And yet, the media continues to reach new depths in its delinquent coverage of our "junior," but statesman senator, as well as election 2007. Case in point: News 7 at 6 coverage of Jim Webb's visit yesterday. I had hoped to go in person to see Webb, but was unable to attend. So, I tuned in to see the coverage of the Webb event at the Vinton War Memorial. Astonishingly, the coverage lasted merely seconds.
Not only did WDBJ-7 fail to talk about the specific endorsement by Senator Webb of Mike Breiner for state Senate, but also it downplayed Webb's strong defense of an important health care program, S-CHIP. First, the anchor's lead-in to the report told us that Webb was in town to promote the "controversial" program S-CHIP." Only in heartless, let-them-eat-cake GOPher world is health care for kids "controversial." The majority of Americans want S-CHIP. So it's not really "controversial, unless you are a radical, no-services-for-anybody-even-kids, Club-for-Growth type. But there was WDBJ-7 using the radical GOP frame/talking points to stoke the trivialization of Webb, his visit, and his cause. Note that in the online text linked below, the word "controversial" has been scrubbed from the story itself.
Then, we were told, Webb was also in town to stump for "Democratic candidates for General Assembly." The viewer was left to figure out which candidate(s).
Here's the scrubbed version of the WDBJ7 text of the story, such as it is here.
This appalling and lopsided reporting is not paralleled when the GOP muckity-mucks roll into town. Why, even the radical right, Iran-Contra-disgraced Oliver North stumping for Ralph Smith got more respect from the media. Even the local NPR station covered that appearance.
Had this been the much touted, but highly overrated, Sen. John Warner, coverage would have been much different. But, you know, we have been led to believe that Warner's continual efforts posturing as a "moderate" and a "statesman" were real.
Note that the Roanoke Times did little better in terms of depth. Check out it's great (sarcasm zone) coverage here. This flimsy coverage is one more reason progressives, who really still believe the work-the-refs mythology and spin by Republicans, that the media is "liberal," need to get a clue. Yep, some progressives, your friends and mine, still buy that nonsense. And until they get it, there is no chance we can get reform, much less work-the-refs, ourselves.
Footnote: Though the editorial pages of the Roanoke Times achieve greater parity between progressive v. conservative opinion, the news pages suffer from extremely lopsided coverage, spun the GOP way. But worse, its new publisher is taking the paper further down the rabbit hole of folksy, irrelevant chatter on much of the front pages. Those who think this is trivial should contemplate the long-term effects of this kind of coverage, in story after story, day after day. A dis- or uninformed public is every "decider's" dream.