat separated from the chaff. They then
meticulously gave their readers the pros and cons for each candidate and
found Most well established
newspapers like the Gazette go through much the same procedure when endorsements are involved.
All candidates, be they local, state or national, are invited to meet with
editors or editorial boards before endorsement decisions are made. One need
only have read in the Gazette the extensive discussions of all the candidates
running in the November elections to get some indication of how well the
now-defunct Fairness Doctrine is being applied by the editors of serious
newspapers. In addition, both our local
papers turned over an enormous amount of space to letters to the editor
expressing support for all the non-endorsed candidates running for local and
state offices. Would that the same could be
said for our local radio station. On Dec. 10, WMBG invited
Republican Rob Wittman to address its listeners. What followed turned out to
be a love fest with Wittman that went something like this: WMBG Interviewer: “Your were
preceded in this office by Paul Trible, who was a?” Wittman: “Republican.” Interviewer: “And Herb Bateman,
who was a?” Wittman: “Republican” Interviewer: “And Jo Ann Davis,
who was a?” Wittman: “Republican.” Interviewer: “And you are a?” Wittman: “Republican.” Right. Got it. This seat
belongs to the Republicans. The subsequent conversation
consisted of softballs lobbed at Wittman concerning his experience and
service to the public, which, we assume, was all in the Republican mold.
Wittman also hunts and has three Republican dogs. All this is quite consonant
with the musings of WMBG’s late-afternoon host, who has at various times
opined that Mickey Mouse grew up to be a Democratic senator and that gay
congressman Barney Frank’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton might not be
beneficial to her campaign. According to the Forgit
campaign, their candidate was not invited for an interview by WMBG, nor was
he asked to respond to Wittman’s Republican views. It is indeed unfortunate that
the final vestiges of the Fairness Doctrine in broadcasting were abolished in
2000. Under one of the last provisions to go was the requirement that when a
radio station endorsed a candidate for public office, the unendorsed
candidate had to be notified and allowed an opportunity to respond. While the Wittman interview may
not have strictly constituted an endorsement, it did, by virtue of the
omission of a Forgit rebuttal, make it clear where the station stood. Given
the fact that WMBG is the only radio station in In the upcoming year, voters
are going to be subjected to myriads of claims and counter claims by
political candidates. To a great degree they will rely on all members of the
media to cut through the partisan flak and give a fair and balanced
presentation of the views of all the major candidates. Endorsements are inevitable, as
they should be. The methodology and processes that lie behind the
endorsements, however, should never leave any medium open to charges of crass
partisanship. |
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lewleadbeater.com Copyright 2002 All Rights Reserved email: LWL@lewleadbeater.com |
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