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Subject: 
Re: This Californian Has Voted. Have You?
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Wed, 8 Oct 2003 20:53:49 GMT
Viewed: 
259 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Bruce Hietbrink wrote:
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Bruce Schlickbernd wrote:

Arnold admits to some of the charges and is a "good" guy and is "slimed"?  How
can he be slimed if he issues an apology, and a weak, vague one at that?  Sounds
more like it's the Times that is being slimed.

Bruce,

4 things:

1.  The LA Times devoted 3 reporters for 7 weeks to investigate the character of
one of the candidates, while ignoring any character issues on the other
candidates.  Gray Davis, for instance, is said to have a bad temper and has
lashed out verbally at staffers.  If they had devoted 3 reporters for 7 weeks to
investigate this, surely Gray Davis could have been portrayed in a very poor
light.  Simliarly Bustamante and McClintock may have character flaws that would
tarnish them, but who knows?  No one reported on these.

Okay, answer me this - would you assign 3 reporters to investigate bad temper
when everyone involved is in one spot, or 3 reporters to investigate alleged
criminal transgressions with the witnesses scattered about?  Which is
newsworthy?  Davis lashes out at staffers?  So does Bill Gates, and people think
him a great businessman for being so demanding (nor is it a secret - it's old
news, just like Davis being cranky is old news).  Neither are going to jail over
it.  If you have something on Bustamante and McClintock, bring it on!  I didn't
vote for either of those twits, and I'm sure the Times would like to sell some
more newspapers.

What it seems to be is that you're mad because you feel like the Times picked on
Schwarzenegger.  Why aren't they picking on the other guys?  Idunno - why did
they pick on Clinton?  Same newspaper, and they ran the $40 million dollar
sleaze story more than they complained about the waste of money.  Perhaps it's
like a boardgame - the leader always gets more than his fair share of attention
(I sandbag for a reason).  :-)


2.  At the same time they were publishing negative pieces on Arnold, glowing
puff pieces appeared on Tom McClintock.  Most observers felt this was an attempt
to split the Republican vote by boosting McClintock.

Forgive me, but where do you get this "most observers" claim from?



3.  The timing.  Releasing this story right before the election was felt to be
very strategic to hurt Arnold when he wouldn't have adequate time to refute any
controversy.

It also didn't have time to develop the evidence as thoroughly and irrefutably
as it could have.  Are you saying that you believe that the Times should have
published the allegations without doing proper research?  That the voters
shouldn't know that Arnold HAS ADMITTED to "inappropriate actions" - he wouldn't
have said a thing without the story.  As I have said before, since when does the
Times owe it to any candidate to publish a story on a timetable that is
convenient to a candidate?


4, and most damning.  Read this article:
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/03/46/news-bradley17.php
I can't speak to the political affiliation of the reporter, but the LA Weekly is
a liberal paper (they endorsed a no vote on the recall and Huffington as
replacement), and they claim that the LA Times leaked the story to Deomocrat
strategists, which allowed them time to prepare commercials and campaign
strategy.  Perhaps there is some sense of the small weekly publication trying to
stick it to the big giant of local print journalism (LA is essentially a one
newspaper town.  The Daily News and La Opinion (spanish language) don't have
much impact, and the weeklies like the LA Weekly, Valley Beat etc are more niche
market), but even with that, if these charges are true, the LA Times news
division -- not the editorial page -- was actively working on behalf of one side
of a political campaign.

Did you read the article?  Terrible reporting - lots of insinuation, no
substance.  No mentioning of the possiblity that the story was leaked by a
single source from within the newspaper (this can always happen - just ask
Dubya).  The paper denies that they leaked it as a matter of policy, but on they
go with the conspiracy theory.  Their conclusion in the second paragraph is
clearly wrong, too.  Pathetic, really.  I'd call it the least damning.

-->Bruce<--



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: This Californian Has Voted. Have You?
 
(...) Bruce, 4 things: 1. The LA Times devoted 3 reporters for 7 weeks to investigate the character of one of the candidates, while ignoring any character issues on the other candidates. Gray Davis, for instance, is said to have a bad temper and has (...) (21 years ago, 8-Oct-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

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