St. Louis Journalists Take Cheap Shots at Occupy STL

Just another day for the "liberal" media.

Craig Cheatham, reporter at KMOV:


And David Sheets, an editor at the Post-Dispatch:



To be fair, Sheets is a sports editor, so a bias (if there really is one) wouldn't exactly signal the ruin of the republic. Nevertheless, it's worth noting.

h/t to @Taunia_Adams, @jeffreed and @Trianglman for catching the Sheets tweets.

KMOX's Sloppy Hit Piece on OccupySTL

As I've already mentioned, the right-wing fantasy that OccupySTL is trying to "disrupt" the World Series is false, and quite obviously false to anyone who bothers to actually read the comment thread the tea party selectively edited. Sadly, however, Rush Limbaugh's host station KMOX couldn't resist pushing this lame smear.

Just like the most unhinged bloggers on the right, KMOX failed to provide any context to the piece by pointing out that the actual OccupySTL representatives were openly discouraging the idea of any disruption.

And they managed to write the entire story without even so much as asking anyone at OccupySTL what their plans were.

Horrible "journalism."

In fact, as I'm writing this, the devious plans of OccupySTL have been revealed: they're hosting a, gasp, VIEWING PARTY for the World Series!!!

Professors in NYT Article on O'Keefe Were *Not* Defending His Methods

The New York Times Magazine earlier today published an article on James O'Keefe that in my opinion was worse than a puff piece: it actively defended O'Keefe's methods and relied almost exclusively on quotes that presented O'Keefe's style of dishonest journalism in a positive light without presenting opposing arguments. The article, written by Zev Chafets who is also the author of a highly-flawed book on Rush Limbaugh, tried to establish its objective bona fides by quoting Professor Brooke Kroeger, director of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, and Professor Dean Mills, Dean of the Missouri School of Journalism. I thought the quotes used from both of these professors seemed to give O'Keefe a pass for his history of doctoring quotes out-of-context, so I asked them about it over email. Dr. Kroeger made it clear that she was discussing undercover reporting in general, rather than specifically defending the practices of O'Keefe. With her permission, I'm publishing the exchange below.

Here's the original quote from Dr. Kroeger in the article:

“Undercover journalism goes back to at least the 1820s in this country,” says Brooke Kroeger, the director of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, who has written a book on the subject, to be published next year. “And the use of hidden cameras to do it came into prominence after World War II.” Muckrakers, of course, are advocates, loved or despised according to the targets they choose. “For years, advocacy groups such as those for a better government have partnered with journalistic organizations,” Kroeger says. “Last year the Humane Society released an undercover video of the inhumane treatment of pigs in Virginia that got picked up by media around the country and won applause from animal lovers. Many of those same people vociferously went after O’Keefe for his exposé of NPR. It’s basically a question of what you care about and what side you are on.”

My email:

Professor Kroeger,

I was very disappointed to see your quote in the recent New York Times Magazine article on James O'Keefe. The quote implied that O'Keefe was using the same undercover techniques as other organizations, and people objected simply because he targeted institutions they cared about. However, the reason most people criticize O'Keefe isn't because he uses undercover video; it's because he deceptively edits the video to change the meaning of people's quotes. This is a huge difference between hiding your true identity to get video and physically doctoring video to change people's words. The later practice can destroy people's lives for things that they didn't even say or do.

I hope if you are writing a book about this subject you take into account the actual critiques of O'Keefe rather than relying on the straw man who criticizes him only because he shoots undercover video.

Thanks for your time,

Adam Shriver

Her response (my emphasis in bold):

Dear Adam Shriver,

Thank you for writing. My comments only were about undercover reporting in general, which, when used selectively, under strict ethical guidelines and controls, has an important place in journalism. The practice also has often been deployed historically in partnerships with advocacy, humanitarian, and better government groups. Sometimes, the work is the direct product of these groups (e.g. the humane society or groups concerned with human trafficking), which subsequently get wider dissemination in the mainstream media.

That's as far as I go and that is all I meant.

Obviously, spurious selective editing is unacceptable journalistically and ethically and would undercut and/or discredit, any project, regardless of its provenance.

But from what I have observed, it also appears true that where there is wide consensus (like against animal cruelty or human trafficking), there's no protest against the undercover project (except perhaps from those engaged in factory farm system or the criminals.) But where there is a political stake and a divided public, there's a loud and immediate protest from those who feel stung -- even before anyone vets the editing and is able to discredit the work.

I hope that's clearer. None of that got into the piece.

Best regards,


Brooke Kroeger

Similarly, Dr. Mills says he was not trying to assess the relative worth of O'Keefe, and in fact does not regard him as a journalist. Here's how Dr. Mills was quoted in the article:

There is no doubt that O’Keefe disseminated only the material that supported his thesis about Acorn, but this kind of selectivity is the norm in advocacy journalism. “I put James O’Keefe in the same category as Michael Moore,” says Dean Mills, dean of the University of Missouri’s school of journalism. “Some ethicists say it is never right for a journalist to deceive for any reason, but there are wrongs in the world that will never be exposed without some kind of subterfuge.”

Here's my email to Dr. Mills:

Professor Mills,

I was very disappointed to see your quote in the recent New York Times Magazine article on James O'Keefe. The quote implied that O'Keefe was using the same undercover techniques as Michael Moore, and suggested that the only criticism of him was his "selectivity." However, the reason most people criticize O'Keefe isn't because he uses undercover video or is "selective"; it's because he deceptively edits the video to literally change the meaning of people's quotes. This is a huge difference between hiding your true identity to get video and physically doctoring video to change people's words. The later practice can destroy people's lives for things that they didn't even say or do.

In fact, earlier this year people (including one of O'Keefe's friends) used techniques almost identical to O'Keefe to try to attack the University of Missouri system by doctoring professors' quotes. O'Keefe and Breitbart represent everything you should be opposed to as someone who respects the institution of journalism.

Thanks for your time,

Adam Shriver

His response (my emphasis in bold):

Excellent point. Thanks for taking the time to write.

I would only say that I was not attempting to assess the relative worth or ethics of Moore and O'Keefe overall. I was speaking only to the narrower point of whether either one is a journalist. I think neither is. I think they are both advocates.

Dean Mills

Breitbart Disgustingly Accuses Weiner of "Having Relationships With Young Girls"

CNN shamefully decided to have Andrew Breitbart on today to talk about his websites' role in the #Weinergate scandal, and naturally he manages to sink to a new, disgusting low. Breitbart describes Representative Weiner following people on Twitter as "having relationships" with "quite young girls." For anyone who isn't familiar, following someone on Twitter means absolutely nothing. It is about 1/500th as significant a relationship as being friends with someone on facebook. So for Breitbart to hint at some kind of sexual impropriety based on Twitter follows is unbelievably irresponsible. Shame on CNN.

Here are Breitbart's idiotic claims:

Losing Faith in the Mainstream Media

I just read Jo Mannies article about the UMSL incident that completely fails to point out that Breitbart's videos were maliciously edited and amazingly fails to even provide readers a link where they can see the fuller videos. Just like the Post-Dispatch and KMOX, she doesn't inform her readers of the relevant facts despite having every opportunity to do so.

I can't even describe how depressing it's been in this case to see how badly the St. Louis media has covered the story. Though I've always been critical of the media, I used to think that they'd get the story right if they were just given easy access to the correct information. In this case, they were given easy access to the correct information; they did not get the story right. I used to think that the media could get the story right if it was demonstrated just how systematically dishonest Andrew Breitbart is. He has been shown to intentionally distort video over and over, yet they did not get the story right. I used to think that maybe reporters could get the story right if you gave them a personal phone call and talked about the issues rather than just sending them a link to the information on a blog. I gave reporters a personal phone call on this issue; they failed to get the story right. I used to think that maybe reporters preferred Breitbart's side of the story because they were always presented with video, a more digestible medium than the written word. In this case, there was video available that clearly showed Breitbart's bloggers were lying; the media ignored it and did not get the story right.

In this case, Jo Mannies, Kevin Killeen, and Tim Barker were given every opportunity to get the story right, yet they still failed miserably, in a way that should be embarrassing for any St. Louisan who cares about having a competent mainstream media. Compare this to the Kansas City Star, who from the very beginning rhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifecognized this as a dishonest hit job from a known con man. I keep trying to make excuses to believe that maybe the state of the media in St. Louis isn't as bad as others say, but I'm not sure I have any left.

Update: Jo Mannies at the Beacon has now updated her post with a link to the Media Matters analysis and KMOX put out a new story that got it right. Now it's up to the Post-Dispatch to make it 3 for 3!

Props To The Post-Dispatch

I've been pretty critical of St. Louis Post-Dispatch political reporting recently, but I'm happy to say that there have been several recent events that suggest that they may be bringing better balance and accuracy into their stories. First, I recently complained that the Post's website included an article about a puny 200 person tea party rally in Washington D.C., though they had previously ignored a 4,300 person union rally in St. Louis. After a Twitter exchange with an employee I posted the following update:

The Post-Dispatch Weatherbird suggests that AP articles automatically feed into the site:

It would be a little strange to me if there was no selection process whatsoever for which articles appear on their national news section, but perhaps this is accurate. However, this clearly would not be a good excuse for them deciding to run the story in the print edition tomorrow.

Well, it looks like the print edition got it right. In fact, it included the following passage in the story about the budget (h/t Hotflash at Show Me Progress):

Congressional leaders are inching closer to a deal on how much to cut federal spending for the next six months.

They seem to be pretty much ignoring the spending-cut absolutists of the Tea Party, the grass-roots movement that's losing influence despite having helped elect dozens of Republicans last November.

Tea Party activists had hoped to send a loud message Thursday to Republican lawmakers, telling them at a long-scheduled Capitol Hill rally either to stick to tough budget-slashing principles or face the movement's wrath.

Instead, only a few hundred people showed up.

I'm not sure I agree with this analysis since it seems to me that the House Republicans are paying far too much attention to the tea party given how much their "movement" has dissipated, but I appreciate the Post-Dispatch at least using an article that acknowledged the fact that the rally was overhyped and largely a failure.

I also recently criticized Post-Dispatch reporting generally, and Jake Wagman's reporting specifically, about the fact that they were stretching out the Claire McCaskill plane flap over a long period of time with numerous articles containing a dubiously small amount of additional substance. I would argue that no similar scrutiny or perseverance has been applied to examining the records of Ed Martin or Roy Blunt. However, today Jake Wagman published an impressive investigative piece on Peter Kinder billing taxpayers for what seems to be political or personal expenses, and Wagman did a fantastic job of collecting and organizing the information. Of course, in order to completely refute my previous criticisms and show me to be a frothing-at-the-mouth unhinged liberal blogger with an overzealous desire to criticize honest reporters, Wagman would have to continue to report on all of the twists and turns of the upcoming discussion of Kinder's records as he did with Senator McCaskill, and also to apply similar diligence to the records of Roy Blunt and Ed Martin, but he at least appears to be off to a good start.

Of course, none of this is to say that we don't need to continue building a progressive media voice in St. Louis via ForwardSTL. ForwardSTL was never intended as a replacement of the traditional media; it ideally will be a supplement to the traditional media that will ensure that a certain demographic of news and opinion consumers get the content they desire. Unlike the St. Louis Tea Party and Ed Martin, I don't want to see the Post-Dispatch go out of business, and I recognize the fact that they provide the region with crucial information. However, I do think we need to be diligent in keeping them honest, and that will include both criticizing them when they do their jobs poorly, and praising them when they get it right. Jake Wagman did a fantastic job on the Kinder story, and I hope this good work continues during some remarkable and important political times.

Post-Dispatch Covers 200 Person Tea Party in Washington D.C.

Three weeks after the St. Louis Post-Dispatch provided no coverage of a 4,300 person rally in support of unions in St. Louis and offered an incredibly lame excuse for doing so, they have now posted an AP article on their website about a puny tea party rally in Washington D.C.

According to reporters at the event, only about 200 people showed up. In D.C.! Think about that: if the American Society of Left-Handed Ninjas held a rally in D.C., they could probably get at least 400 people! Yet the Post-Dispatch gives coverage to this pathetic P.R. stunt while ignoring a 4,300+ person rally in their backyard.

Shameful.

Update: Also worth noting is the misleading framing in the AP article about the tea party, which claimed that their popularity has remained the same since the elections. Actually, if you look at the monthly CNN polls, you'll see that the tea party's unfavorables have increased dramatically since November, even as the 30% fringe supporters number stays the same (the same %, by the way, as the birthers and people who think the moon is made of swiss cheese).

Update #2: The Post-Dispatch Weatherbird suggests that AP articles automatically feed into the site:

It would be a little strange to me if there was no selection process whatsoever for which articles appear on their national news section, but perhaps this is accurate. However, this clearly would not be a good excuse for them deciding to run the story in the print edition tomorrow.

Post-Dispatch Asks if NPR Smear is Ethical Without Noting that Videos Were Deceptively Edited

How's this for being completely out-of-the-loop? The Post-Dispatch wrote a post today asking if James O'Keefe's video smear pieces are "ethical reporting." Of course, they don't bother to mention that O'Keefe's despicable tactics include attempting to sexually humiliate a female CNN reporter by isolating her on a boat full of sex toys and attempting to "seduce" her. But even worse, the author Steve Parker doesn't even seem to be familiar with the basic facts about O'Keefe's smear job on NPR. The original video presented by O'Keefe falsely suggested that former NPR executive Ron Schiller called the tea party racist. As originally caught by conservative website The Blaze, and since reported on by numerous outlets including CNN, NPR, Media Matters for America, Slate, Schiller was actually passing on what another person told him.

Here's how O'Keefe originally presented the words:

SCHILLER: The current Republican party is not really the Republican party. It's been hijacked by this group -- that is --

"AMIR MALIK": The radical, racist, Islamophobic, tea party people?

SCHILLER: And not just Islamophobic but really xenophobic

And here's reality:

SCHILLER: I won't break a confidence, but a person who was an ambassador -- so a very highly placed Republican -- another person who was one of the top donors to the Republican Party, they both told me they voted for Obama, which they never believed they could ever do in their lives. That they could ever vote for a Democrat, ever. And they did, because they believe that the current Republican Party is not really the Republican Party. It's been hijacked by this group that is

"AMIR MALIK": The radical, racist, Islamophobic, Tea Party people?

SCHILLER: Exactly. And not just Islamophobic but really xenophobic.

O'Keefe's edit completely changed the sound of the conversation and falsely implied that Schiller was using that terminology himself.

Yet the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, while asking people whether O'Keefe is "ethical," leaves out the fundamental criticism of his "sting," and information that completely undercuts his case. Great way to foster healthy dialogue.

Post-Dispatch Reports on Protest Without Saying *Why* There Was a Protest

Almost one week after completely ignoring a 4,300 person pro-union rally in Kiener Plaza and then offering a lame excuse, the Post-Dispatch today reported on Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE) protesting at a "100 Most Influential St. Louisans" event." The only problem? They didn't even bother to explain why MORE was protesting. Jake Wagman titled his post "Polite Protesters Interrupt Nixon at SLU" and only provided this as an explanation:

An appearance by Gov. Jay Nixon at St. Louis University was briefly interrupted Friday morning by a group protesting foreclosures and bank bailouts.

How exactly are readers supposed to know anything about the group's motivations based on that description?

For those would who like to know the actual statement of the group, Damien Johnson grabbed some video of the actual speech:


What they were asking for is that foreclosures be stopped until a just system be put in place, in contrast to the shameful actions currently being practiced by Bank of America and other bad banks.

Again, compare this to their coverage of the tea party. Would the Post-Dispatch ever even dream of covering a tea party event without passing on the tea party explanation of what the event was about? Why is it so hard for the Post-Dispatch to give fair coverage to anyone who opposes the abuse of power by corporate America?

Christopher Ave's Inadequate Explanation of the Post-Dispatch Ignoring a 4,300 Person Labor Rally

I received an email response from Chrisopher Ave with a purported explanation of why the St. Louis Post-Dispatch shamefully ignored a pro-union rally of over 4,300 people last Friday in Kiener Plaza:

Thanks for taking the time to email. I'm sorry that we failed to cover Friday's rally. As you know, Friday was a very busy news day with two local court sentencings and the tragedy in Japan. We had a reporter at the rally, but he was called away to help cover local reactions to the tsunami. Our photographers were engaged covering the court developments that unfortunately were scheduled at the same time.

Again, thanks for expressing your views. While we don't cover every rally, this is one we should have covered. I'm sorry that we let you down in this case.

Sincerely,

Christopher Ave
Political Editor
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
STLtoday.com

While I agree that the Tsunami was an shockingly tragic story and one well worth covering in the paper, this response strikes me as incredibly odd and stands in contradiction of previous comments. First of all, when the Post-Dispatch was criticized earlier for completely ignoring the protests in Wisconsin, their response was that they are a "local paper" focused on local news. This confirms what former columnist Sylvester Brown reported at the online organizing training in December, where he said he was continually told not to write about national issues at the Post. Yet when there's a huge pro-worker rally in St. Louis, all of a sudden they need all hands on deck to get local reactions to a story from across the world. Don't get me wrong: there's no question Tsunami coverage needed to be in the paper, but why send a reporter away from a rally in progress with 4,300 people? Also, Ave's response claimed that the reporter was called away "to help" get local reactions, which implied that there were already other reporters working on that story. Did they really need multiple people working on a nonlocal story? Shouldn't the main daily be prepared and able to cover multiple events? How hard would it have been for them simply to have included a photograph or a short paragraph that noted that 4,300 people rallied in downtown St. Louis?

Furthermore, compare this non-coverage to the fact that the Post-Dispatch bends over backwards to write a 600 word article about a tea party rally with 1/8 as many people last April. Would they even dream of ignoring a 1,000 person rally from the tea party, let alone a 4,000 person rally, in St. Louis? Of course not.

I don't think Ave's response is adequate. If Ave and the Post-Dispatch were really concerned, they could still find ways of writing about this story and informing their readers. But if they keep this shoddy coverage up, they're not going to have many readers left.

Corporate Media Versus Working People

Yesterday, 4,300+ people rallied in Kiener Plaza against corporate greed and the recent attacks against working people by the right wing. We know that when the tea party attracted crowds of 1/2 or even 1/10th that size, they would reliably get the equivalent of front page coverage from the local media. However, for this rally for the basic rights of working Americans, many of the news outlets barely made a peep.

Before getting into that, however, I want to focus on some good coverage. Jo Mannies at the Beacon did a nice job covering the union rally and the story was featured on the Beacon's front page. KSDK had a report about it during their 5 and 10 O'clock broadcasts. And KMOX and the St. Louis Business Journal both covered this important story. Charles Jaco was at the event so I'm guessing that he will talk about it for one of his special reports, but Fox 2 News did not provide regular coverage.

But the two outlets I really want to focus my ire on are KMOV and the Post-Dispatch. As we have seen, KMOV has had a string of pathetic right-wing coverage in recent weeks, which really is nothing new for them. In the past, they breathlessly reported on rallies where the tea party only had 700 people present. If the tea party had gotten 4,000 people to this rally, you know they would have been all over it. Instead, they completely ignored a rally of 4,300 union members on an issue that's related to a national story. And they ignored it at a time where a battle for the very soul of America is taking place, with the right wing trying to destroy the last group capable of pushing back against corporate power grabs.

And the Post-Dispatch ignoring this story? Ahhh, where do I start? Perhaps Post-Dispatch political director Christopher Ave needs to meet with some union members just like he invited Dana Loesch to coach him on how to cover the tea party. Of course, we don't need to ask how the Post-Dispatch owners feel about workers: they quite clearly do not care at all about them, to the point where they're willing to break written agreements and drop health care coverage for people with cancer in order to save a few pennies.

Apparently, the corporate media is not neutral in this dispute over whether corporations should be able to run completely rampant over everyone else. They have lost their last vestiges of objectivity.

Fortunately, we have awesome bloggers like Hotflash at Show Me Progress who can provide real coverage.

KMOV Flop

While we're on the topic of KMOV's terrible "reporting," I just had to point out my absolute all-time favor KMOV flop. This one isn't quite as important as their smear jobs on food-stamp recipients or university research, but it's just really funny and demonstrates the complete and utter collapse of modern TV news.

On the KMOV blog, Mark Schnyder wrote a "get off my lawn" post whining about the fact that Wash U students didn't have time to speak to him on their way to class:

I was across the street from the Washington University campus Wednesday morning carrying out my morning assignment: attempting to get thoughtful comments from students at Wash U regarding the upcoming appearance of Bristol Palin on their campus. You wouldn't believe how many student were late for class. I approached about a dozen seperate groups of students to get their opinion and almost all of them said, "Sorry, I'm late for class." A couple of them agreed to walk and talk with me but all the while I'm thinking, "wow, your parents are paying good money for you to go to Washington University and about 95% of my sample is late for class." This can't be good.

I know the area Schnyder is talking about, and his post is remarkably petty and ridiculous. He was trying to interview students on a road that is a direct path between the dorms and many classrooms, some of which I've taught in. Most students travel that road to get to their morning classes and, as is not surprising at all, they have no interest in waking up early to get to class 20 minutes early. But, generally speaking, they get to class on time. In fact, I'm frequently quite amazed at how seriously Wash U students take their classes, compared to other places I've been at.

It seems obvious to me that what the students were saying was, "If I talk to you, I will be late for class." But Schyder apparently couldn't handle the thought that students wanted to get to class on time rather than talk to him. He ended his post with this:

I can take the rejection but it's hard to stomach the idea of so many of our future leaders missing class.

Actually, it's pretty obvious, you can't take the rejection.

Why We Need to Build Our Own Media, Part 3,362,489

The mainstream media has been thoroughly embarrassing themselves and tipping their hand with their coverage of the massive people's movement to stop right-wing extremists' attempts to cripple working families. There were numerous examples of this fact in the past week. First, the Sunday talk show circuit was stacked in favor of the Republican perspective on the fight going on in Wisconsin. Second, the mainstream networks gave very little coverage to 100,000 people rallying in Madison, Wisconsin yesterday in the snow! Compare that to the basically round-the-clock coverage of tea party rallies with less people.

And here in Missouri, we have an AP story about competing rallies that at least correctly points out that there were more people present in support of unions than those opposed. They put the numbers at 300 union supporters and 200 people who hate workers (my words, obviously, not the APs). However, the AP story incorrectly claimed that the pro-union rally was organized by unions. The rally was actually organized by MoveOn.org while the big unions like the AFL-CIO, SEIU, and others held events in St. Louis and Kansas City. It's mind-boggling to me that the AP would get this wrong, since it indicates that they didn't even speak with the MoveOn organizer or with the labor unions. How can they be fairly reporting on these issues if they're not even speaking to the pro-labor organizers, to the point where they don't even know who organized the rallies?

Do I think the mainstream media has a right-wing bias? Not necessarily. They might have a right-wing bias, or they might have a "insider conventional wisdom" bias that is completely disconnected with reality. But either way, it's absolutely not acceptable and does anything but lead to an informed public. Progressives need to build our own vehicles to get the facts out, because the mainstream media is failing at the job.

By the way, that's exactly why a group of bloggers formed ForwardSTL, an aggregator designed to highlight progressive thought in the St. Louis region.

Update: Michael Bersin at Show Me Progress posted some photos of the rally. They show that the AP also badly overestimated the crowd size of the tea party attendance. It looks like about 50 people to me, tops. What a horrible hack job by the AP.

Right Wing Bias: If KSDK Tells You It's Raining...

...it might be time to hit the shower. Yesterday, I noticed quite a few people upset online about the obvious right-wing bias of a KSDK panel put together to analyze Obama's State of the Union address. The panel consisted of center-left Missouri Democratic Chair Susan Montee, Obama supporter Kevin O'Malley, straight right-wing GOP operative Ann Wagner, and far right extremist Bill Hennessy of the tea party, along with straight political analyst Dave Robertson. I think it's pretty obvious that two moderate or center-left viewpoints are not really "balanced" with one hard right and one extreme right spokesperson: the scale is tipped to the right. And, at the very least, it is unquestionable that nobody more liberal than the mainstream Democratic party was represented, whereas Hennessy represented a perspective further right than the mainstream GOP. This of course is a regular pattern in the mainstream media, where far-right positions untethered to reality are regularly given air time alongside Republicans and Democrats, but liberal positions are treated as not even worthy of discussion.

I know from the messages I got that quite a few people called KSDK to complain about the lack of representation from a more liberal perspective. And how did KSDK respond? By keeping all of the same people and simply declaring at the beginning of their program that "every part of the political spectrum was covered." I'm not sure if this was intended to be a slap in the face of the people who had asked them to balance their program, or if they really just think their viewers are stupid enough to automatically accept everything they say without thinking about it.

Anyway, the good news is that having Bill Hennessy on did not help the tea party or GOP cause whatsoever. Hennessy rambled on about how Obama secretly hates constitution: anyone who would be moved by that message was already a member of the tea party a long time ago. Also, favorite quote from Hennessy:

In history, most of the problem that has arisen for the people, didn't come from other people, it came from a tyrannical government, or from a government of another country invading.

Because everyone knows that governments aren't made up of people. They're made of Nazi juice and Stalin mustaches, or something.

Does Having Dana Loesch As a Guest Damage Anderson Cooper's Credibility?

Eliza, a St. Louis resident who keeps a close eye on Anderson Cooper, recently published her 2010 in review post. In it, she included the following observations:

BOOKINGS THAT HURT CREDIBILITY, AKA WHY IS DANA LOESCH ON MY TEEVEE SCREEN?

This listicle topic is almost a continuation of where we just left, and it is perhaps the one that has me most flummoxed. After watching this show seriously up their game when it comes to living up to their mission of keeping people honest, it is beyond disappointing to watch them stain that credibility by continually inviting on Andrew Breitbart blogger Dana Loesch. And I love how they neglect to mention his name when introducing her. I suppose that might make Anderson Cooper look like a bit of a hypocrite.

After all, our anchor didn't speak very highly of Breitbart's brand of "journalism" (which is also favored by Loesch) during the Sherrod debacle. Not to mention Loesch's Breitbart-like penchant for attacking people (my recent favorite is probably when she called Eric Boehlert a "Soros buttboy"--classy!), while our anchor makes calls for civility.

I understand why the show invites her on: she's young, conservative, and attractive. But she's also a bully, has a severe aversion to facts, and is not only a supporter and editor for the discredited Andrew Breitbart, she's also a promoter of the work of James O'Keefe, a man who once attempted to sexually humiliate a former CNNer. This is the guest 360 wants to lend their credibility? Surely there are better individuals in the supposedly vast Tea Party that could provide their perspective. If the show is fully informed of everything I have just posted, I can only assume this is just a game to them, and they do not respect their viewers as much as I would have hoped.

Just to throw in my two cents, Loesch is pretty clearly every bit as dishonest and unethical as Breitbart, and every bit as willing to destroy innocent people for cheap political points: she simply hasn't had the power to do as much damage as he has. But if folks like Cooper keep giving her a platform, she will someday soon.

Anyway, Eliza's whole post is a very thoughtful media critique. You can read it here.

Ed Martin's Lapdog Media

We don't take kindly to outsiders in these parts. Or, at least, some ridiculous members of our local media don't.

Check out this amazing video, originally uploaded on June 20:


The relevant line from Ed Martin:

I just got forwarded to me this vicious memo that Congressman Carnahan's campaign manager sent out. And a member of the press here in town sent me a message and said "I love it when these East Coast Liberals come to town and run these campaigns and think we're going to fall for it."

Yup, that's right, a member of the local press complained to Ed Martin about outsider East Coast Liberals having the audacity to come to St. Louis to work on Congressional campaigns. Message from St. Louis to the rest of the world: "get back whereya came from ya durn hippies!"

Now, as has been well documented, Jake Wagman was far and away the biggest lapdog to Ed Martin during the campaign, repeatedly sharing false and misleading information about Carnahan that could easily have been fact-checked while refusing to ask Ed Martin difficult questions, a pattern of shameless pandering that continues to this day. But would Wagman really say something as lame as "East Coast Liberals?" It's hard to imagine. But, ironically enough, if it was someone else who used the term, that person actually covered the race far more fairly than Wagman, since Wagman far-and-away provided the most-biased coverage of the race.

Anyway, it's a good video clip to remember the next time some clown complains about the "liberal media."

Post-Dispatch Reporter Dismisses Substantive Criticism As "Sticks and Stones"

I've written a couple posts recently that were very critical of Post-Dispatch reporter Jake Wagman, and particularly his biased coverage of the Russ Carnahan/ Ed Martin race. I think I provided good evidence for my assertions, but as someone who tries to be open-minded, I realize that people might have reasons for disagreeing with me. However, in my posts, I did provide substantive criticisms, by which I mean specific claims that can be argued for or against. For example, I said that

Jake Wagman improperly left out crucial information in his latest article about the election in a way that fed into Ed Martin's insinuations that the election was somehow stolen or cheated.

Wagman trumped up stories about election problems in Ed Martin's 4,500 vote loss while completely ignoring well-documented voting problems in a race that Barbara Fraser lost by less than 180 votes. This suggests an inconsistent application of whatever criteria he uses to decide that a story is "newsworthy."

Wagman wrote a piece that was basically a press release for Ed Martin attacking Carnahan on the wind farm without getting a single quote from the Carnahan campaign or the Democratic Party.

In that same story, Wagman failed to do any research other than the press release, and so left out information that vindicated the Carnahans.

You can agree or disagree with these claims, but they are substantive claims. I provided evidence for those claims, and it should in principle be possible for people who disagree to provide evidence against these claims, such as saying, "the Post-Dispatch has a policy of always doing X, which is why Wagman did what he did," or "Wagman has X, Y, Z responsibilities that prevent him from getting quotes on every story." Those would be the types of reasons people could provide in a responsible, adult debate.

However, I submit that for anyone interested in honest and open debate, it is not cool to respond to substantive criticisms with vague dismissals that don't even attempt to address the substance. If I had just called Wagman a name, then it would make sense to respond with a vague dismissal. But I backed up my claims, so any legitimate response would similarly at least attempt to also make substantive claims and to back them up with evidence. So, with that in mind, consider this tweet yesterday from St. Louis Post-Dispatch Reporter Jeremy Kohler:
No substance. No supporting evidence. Nothing. Just a knee-jerk "circling the wagons" response that pretends that there was nothing worth responding to. So naturally, I invited him to expand on his critique:

So far, Kohler has not responded, and has instead moved on to other conversations.

Personally, I would like to think that a reporter at the Post-Dispatch who has time to make defensive remarks on Twitter would be interested in getting to the truth and as such seriously considering criticisms that relate to how journalism should be conducted. But we shall see.

Exhibit B of Wagman's Biased and Lazy Reporting

Yesterday, I wrote about the terrible reporting of Jake Wagman that fed into Ed Martin's ridiculous insinuations of "voter fraud" in Congressman Carnahan's decisive 4,500 vote win over Martin. Wagman left out important information, and, as a point of comparison, has been completely ignoring students who were apparently illegally purged from voter rolls and denied provisional ballots in an election that was decided by less than 180 votes. All of this was worse, I wrote, given the context of Wagman's other terrible reporting on the Russ Carnahan/Ed Martin race.

Today, I present a further example of that context. As noted, the St. Louis Tea Party that idolizes Andrew Breitbart and James O'Keefe has had nothing but glowing praise for Wagman's reporting on the Carnahan/Martin race for the past two months. Check out this tweet from Dana Loesch in September:
Yup, Dana Loesch said it was a "solid piece." That should be your first warning.

If you read the story, you can see why Loesch was so excited about it. The post basically amounts to nothing more than an Ed Martin press release, suggesting that the "perception of coziness" from Tom Carnahan being awarded $107 million of federal funding would be an "unwelcome liability" for the Carnahans. Wagman quoted BFF Ed Martin in the story, along with Lloyd Smith, the executive director of the Missouri GOP. He did not quote any Democrats in his hit piece.

And to further see just how absolutely terrible Wagman's reporting was, compare it to his colleague Bill Lambrecht, who actually took the time to figure out the details of the funding. Here's my previous summary of Lambrecht's article:

In order for Ed Martin's claims to be true, Russ Carnahan would have had to have some influence over the process of awarding the funds. However, as is clearly reported in the article, neither Russ Carnahan nor Robin Carnahan had any roll in deciding how the funds were used:

Russ Carnahan was among 244 House Democrats who voted for the legislation. But officials from the Energy and Treasury departments, who jointly administer the program, said that neither Russ nor Robin Carnahan played a role in the awards.

But hold on because it actually gets better. Not only did Russ Carnahan not play a role in the awarding of the funds, he couldn't possibly have played a role, because the funding was awarded automatically to projects that met the basic criteria:

The upfront payments to Lost Creek, a $300-million-plus project, and various other projects aren't awarded competitively but on the basis of meeting various criteria. For instance, companies were required to submit accredited designs and start building by the end of this year. Energy Department officials described the process as automatic; the Treasury Department is required to issue the payments to those who qualify within 60 days of application.

"Treasury has no discretionary authority in this," said Treasury spokeswoman Sandra Salstrom.

In other words, any projects that met certain criteria were funded, including another $85 million dollar project in Missouri last year and a $170 million dollar project in Illinois.

So not only was there no influence from Russ or Robin, there was no possible role influence could play! Martin's claims of "funneling" were completely fabricated. Tom Carnahan says as much in the article:

In an interview, Carnahan, 41, the youngest son of former Gov. Mel Carnahan and former U.S. Sen. Jean Carnahan, said he is untroubled by criticism of the payment. He said that neither his family's political clout nor any lobbying could have played a role in the process.

"Not only was there not any contact or anything like that, it was not necessary," he said, referring to the eligibility requirements.

Tom Carnahan also said that his company has invested a lot of money in rural Missouri:

Carnahan asserted that his 5-year-old company has been responsible for $600 million investments in Missouri "that have made gigantic contributions to the economy in rural Missouri. I'm very proud of that. We need to be doing more to support renewable energy, not less."

And lest you think that this tax credit was the result of some sneaky language put in by Russ to help out his brother, the article reports that the payments were actually composed of two tax credits: one that has been around since the 70s and one that was first approved in 1992. Prior to the stimulus, the credits were reauthorized in 2008, and even Roy Blunt voted for them:

In fact, Robin Carnahan's opponent in the Senate race, U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt, was a key backer of the financial bailout bill in 2008, one of several measures that reauthorized the tax credit.

Finally, Martin and tea partiers have been complaining that the award was in the form of cash rather than tax credits, and this was also explained in the article:

Critics of the Lost Creek funding have seized on the design of the payment. Rather than giving the credits after companies file tax returns, the stimulus legislation provides for upfront payments equivalent to 30 percent of the cost of the project. It was done that way, the Treasury Department has said, so "the near term goal of creating and retaining jobs is achieved, as well as the long-term benefit of expanding the use of clean and renewable energy."

So given that Ed Martin has been repeatedly making accusations about undue influence in a process that Carnahan could not possibly have influenced, what exactly is Martin's explanation for his repeated acusations of corruption?

"I'm not saying there's anything illegal; it may not be corruption with a capital 'C' with people taking bribes. But it doesn't smell right," said Martin, who raised the issue while debating Russ Carnahan over the weekend.

It doesn't smell right. That's Ed Martin's pathetic explanation for months of smears about a process that Carnahan couldn't influence.

Now, I suppose you could try to defend Wagman by pointing out that he got quotes from the Carnahans the following day, but that largely misses the point. If you put out misleading information one day, then put out true information the following day, there's going to be a percentage of people who only saw the first information. So putting out one-sided smear pieces is damaging to the journalistic ideal of an informed public. Furthermore, when you see what a great job Lambrecht did actually getting the details of the case, it makes you wonder why they hell Wagman just prints smears from a press release without doing any investigation whatsoever. Really, it's just not responsible journalism, however you spin it. Which is exactly why Dana Loesch loved it.

Tea Party Tells Blunt "We Will Not Back Down"...Then Backs Down

From two days ago:
But since Roy Blunt publicly defended his stance on earmarks yesterday morning, there has basically been complete silence from the St. Louis Tea Party on the issue. In fact, since yesterday, the tea party has attacked Claire McCaskill, who supports earmark reform, multiple times and not said anything critical of Blunt. Ennenbach hasn't said anything critical of Blunt. Hennessy hasn't said anything critical of Blunt. So basically, they completely backed down.

But the real question is, will they be held responsible? The media gave them coverage for their so-called "pressure" on Blunt (BTW, while national groups encouraged people to call Blunt about earmarks, the St. Louis tea party did not). So shouldn't they also cover it if the tea party completely backs away from their threats?

Tea Party Denies Running Ads for Ed Martin

Jo Mannies had an article that asked the tea party about potential violations of their 501(c)(4) status. Unfortunately, Mannies did not provide a link to my research nor ask any tough follow ups, so readers at the Beacon don't really have any way of evaluating the suggestion (note: Mannies updated the post with further information, so the previous sentence is no longer true). However, she did say the following about the tea party:

Evans and Ennenbach dismiss the assertions of some Democrats and progressive bloggers that the St. Louis Tea Party ran afoul of its tax-exempt status by endorsing Martin. The St. Louis Tea Party is a 501C4, meaning that politics can't be its primary activity, and that endorsements can't be communicated to the general public.

Both say the St. Louis Tea Party was careful not to run ads in favor of Martin, and defend a billboard that featured pictures of Martin and Carnahan and the question, ""Who deserves to serve?"

Of course, the billboard itself is not what's at issue. What is at issue is the tea party's running of multiple online ads that link directly to endorsements of Ed Martin. First, there was a "Who Deserves to Serve" advertisement on Reboot Congress that clearly stated "Paid for by the St. Louis Tea Party Coalition." Clicking on that ad takes readers directly to a page on the St. Louis Tea Party website that says that "Ed Martin deserves to serve instead of Russ Carnahan," and says that Ed Martin "deserves your vote." This was documented with both screen shots and a shot of the html that shows the direct link. The St. Louis Tea Party also ran a google ad that said "Paid For by the St. Louis Tea Party Coalition" that linked directly to a page featuring a video from Bill Hennessy where Hennessy say:

I'm going to ask you to take one hour, just one hour, Monday or Tuesday, to come to the St. Louis Tea Party Headquarters at 4512 Hampton Avenue in St. Louis Hills, just south of Hampton Village, and give one hour to phone calls or knocking on doors asking your friends and neighbors, your fellow citizens to go to the polls on Tuesday and vote for Ed Martin and the tea party candidates across the ballot.

The St. Louis tea party also had their name on Taxpayers for Ed Martin yard signs.

So once again, we have reporters providing free publicity to the tea party without bothering to dig into questions or forcing them to actually respond to specifics. And while Mannies makes a vague reference to "progressive bloggers," she won't even provide a link that would allow readers to evaluate the evidence themselves. I'm just not sure how the press thinks that this model of journalism actually leaves people adequately informed.