Typical BS from KOB -TV

[abq e streeter]

Just seen on our wonderful NBC affiliate: "moderates" are the ones trying to cut money from Pres. Obama's stimulus plan. Am thinking of calling or emailing them but what's the point; they will continue to spew their corporate right wing bullshit till and beyond the day the very same bullshit destroys the last vestiges of this great country.

[abq e streeter]

1. Well, for what its worth ,I sent em a sarcastic email

saying I had a news tip that KOB thinks ( in many cases correctly) their viewers are too stupid to realize the blatant bias of referring to these congressional rightwingers as moderates.

[Constance Craving]

2. That's about right!

It is frustrating, which is really why I don't watch any of our local coverage. Thom Hartmann, yesterday, I think was talking about a group of people who demanded the paper in Portland OR do a story on the Downing street memos. They stood outside the paper's building with a sign (20 ft banner) all day; the next day they printed something (a full page article)! We could try that, but I'm sure it would not even pierce Dianne Anderson, et al, 's eyes much less thick skulls!

Oh yeah, I do watch Mark Ronchetti (spelling?) weather reports because he shiny red cheeks make me laugh. My husband and I call him "cheeks!" As in "hey, come in here, Cheeks is on and it's gonna snow!" :P

[abq e streeter]

3. Not even sure if its thick skulls as opposed to " I do what they tell me and I get a nice paycheck"

I watch the local news out of habit ( how else would I know all about the murders, meth labs and car crashes that keep me being a well informed citizen). And I like to know the weather forecasts; Ronchetti seems like a pretty likeable guy, as do most of the local TV media people. I've known a few of them over the years and they all had a reasonably good brain in their heads. ( although some you could just tell were airheads). I think its a matter of selling out, as well as a lack of curiosity about analyzing anything too deeply. I didn't hear Hartmann's Downing street memo anecdote, but I bet most of the "journalists " there had never even heard of it, as opposed to intentionally ignoring it . Not from being stupid people ,but just never bothering to know stuff like that. I've on occasion left phone comments at channels 4, 7 and 13, and its always to the effect of, I understand you do what you're told to do, but I just always wonder, are you at least embarrassed about it? National news is the same BS; watch Charlie Gibson or Matt Lauer etc and you see what shockingly shallow corporate whores they are. One of the friends I alluded to is now apparently working for national Fox radio news now. She's hip and somewhat progressive, and when a mutual friend called her on it, she shrugged her shoulders and said that the other "more respectable" networks were not that different from Fox so what's the difference...This state of the mainstream press makes me more pessimistic than anything else about our chances of ever truly having the significant level of change that is America's only hope, as opposed to just tinkering around the edges. BTW, welcome to DU, Constance

[comanchero]

4. A lot of non Stimulus

stuff in the original bill. Stuff like what has been cut belongs on a regular spending bill so it can be addresses as such. The stimulus bill is meant to stimulate the economy. The stuff that was cut would not have done that.

[abq e streeter]

5. I'm guesing that you're more informed than I am about this ( not being sarcastic BTW)

my point was the subtle editorializing that is regularly done by the MSM under the guise of objective news; i.e. , in this case saying "moderates" were doing this or that without the slightest bit of backing up that statement, and of course inferring that there even is such a thing as a republican moderate these days, a species that the New York Times just today pointed out for all intents and purposes no longer exists.

[comanchero]

6. Moderates

I posted this elsewhere and I believe it to be true.

Governing from a far left position will not work for President Obama anymore than governing from the far right worked for George. W. Bush. Liberals ought to know that. I and others like me, will be watching that this administration is not hijacked by any coalition of extreme left wingers.

On a scale of 1 - 100, with 1 being the extreme left and 100 being the extreme right govern from a bit left of center, say 35 to 60. I recommend a chart with numbers like this on the wall of the oval office.

[abq e streeter]

7. Guess we'll have to agree to disagree on the definitions of "moderate', "far left" etc

but my original point remains valid, that opinion ( i.e. , this was the work of "moderates") was presented as a given ; a fact. An opinion you happen to, as is of course your right, agree with, but an opinion nonetheless. It would have been equally wrong for them to have said something like "The president's moderate bill was gutted by the far right"( an opinion I happen to agree with) without backing up how and why it was in fact the work of far right extremists. That would also be slanting the news and falsely portraying opinion as fact without presenting any evidence for their characterization of the event as being either the work of moderates or extremists, as opposed to just reporting that compromises have been reached between various factions or something to that effect.