Friday, January 21, 2011

We Get Results!

For those who know me, I am not to kind to the Las Vegas Sun because of their liberal bias. Overall, when it comes to straight news, they do a very good job on their web site, better than any other media outlet in the Las Vegas Valley.
However, their political writers are just a bunch of journalistic hacks who completely lack journalism ethics when they write their stories. You cannot tell the difference in their "news" stories or a personal blog. They would insert their liberal opinions into a story whenever they felt like it. The "news" stories were more editorial than real news. It really showed when came to Sharron Angle-Harry Reid Senate race and the Rory Reid-Brian Sandoval governor's race. I would blog about the bias at the Sun and ripped them every chance I got. Annjeanette Damon, Delen Goldberg, David McGrath Schwartz and Karoun Demirjian were some of the worst offenders. Jon Ralston, when he would write a news story also violated journalistic ethics, but he is more of a columnist.
These "writers" violated the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics by: Distinguish between advocacy and news reporting. Analysis and commentary should be labeled and not misrepresent fact or context. http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp
An example of liberal bias in a news article comes from Damon: Over the next two months Rove’s Crossroads GPS and its sister organization, American Crossroads, will pour money into key races and attempt to build a ground game — political speak for the grass-roots organizations that put bodies in voting booths.
Although Republicans welcome the assistance, the fact the groups are organizing here is in some ways a tacit admission that the state party is, in some regards, a failure.
The public perception of political parties is that they’re about the principles and agendas their candidates espouse. At the state and local level they’re something far more mundane — organizations that raise money and mobilize members to get candidates elected.
Few disagree that in this regard, Nevada Republicans are in bad shape, particularly compared with the state’s Democratic Party, which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has spent six years building into a well-funded and efficient machine. http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/sep/05/broken-republican-party-rove-runs-rescue/

I even wrote Brian Greenspun, editor at the Sun if he believed his writers followed the journalism ethics. For some reason, Greenspun didn't reply. Probably too embarrassed that a little old ugly blogger would dare call him out on questionable ethics of his employees.
However, things to have seemed to have changed over at the Sun. their political writers are actually writing news stories and not inserting their opinions into the stories. This seemed to have started around New Years. Their political stories actually carries facts and it leaves out the writer's opinions. I may disagree with story but the at least now, the stories seem to have been professionally written, not by a Sesame Street School of Journalism drop out, which was the case before.
How long with this ethical writing last? Probably until the 2012 election cycle starts later this year, so enjoy it while you can.

2 comments:

  1. Speaking of journalistic standards, MSNBC is Olbermann-free.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm sure his two viewers will be disappointed.

    ReplyDelete