Today I wanted to make a quick follow up note regarding the media coverage of the “tea parties” which were held not just here, but across the nation.

Words cannot describe the lack of professionalism, mean spiritedness, and down right out lies which were portrayed both nationally and on the local level.

I am certain a number of local journalist are on the “journaLIST” which was exposed a few months ago due to both tone of questions being asked and advocacy for Democrats and their policies being pushed in Washington.

The only exception I can give is the Springfield News-Leader’s piece which provided a sensible and fair reading of the event.

The worst example? The KY3 Political Notebook, of course.

Instead of providing the who, what, when, where and how - Catanese crossed a line and proceeded to try and advocate Barack Obama’s tax increase while either egging on or ignoring protesters.

At least on the surface it looks as if his objective, like many national news outlets, was to discredit the protest and make them look like complete idiots.

To that end, my advice to fellow Ozarkians is this: let them be.

It is apparent that KY3’s current news producer does not care about the accuracy or fairness of Catanese’s reporting and is probably laughing along side the guy as the news is published and poking fun of the way most of us “native folk” live, work and believe.

To that extent it those people are best left alone while most of us out here in fly over country continue to focus on finding our political voices and legs again.

To be sure, the Missouri Information Analysis Center’s report is troubling in many aspects. Whether one focuses on its apparent mention of conservative and Christian icons as being a sign of being a potential terrorist or the lack of research supporting the document - bottom line is that its a sham.

So why no mention here?

Honestly, for the most part I believe the political bickering was exactly that - bickering without a cause.

The faux outrage mocked by Nixon is just the tip of the iceberg. Still yet, why were Republicans in Jefferson City focusing on one or two items relating to the third party and political mentions instead of the actual lack of research behind the report.

What should, in my mind, trouble people the most is the complete lack of academic honesty or effort in such matters.

As a society we need to understand that such reports are made by human beings which means they are flawed from the outset. Still, that does not give people a wide berth regarding these matters.

In this particular case there was no outstanding evidence or explanation as to how the center arrived at their conclusions.

To that end, I decided to sit and observe the situation, and the results were admittedly depressing for my self.

I would add that I felt the state wide coverage of the event was alright - especially given how most eat out of Jay Nixon’s hand.

In either case, lets get specific people. After all we are talking about political and religious profiling, are we not?

Its not often I give media outlets kudos because, to be honest, there is so much intellectually wrong about them.

I am going to step out on a limb here and point to a lot of work Chad Livengood is doing over at the News-Leader.

While I still loath the editorial department at the paper, I would point out that Livengood is doing a lot of hard work providing solid coverage on what is going on in our government.

By this I mean instead of publishing gossip or editorialized news coverage he seemingly tries to push the elected official for more specifics. I first noticed this when Obama visited Springfield last summer.

Livengood was the only person to ask Obama any questions worthy of substance and pushed for deeper meaning.

Similarly, before the legislative session began Livengood wrote an entire series about our local legislatures and their goals for this session. It was a policy wonk’s dream.

Today, Chad provides a lot of specific information regarding legislation and bills. This is paramount to helping citizens be able to think for themselves and most importantly, preserve our freedom and liberty.

Let me be clear, Livengood is human and is not perfect. However, when faced with a state wide media brigade who would rather reprint talking points word for word, he is a breath of fresh air.

I hope to continue and see more indepth work which focuses on issues. Kudos!

A couple of days ago I carped a bit about the media being in love with Nixon, to which I am sure a few reporters either laughed off the comment or just cursed underneath their breath in disagreement. To which I would point to the coverage of the current fee office fiasco being raised by Governor Nixon and Democrats in the state legislature as an example of shoddy coverage.

The reporting from my view, is lacking both in depth and in perhaps more importantly, the same zeal which Matt Blunt faced when proposing policy change.

Its not that I dont oppose reforming the system and removing the political patronage. I think most Missourians like the idea and understand the concept. What bothers me is many media outlets seem to be repeating of talking points with no examination of whether or not the program will work on a functional or political level.

For instace, only Chad Livengood mentioned a few weeks ago that the system has no safe gaurds to prevent Governor Nixon from installing his own political buddies. Similarly, with just one exception, there apparently is no desire to seek transparency of the process. Nor can I find anyone discussing the merrits of the criteria put in place to determine points - or asking any details of the point process at all.  Did I mention the pay to play aspects of the proposal which gives bonus points for giving money back to the state?

Instead of insightful analysis regarding actual functional service and probing of the real decision making process we recieving warm fuzzy stories which proclaim the end of political patronage. Some reporters even give wet kisses to past political flunkies credit for the which Nixon is implementing.

Of course there are a couple of bright spots, as always.

The first would be a piece written by Chad Livengood who point blank asked Nixon about the “pay to play” nature of the proposal which was brushed aside. While reporters cannot be expected to shake all the answers out, I am pleasantly suprised by the fact Livengood investigated that detail.

The second bright spot would be a particular piece written by Tony Messenger. He asks about the Nixon administration questions about public transparency and gets a pat answer with a couple of small details. Still, it lays a foundation of responsibility which is of great importance if Governor Nixon decides to abuse the system and reintroduce “political patronage” in a different form.

So what am I looking for? Simple, for state media outlets to challenge Nixon the exact way they challenged Blunt and analyze these policy decisions.

By now most people who are like my self and addicted to news probably knows about the little stunt pulled by Governor Nixon’s administration today where they sought to confiscate cell phones. While the media objected, Nixon still got his way by getting reporters to turn off the phones.

So what does this really mean? Does it matter?

My take on the event follows some where along the lines that the event was a power play to control the environment from top to bottom.

The only other time I can remember anyone within a state or national government doing this, it was to control the information going into and coming from the event. I firmly believe this is what the media faced today.

For instance: If someone is using their cell phone to text statements back and forth - someone could be fact checking them and the reporter could ask Nixon a question which might be very hard to answer and cause him to squirm.

This type of media control is not new for Nixon. During the campaign the governor never ever really came out and answered hard, substantive questions or was challenged on any issue. Now in office, Nixon is trying to maintain the same level of media control.

Of course the question is whether or not it will happen.

My guess is that the media probably wont care and will continue to fawn over him and challenge Nixon only occassionally on issues which he might drift toward the center on or deviate from a left wing campaign stance.

During the past eight years on the national level the media at large used many “unnamed sources” to make many sweeping accusations against the Bush administration and Republicans in general. While the headlines stuck for a while, many of the charges fell apart once the allegations were looked into. It would remain the case, as Rush Limbaugh states, the facts dont matter its the seriousness of the charge.

It is in this same viegn that a little media dust up has occurred in our little part of the the universe. KSPR ran a headline that Greene County Presiding Commissioner David Coonrod was being considered by Jay Nixon to run the Department of Natural Resources.

KSPR ran the story citing unnamed sources with no confirmation from Nixon or Coonrod.

Journalist Chad Livengood called the news station on their story to which KSPR has said their source spoke on the condition of anonymity.

My question is why and who would be in the position to know what the Jay Nixon administration would be planning. Perhaps more importantly to my self, what was the motivation for the tip or what was asked for in return for the scoop.

I understand the need for whistleblower protection, but the game that is played now focuses on using anonymity as a means to cloak a political opponent’s dagger with some news organizations playing the all too happy role of patsy.

Dont think news organizations are pure as the wind driven snow. If anything this year (and in years past on a local level) proved that to be a fallacy.

For the record, I worked with KSPR News Director Brade Belote at KY3 in years past and got along great with him. That doesnt mean I agree with the passing of such sources or what is happening.

I am also willing to cede my ignorance of the entire situation they are in.

However, a large part of me leans toward this story simply being printed up as gossip and should be reported as such, not in the same category as hard news.

I wanted to comment on a Kraske piece published recently in the Kansas City Start. It is a piece which is vile, disgusting and embodies the type of biased journalism which permeates the “main stream media” during this election cycle.

In the piece, Kraske discusses what would happen if McCain wins instead of Obama. He lists a whole bunch of things which are supposed be bad (like divided government) with little discussion on why those committing the acts would be irresponsible in doing so.

However, Kraske then writes something so irresponsible and reprehensible that I cannot let things go. He says that a McCain win would be inviting “Jim Crow to dinner.”

For those who do not remember or know who Jim Crow was, they were laws established after the civil war to prevent African Americans from voting and participating in society.

To imply that a McCain win would be inviting that mentality back into American culture is both a lie from the pits of hell and disgustingly beyond the pale.

I cannot word strongly enough my repudiation of the thesis of the remark and the thoughts behind it. It reminds me of how a local reporter tried to persuade people to vote for Obama by posting a remark supposedly made by a friend of his who “is a traditional Republican.” Supposedly the friend is voting for Obama simply to tell their child because they felt unable to answer to their children why they didnt vote for the first African-American president.

If the person was really thinking, they would be able to look their child straight in the eye and respond: I voted on by the content of character, not by the color of one man’s skin.

The same is applicable to Kraske’s piece. If Obama is not elected it has nothing to do with his race, and more to do with his radical positions and suppression of basic freedoms which an unchecked Congress would be all to happy to pass.

Senator Obama’s campaign decided to purge reporters from the final leg of the campaign. Oddly enough each of those reporters belonged to newspapers who decided to endorse McCain in leu of the Junior Senator from Illinois.

This, combined with the “pay to play” operations charging media outlets to cover Obama during election night should raise serious ethical questions.

In short, it lays ground work that says write nice stuff about us or recieve no access - which means of course getting scooped by the competition.

If this is any sort of omen, America is in for a rough time if Obama is elected.

John McCain made several remarks today, which I echo, regarding the Obama campaign (and media) attacks on Joe  Wurzelbacher.

In my mind, we know more about Wurzelbacher’s life and his mistakes in the past twenty four hours than Senator Obama after two years of exposure during a presidential campaign. The implied message: Dont you dare ask “the messiah” any sort of question which makes him look unflattering.

McCain took this attitude to task, and rightfully so. I commend the Senator. Here are a few of the highlights:

“The response from Senator Obama and his campaign yesterday was to attack Joe. People are digging through his personal life and he has TV crews camped out in front of his house. He didn’t ask for Senator Obama to come to his house. He wasn’t recruited or prompted by our campaign. He just asked a question. And Americans ought to be able to ask Senator Obama tough questions without being smeared and targeted with political attacks.

The question Joe asked about our economy is important, because Senator Obama’s plan would raise taxes on small businesses that employ 16 million Americans. Senator Obama’s plan will kill those jobs at just the time when we need to be creating more jobs. My plan will create jobs, and that’s what America needs.

Senator Obama says that he wanted to spread your wealth around. When politicians talk about taking your money and spreading it around, you’d better hold onto your wallet. Senator Obama claims that wants to give a tax break to the middle class, but not only did he vote for higher taxes on the middle class in the Senate, his plan gives away your tax dollars to those who don’t pay taxes.

That’s not a tax cut, that’s welfare. America didn’t become the greatest nation on earth by redistributing wealth; we became the greatest nation by creating new wealth.”

I am all sure we read the stories in the media about someone yelling in a recent McCain - Palin rally about some knott head in the crowd yelling “kill him” as Sarah Palin was speaking about Senator Obama’s ties to bill Ayres.

The Timesleader (local newspaper in Northeastern Pennsylvania) is now reporting that the Secret Service is calling that allegation “unfounded.”

Agent Bill Slavoski said he was in the audience, along with an undisclosed number of additional secret service agents and other law enforcement officers and not one heard the comment.

“I was baffled,” he said after reading the report in Wednesday’s Times-Tribune.

He said the agency conducted an investigation Wednesday, after seeing the story, and could not find one person to corroborate the allegation other than Singleton.

Slavoski said more than 20 non-security agents were interviewed Wednesday, from news media to ordinary citizens in attendance at the rally for the Republican vice presidential candidate held at the Riverfront Sports Complex. He said Singleton was the only one to say he heard someone yell “kill him.”

“We have yet to find someone to back up the story,” Slavoski said. “We had people all over and we have yet to find anyone who said they heard it.”

We should note that the Secret Service takes these claims very serious. Serious enough to investigate a woman for making an alledged death threat to an Obama phone bank worker which turned out to be false.

What is interesting to me is the lack of verification of the story by the reporter himself.

Slavoski said Singleton was interviewed Wednesday and stood by his story but couldn’t give a description of the man because he didn’t see him he only heard him.

At this point the question should arise about the reporter who wrote the comment which was picked up by national media and became campaign lore and a center piece for partisan talking points across the country.  

Now that the claim is debunked will there be an equal rush to clear the air on the subject and the reporter who made a false report punished? Or will that reporter be held accountable at all?

At this point, it looks like another case of the media taking an intentional dive into the tank for Senator Obama.