Badger Herald's News Coverage Needs More Scrutiny
This post is a long time coming and I have contemplated the professionalism of commenting on a previous employer and current competitor on this campus. With the Mendota Beacon under the direction of the next generation of "Beaconites", I feel that I can now comment on the news coverage of the Badger Herald.
Let's look at the last couple of issues:
Alleged hate crime not surprising to UW by Andriy Pazuniak:
First, this issue was as slanted as a story can be. This article might as well be a press release from the LGBT Campus Center, if they had the time to send one out. Half the content of the article is concerning a phone conversation.
While many students were shocked to hear of the felony hate crime charges brought against two University of Wisconsin students, representatives of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Campus Center said they were not. I'm not real surprised, quite honestly, LGBTCC Director Eric Trekell said in a phone interview a day after two UW freshmen were charged with felony hate crimes for vandalizing the door of an LGBT liaison in Ogg Hall.
The Herald's second day of coverage did little reporting outside of adding talking-points from the LGBT Campus Center. This story would only be more left if they found a way to make the US Military look bad. Wait...
Chamberlain, the fourth student involved, is a member of the U.S. Marine ROTC, and had been a student in good standing, according to ROTC officials.
This was news the FIRST time the Herald printed the story, now it is becoming a dominent feature. Nothing only has the MSM made the military look homophobic but now the Herald is leading the way in making the Military look down right dangerous to students on this campus.
Talking about the first issue, it was interesting to see to what lengths the Herald went to paint the offenders as conservatives.
Chamberlain from Crystal Lake, Ill., later confessed to writing this, the complaint states.
"I tore down a picture, I was showing off and saw a picture of two guys kissing, Chamberlain was quoted in the complaint. I am conservative and had a problem with it. Why does the photo have to be displayed in public? Keep it to yourself. I tore it down.
(snip)
"I hate f*cking liberals"
Almost as if the story was shooting for a "shock effect" it repeated the phrase "I hate f*cking f*ggots" three times in the story. The news editor of the Herald, Megan Costello, who co-wrote the first "hate crime" story considers herself "very liberal" according to her facebook profile.
Not only is she very liberal, but she is a member of the "College Democrats" and the "how the hell was he re-elected" facebook groups.
Being so biased, it is a wonder that she was assigned to write this story, but I guess when the editor of the "news" section of the paper is "very liberal" the paper is doomed to be hopelessly slanted to the "very left".
Megan Costello is a case book example of bias and I am putting her and the other writers for the Herald on notice (Steven Colbert Style). When your paper has a circulation of 16,000 and only survived with the aid of William Buckley, you stand on the shoulders of the giants before you. Let's see what the new week brings to blog about...
Update: After publishing this post, I thought I would add that the Herald's Editor in Chief did write a very thought-provoking article questioning the very concept of a hate crime. It is interesting that the Herald is run by a reasonable moderate-conservative but it's news is controlled by self-described "very liberal" editors.
Update 2: I left out the NROTC commander's statement against the alleged hate crime.
“This type of behavior is completely unacceptable,” UW ROTC Commanding Officer Scott Mobley said. “The values we emphasize include respect for all people, no matter what their background is.”
Just because it is in the article (and Mobley is the NAVY Commander not the entire UW ROTC Commanding Officer) does not answer the question as to why the Herald found it important to print this information in the first article. Twice they found a way to link ROTC to this hate crime. "A Student in Good Standing" commits a hate crime. That is just what the anti-war left and LGBT radicals on this campus are looking for to continue their war to get ROTC kicked off of campus.
Update 3: The Herald has yet ANOTHER story about the hate crime today. Now they added a statement from UW. It must be a VERY VERY slow news week or the Herald has an axe to grind.
posted by Rob at 00:17
11 Comments:
What makes you think that the Herald's article bashed the ROTC? You left out the quotation of the ROTC representative who strongly denouced the crime. Why?
Ben
Mon Jan 23, 12:40:00 PM CST
Well...I don't know where to begin. I read the articles prepared for some supposed bias, figuring the actions of these individuals were reprehensible enough to cloud journalistic judgement, but there's no bias here. It's imagined, and to undermine the article's veracity is a weird way of taking the focus off these two absolute wank-jobs. I understand that you're probably (hopefully) a bit ashamed of these dudes, and don't like the fact that they're quoted as identifying with conservative ideology, which reflects poorly, but that's not bias...that's a quote from the perpetrator, and deserves printing. And regarding the follow-up's "press release" component, as LGBT was an implicated victim in a crime, seeking their response doesn't really seem biased to me...and as their statements are reinforced by another source, and a police officer at that, the prevalence of such incidents isn't 'played up', it's base fact. Furthermore, the repetition of hate slurs happened on several different occasions, with colorful variances, so there was no "repeating" of one slur, as you indicate. Each 'repetition' happened at a different time, with different words, and as THAT IS WHAT HAPPENED, I'd say it's justified to report. Perhaps you should be more focused on denouncing the disgustingly intolerant actions of two really, really dumb freshmen than trying to undermine an article exposing the base ugliness of their actions and underlying thought processes. As a member of the ROTC, I'd think you would want to weed such individuals out of the organization and draw a strong line between their values and those of the group as a whole. By mentioning this affiliation, the reporters gave the ROTC a chance to offer a firm distancing from the individuals in question, which, in my opinion, resulted in a nice, firm statement from that organization denouncing the action and affirming its credibility. I've had practicing journalists scan this article, to see if I'm missing something (one of whom is conservative) and they detected zero bias...I don't know what kind of reporting you did at the Beacon, but I do know your unfortunate tendency to boil everything down to politics, and it seems the biases lie more at your feet than the herald's.
Mon Jan 23, 02:41:00 PM CST
I would expect as much from a liberal. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil against a fellow liberal.
I understand NATE, your internal want for everything to be ligit clouds your judgement. The very fact that there have been 3 stories now on this alleged incident shows the papers want to create a large story out of nothing.
Yes, my blog is biased, that is the intention of a blog. The intention of the MSM is to report arcuratly, fairly, and not to find stories, blow them up, and then create the news for the coming days.
Mon Jan 23, 03:29:00 PM CST
That being said, you've again succeeded in calling me a liberal and failing to contradict anything which I've written. A pending, felonious hate crime (or 'alleged incident', in your parlance) taking place on university property deserves 3 stories. Also, in implying bias, I wasn't speaking of the blog but rather your method of reading the news. You have a strange predilection to compartmentalize everything into liberal/conservative terms, which I find extremely interesting as an example of the narrow-minded 'sporting event' politics currently fucking up this country. It feels good to be part of a team, doesn't it? Fight em', Bob! Also, for all out there who, like Bob, hold the profession of journalism and the integrity of the printed word in such high esteem, please, for future reference, note that 'ligit' is not a word.
Mon Jan 23, 05:25:00 PM CST
Damn... way to stick it to him.
Mon Jan 23, 06:30:00 PM CST
Way to attack a spelling error. Douche
Mon Jan 23, 09:14:00 PM CST
Way to insult anonymously...thou art a brave individual. And, you know, that really doesn't negate the quality of my argument.
Mon Jan 23, 09:42:00 PM CST
True. Anonymous insults will not be tolerated on this blog. Nathan at least insults in person. I mean, he doesn't believe in the concept of paragraphs, but that doesn't stop him from posting long comments. Nate, what is your opinion on the concept of a "hate crime". Where does freedom of speech end and the protection of a "protected class" begin? I think that your bias to railroad these ignorent students is clouding your arguments. I say their is a bias, I show that the author is "very liberal" and you come back with the fact that you had a journalism major read it through. If you think differently, start your own blog, comment on how fair the media is, and I will comment on your website. And I will be sure to look for every spelling, grammer, or syntax error and leave it as a comment.
Tue Jan 24, 12:04:00 AM CST
To respond:
1. My opinion of what constitutes a hate crime is irrelevant in this discussion; the story deals with a criminal case being pursued under the rubric of existing law, which, for our purposes, outlines a working defintion of hate crime.
2. So, I take it that having political opinions automatically obviates journalistic objectivity? How are there working journalists, then?
3. "Practicing Journalists" are exactly that, graduated journalism students currently working for non-partisan news publications.
4. You still have failed to respond to the majority of my post, which pretty thoroughly outlines the article's objectivity, in favor of clouding the issue with partisanship and confusing the actual crimes being investigated.
5. Yes, I shouldn't nitpick on grammar, but damn it, you know one of my degrees (having jabbed at it earlier), and responding to a lengthy, fairly reasonable post with accusations of liberalism is a bit frustrating.
Tue Jan 24, 12:31:00 PM CST
Bob, what you have changed if you were the writer of the article, so as not to make the article biased?
Hacksbadt
Tue Jan 24, 04:49:00 PM CST
Bob appears to have left this particular building. Too bad, I was looking forward to a miserable confusion regarding how hate crimes are hard to define, and that this isn't one, because it...er...it's hard to define. And these great, upstanding lads are exercising their freedom of speech, by, er, threatening to kill an unjustly protected minority group, who are just way too protected, you know. Too protected to marry each other, even. I can see the man's headline:
Prank on UW Property Sparks Liberal Railroading of Cherished Military Institution
Thu Jan 26, 12:36:00 AM CST
Post a Comment
<< Home