“Obama has captivated the world.” That is the full banner headline in today’s Los Angeles Times. At least they had enough control of themselves to put it on the third page rather than the first.
I recall a time when political news sources in Los Angeles were limited to and dominated by the three traditional networks, PBS, and the Los Angeles Times. The best alternative media for conservatives in those days were the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, and the weekly Sam Yorty Show on KCOP. Thank God for the age of the internet and cable television.
Now with both less influence and readership, the Los Angeles Times nevertheless continues its 40 or so year-old practice of sugar-coating news in favor of liberal Democrat candidates for office, now centered on its certain-to-be-endorsed candidate for President, Barrack Hussein Obama. The gushing – in news stories mind you – is getting out of control even by New York Times standards of journalism.
Another example, for instance, was the report the other day that Obama had “swept past” McCain in a recent Gallup opinion poll. Mind you, the lead was just 3 points, and the survey was within the 4 point margin of error. And forget that the earlier Gallup poll showed McCain leading Obama by just two points. Most papers reported the change as “Obama creeps past McCain” or “pulls ahead of McCain.” Not “sweeps past McCain.” It was hardly a sweep, and both polls are still in the margin of error. What was actually newsworthy was the earlier Gallup poll, which for the very first time in the election, showed McCain ahead of Obama. That should have been, but was not, the subject of its own story in the Los Angeles Times. The “Obama file” at the LA Times is the clearest exercise of political wishful thinking I have ever seen in the media. It seeps from the editorial page, into the newsroom, and flushes itself out through their polling analysis department.
I really don’t care to read about what a professor from the University of Jordan thinks about BHO. I am more interested in what a coal-miner in West Virginia, or what a border patrol agent in San Diego thinks about him.
One might think the LA Times might want to get acquainted with, for example, BHO’s position on crime. Crime is bad, and affects lower income groups in Los Angeles in higher proportion than the rest of the population. What’s BHO’s record on crime, for example? Well, he doesn’t have much of a record, but we know that in 1999, while in the Illinois State Legislature, Obama was the only vote AGAINST SB 485, a bill that would prohibit persons convicted of criminal sexual abuse from receiving credit for time served in the county jail. And we know in 2002, Obama voted “NO” on HB 1812, a bill designed to toughen penalties for crimes committed in furtherance of gang activities. Regardless of the swooning at the Los Angeles Times, more information will be available to the public in this election than ever before thanks to cable news and the internet. And I suspect voters will be seeing a whole lot of hard information about BHO from those sources as the campaign marches forward, real news that will never make it into the LA Times.