Sunday, April 3, 2011

Only the Post-Dispatch...

The Post-Dispatch writes one, count it, one single article about Peter Kinder staying in St. Louis hotels over 300 nights on the taxpayer dime at a cost of more than $35,000 and already one of their editors is now lamenting that the paper has treated Kinder unfairly. The Post-Dispatch wrote over 10 articles about Senator McCaskill's plane problems, including two in the "lede position" according to editor Ronald Wade, yet Wade somehow comes to the conclusion that Kinder is getting "harsher treatment" than McCaskill. Absolutely pathetic! Why don't they just make Phyllis Schlafly the editor of the paper and get it over with?

Fortunately, though, Wade left us his email address: rwade@post-dispatch.com Please send him a polite email and tell him not to apologize for reporting unpleasant facts about Republicans, especially since the paper just spend the last two weeks writing negative stories about Senator McCaskill, continually coming up with flimsy excuses to write the same story over and over.

Update: Looking at it again, perhaps I've been a little harsh. My interpretation of Wade's article as being apologetic hinges on this sentence:
To paraphrase one commenter, Kinder's behavior -- "slime-ball" but legal -- appears to have gotten far harsher treatment than the "slime-ball" illegal behavior of Democratic U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill.
Now, I think in normal usage if I say something like, "It's a rough year to be a Cardinals fan. To paraphrase Gordon, they're soft at third base," then most people would understand me as agreeing that the Cardinals are soft at third base. Thus, I read the quoted sentence as suggesting that the editor agreed with the commenter. However, applying the principal of charity, I believe that sentence might also be interpreted as "One commenter said Kinder got harsher treatment." So I think the best way to read the post is probably as simply asking a question, rather than as agreeing with the right-wing comment brigade. Now I personally believe that the Post-Dispatch should stand up for Jake Wagman's reporting on Kinder rather than meekly asking a question; but, given the current reporting ethos of balance-as-getting-quotes-from-both-sides-rather-than-standing-up-for-the-facts, I can see why they'd be hesitant to do so.

4 comments:

  1. Maybe his critical thinking skills were furloughed this week..

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  2. Peter Kinder is the current Missouri Lt Governor and Claire McCaskill is a sitting US Senator facing reelection in a year. You honestly cant figure out why one would get more press then the other. McCaskill who was a former auditor for the state and used her experience as such to win her current job couldnt remember she had to pay taxes on a whole plane she owned! You really cant sense a level of difference in these stories?

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  3. Zach, I can understand why they'd write about McCaskill's problems, maybe even more than once. But what I can't understand is a bunch of conservative crybabies claiming that Kinder was treated unfairly because one article was written about him, when more than 10 where written about McCaskill.

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  4. Its a good question and I cant understand it either. The card "Youre always picking on me" gets played by all sides and Im tired of it. Kinder and McCaskill should both just deal with their problems and their flacks shouldn't need to reference other people. Stories are all stories and when I see a pol or a public figure dragging some other wrong doing into the field it smacks of a defense of the desperate.

    The only possible cause I see of the "Kinder is being picked on" argument is that everything he did was according to law. The letter anyways. The man travels a lot and has a lot of bills but we allow our politicians to be treated like patricians and this sort of sense of entitlement is the end result. Id prefer someone who did everything on the up and up but those people are repelled by politics and so this is who you get.

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