Yesterday, I wrote about the dust up of an article that appeared in The Washington Times.
First, again, I want to make this clear: I don't like that sort of name calling. It serves no purpose, to me, instead of highlighting that the people doing it have nothing else to go after. Or, they may, but they are too damned lazy to try.
On the media:
When a reporter writes:
State Sen. Lisa A. Gladden, a black Baltimore Democrat, said she does not expect her party to pull any punches, including racial jabs at Mr. Steele, in the race to replace retiring Democratic U.S. Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes.
"Party trumps race, especially on the national level," she said. "If you are bold enough to run, you have to take whatever the voters are going to give you. It's democracy, perhaps at its worse, but it is democracy."
I wonder why, in this case, the reporter directly quotes the person being interviewed, but uses his own words about what she said in another. When Lisa Gladden called into a hostile talk show and said that the direct quote was accurate but the first attribution was not accurate, why should she NOT be taken at her word?
The direct quote isn't exactly making her look good, is it?
For the self proclaimed conservatives, if a "liberal" newspaper had quoted a Republican in such a way, and that Republican said the attribution was inaccurate, wouldn't you be rushing to defend and "attack" or "question" the source?
This morning, on WOLB, a Black talk radio station in Baltimore opened up the telephone lines to this topic. Most of the callers self-identified themselves as Black and Democrats, rushed to support Michael Steele. Additionally, some local Black politicians and citizens then ran down the list of accomplishments, from a Black point of view, of the Erlich and Steele administration.
In July, I highlighted a few of the accomplishments.
I read the online edition of The Washington Times. I've read their coverage and how they cover things and feel correct in saying they are conservative and Republican backers.
[Updated]
6:22 PM EST, Verna Jones is now on WEAA, The Danny Glover Show, discussing the original article. She is now saying the reporter took her out of context and added words to what she said:
State Sen. Verna Jones, Baltimore Democrat and vice chairman of the General Assembly's black caucus, said black Republicans deserve criticism because the GOP has not promoted the interests of the black community.
Verna Jones is saying that she never said Black Republicans. She was saying Republicans in general.
So, let me go to the liberal Baltimore Sun.
The article concludes that the lawmakers believe that some recent attacks against Steele are justified, such as a doctored picture on a liberal blog that showed Steele in minstrel makeup. But the politicians said that their quotes were taken out of context and that they do not support racially tinged criticism. The reporter who wrote the article and the managing editor of the Times did not return telephone calls.
I completely agree that Liberals can be taken out of context as well as Conservatives. There is, however, another possibility: misinterpretation. For example, in the case of Ms. Jones, she very well may have just said "Republicans," but in the context of the interview and the topic at hand the reported understiid her to be talking specifically about black Republicans.
Unfortunately, the tendency for the press to insinuate themselves into the political, choose sides and then tailor the news to match has created an environment where both sides automatically assume bias and intentional distortion are the causes for inaccuracies. And this is not only sad, but potentially dangerous.
I do not think I'm alone, however, in noting the almost doublespeak involved in justifying of characature a black man as a minstrel and then condemning racially tinged criticism in the very next sentence. Oh, I get it, it's only "racially tinged criticism" if someone else were doing it.
Posted by: submandave at November 4, 2005 08:59 AM