Who’s Killing The Newspapers?

With many newspaper companies closing their doors, it makes one wonder what will happen to our society.

Because it is newspapers that normally make the national news because of their investigations. Most local TV news stations, or even CNN, do not bother with investigative journalism much. They do reaction coverage of events as they unfold, but it’s usually the newspaper reporter who digs in the mud to uncover corruption.

And while many newspapers are finding a home on the Internet, for many it has become too little, too late to do so. Many newspapers did not embrace the power of the Web and now they are paying a heavy price for it.

But the Web cannot be the sole murderer of your friendly, neighborhood newspaper. A bigger co-conspirator is society itself. Many people polled from different surveys claim that they do not have the “time” to pick up a newspaper and would not care if their local daily or weekly folds.

It’s interesting that for a society that does not have “time” to pick up a newspaper or just log onto their local newspaper’s Web site that many people do find the time to text-message their friends, download some new songs or engrossed themselves with mind-numbing reality TV.

And while the Web is an excellent tool for newspapers, sadly, it does not have that “in-your-face” presence that newspapers have when they are found in your local Wawa or on the street corners.

So, when the last newspaper publishes and corruption from politicians goes unnoticed but its effects are felt, just remember that it was society that put the American watchdog to sleep.

NY Times Attacks McCain
For Defending Himself

I want to say this burns my bacon, but to be honest, it explodes it.

The New York Times’ editorial board wrote an opinion piece about Barack Obama accusing John McCain and President Bush of using or planning on using racial scare tactics. But while many would think that they would go after Obama, they instead attack John McCain for firing back at Obama’s false accusations.

First, they claim that McCain’s attack ad of comparing Obama with drunken celebrity Britney Spears was a “racially tinged attack” on the Illinois senator. How they make this great leap of illogic, The New York Times makes a weak case for it.

While there has been no real evidence that McCain has or will use race against Obama, The New York Times decides to paint him guilty of racial attacks anyway by associating the Arizona senator with a few dirty Republicans who allegedly used a racial attack on black Senator candidate Harold Ford in Tennessee in 2006. The ads against Ford “juxtaposed” him with white women, according to The New York Times.

However, the only ad that I could find that’s against Ford isn’t a racial attack at all and it’s still a weak comparison with McCain’s ad, because if you’re going to sleazily compare a presidential candidate with an airhead celebrity, who better than Britney Spears? It seems like a good case of The New York Times seeing things that aren’t there.

Is John McCain's political ad a racial attack against Obama? The New York Times seems to think so.

And instead of attacking Obama for his obvious and false racial assault on not only McCain but President Bush, The New York Times goes after McCain’s campaign manager Rick Davis when he defensively said, “Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck.”

Now, it’s interesting that The New York Times doesn’t have a problem with, “You know, he’s not patriotic enough, he’s got a funny name, you know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills,” but they’re having kittens over what Davis said.

Because according to The New York Times, Davis’ statement conjures up a “loaded racial image” of Robert Shapiro during the famous O.J. Simpson murder case when he said, “Not only did we play the race card, we dealt it from the bottom of the deck.”

But isn’t that what Obama did? He blatantly played that card and it was from the bottom of the deck because it was a low thing to do to accuse our nation’s president and another politician of using racial scare tactics and don’t offer any solid proof.

The New York Times not only kicked John McCain when he was down after being falsely accused of being a racist by his political opponent, but they stomped on him for trying to defend himself from Obama’s baseless attacks.

It’s bad enough that they turn a blind eye against Obama’s despicable statements, but they also made a feeble argument that McCain will use racial attacks simply because he is guilty by association because of what fellow Republicans allegedly did in Tennessee.

This sadly certainly gives credence to what many McCain supporters have been saying about Obama: He’s a Teflon candidate that the media simply loves too much to be objective with.

But more importantly, The New York Times just destroyed its own credibility when they attacked the victim and not the attacker.

NBC: ‘Meet The Press’
Tim Russert Dies

By Anthony Leone

Tim Russert, best known as moderator of NBC’s “Meet The Press,” collapsed early this afternoon and died, according to the network.

At this time, it has not been reported what caused Russert’s death, according to NBC.

The network also reported that Russert was doing voiceover work for this Sunday’s “Meet The Press,” when he collapsed.

Russert recently came back from a family trip in Italy, where the family celebrated his son’s graduation from Boston College.

The 58-year-old Russert became the Washington bureau chief for NBC in 1984 and in December 1991, became host of “Meet the Press.” He was also the vice president of NBC News.

Last year, Russert was involved in the highly popular court case against former Chief of Staff to Vice President Dick Cheney I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

Libby testified that he rediscovered that former U.S. Ambassador and Iraq war opponent Joseph Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, worked for the CIA during a July 2003 telephone conversation with Russert.

Russert testified that was not true and the he did not find out Plame worked for the CIA until days after the phone conversation.

Russert worked for New York Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s Senatorial campaign in 1976 and continued to work for Moynihan as chief of staff until 1982. From 1983 until 1984, he was New York Gov. Mario Cuomo’s counselor.

Russert is survived by his wife, Maureen Orth, a Vanity Fair writer, and their son, Luke.

(Editor’s Note: This is not an editorial or a column, but a news story from media reports, Wikipedia and court transcripts provided by NPR.)

NY Times Exposes Bush Administration, Networks’ Secret Shame

According to a New York Times investigative story, the Bush Administration had retired generals and other former military leaders try to sell the war as “analysts” to news networks during the buildup of the Iraq war and afterwards.

“Many analysts strongly denied that they had either been co-opted or had allowed outside business interests to affect their on-air comments, and some have used their platforms to criticize the conduct of the war,” The New York Times wrote on April 20, 2008.

The Pentagon said it was laughable that they could make retired military men into puppets and that they only provided these men with factual information to give to the American public.

But The New York Times’ article painted a very different picture by using 8,000 pages of e-mails and other documents it had obtain after suing the Department of Defense. These materials contained Pentagon talking points operations, private meetings and trips to Iraq, among other places. According to these documents, the Pentagon referred to these analysts, some of whom were being paid a nice sum of money per interview by the news networks, as “message force multipliers.” This certainly doesn’t sound like a friendly term to refer to messengers of “factual information.”

In fact, some of these military men weren’t comfortable with the messages they were delivering, but didn’t say anything for fear of losing access to important briefing information.

And what is worse is that some of these networks, according to The New York Times, knew about the relationship between these military men and the government and didn’t report it to the viewers.

“…other analysts said their network handlers also raised no objections when the Defense Department began paying their commercial airfare for Pentagon-sponsored trips to Iraq — a clear ethical violation for most news organizations,” according to The New York Times.

It was reported that some of the other networks didn’t know about the dubious relationships between their analysts and the Bush Administration.

But since The New York Times has let the cat out of the bag, hardly any of the networks reported their shame, according to a recent Editor & Publisher article.

The networks who did not know they were being shammed should get a small pass from criticism and should work harder to prevent any conflicts from happening. To the other networks that went along with this disgusting display of a huge lack of media ethics, shame on them. They failed in their job of being objective and truthful, and more importantly, being the watch dogs of the government.

There was no need to sell the idea to the American public that we needed to go into Iraq to find out what was going on after years of broken resolutions by Saddam Hussein, as it has been written before in The Times Observer.

And the Bush Administration isn’t the first one to use propaganda to push a war effort to the American people. However, it shouldn’t be an accepted practice by the American public. We deserve truth and accountability from our leaders, especially from our elected president.

Survey: Political Blogs Are Losing Their Luster

An online Harris survey found political blogs are as about as unpopular as a sex scandal during election time.

According to the Harris poll, 56 percent of Americans are not reading political blogs, while 22 percent say they read it a few times a month or more. And apparently, people who are more than 63 are reading political blogs more than those who are 40 and below, according to the Harris poll.

Now, I’m going to show my ignorance here and please forgive me for my lack of polling/surveying understanding but the Harris online survey only polled 2,302 adults back in January. I’m sorry but 2,302 seems to be a very low number and it’s hard to see how it accurately reflects the blog-reading public.

First, let’s take a look at the method of how the survey was done. It was done by online. While I can’t find an article of how the poll was conducted, I can only guess that it appeared as a popup ad, like so many surveys I’ve seen before.

Well, I don’t have time to take surveys, so when these surveys popup and are blocking an interesting article that I’m reading, I quickly click the little X to do away with the annoying intruder. And my guess is so do the majority of blog readers.

And from personally experience, I once created an online poll and even though nearly 30 people visited the Web site, only three people took the poll.

So these two experiences should tell you that the Harris online survey does not reflect what I believe is a far larger blog-reading public.

And since political blogs have a history of breaking major news stories before mainstream media, such how Mike Rogers outted Idaho Senator Larry Craig before the infamous, alleged gay bathroom incident happened and how Josh Marshall’s blog Talking Points Memo lead the media crusade over the controversial firing of U.S. Attorneys, I don’t see them going anywhere any time too soon.

Rather Refuses To Go Quietly Into That Good Night

Legendary CBS anchor Dan Rather has accused his former bosses of hiding documents that would show that his former network sacrificed him to appease the Bush Administration over alleged memos that question the president’s National Guard conduct.

Now Rather is suing CBS for a cool $70 million and he also claims the network is intentionally keeping the trial out of the public eye. Well, duh. Of course they are and you don’t need a long career in journalism to figure that out.

To recap what happened, in my little opinion, that forced The Dan into an early retirement is simple: Former Texas Army National Guard officer Lt. Col. Bill Burkett gave four memos to CBS in late August of 2004 that claimed that President Bush’s former senior officer, Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian, criticized the president’s service in the National Guard in 1972.

After CBS aired the story in early September of 2004, there were many accusations against the network and Rather of sloppy journalism and that the memos were fakes. Now initially, I supported Rather. My knee-jerk reaction was that even the best reporters get hoodwinked every once in awhile. But I had the good common sense to at least dig into some of these accusations against The Dan and discover why so many people were up in arms.

It turns out that the forensic document experts, including Marcel Matley who was interviewed by the network, that CBS used stated that they had problems with the memos because they were copies and not the originals, which makes it hard to determine how authentic they are. Something that CBS and Rather forgot to report. Other document experts interviewed by the media stated the memos were actually created on a computer and not a typewriter from the 1970s.

And that’s where my support ended, along with many other journalists’. And thank goodness for the power of the blog or this little story would still been considered true.

And what gets me is that Rather could have covered himself by saying that experts questioned the validity of the memos by Killian. It’s Journalism 101 folks: You report both sides of the story and let the people decide. And if The Dan did that, he would still be working today, in my humble, little opinion.

Now Rather is making an idiot of himself by suing CBS and saying the network is hiding documents that can clear his name. Sure, he was hell bent that the initial story and even the memos were true, but Rather himself was the one who said that he had no confidence in the memos. And never mind the fact that Burkett has a proven history of lying about President Bush’s service. And because Burkett lied about the memos and how he got them, it makes me question Rather’s journalistic integrity if he still believes in the story and the memos.

Rather is just embarrassing himself by trying to make this an issue when he and CBS were clearly in the wrong about this story. He should be enjoying retirement as much as he can and not make a spectacle of himself.

It’s time to say “Good Night,” Dan.

The Media’s Love Affair With Celebrities

There’s just no getting around the fact that the media loves celebrities, especially when they’re at their worst.

Media networks such as FOX News, CNN and others are falling over themselves with coverage of Britney Spears’ divorce and whether or not she did drugs in front of her children.

Meanwhile, these same crusaders of the Freedom of the Press are wetting themselves with excitement over O.J. Simpson’s alleged armed robbery.

And while all this is going on, many Americans aren’t even aware of the fact that Israel allegedly destroyed nuclear weapons in Syria. In fact, CNN didn’t report this important news item on its Web site when the story first broke.

So, why are drunken, armed celebrities getting more media attention than other important news items? Well, for the sake of space and time, let’s keep it short and sweet:

1. Our society deems it more important.
2. Media networks know they can get more ratings because that’s what people want.
3. It needs to be reported.

Numbers 1 and 2 are pretty much self-explanatory but let’s look at number 3. It needs to be reported. Does it? Does Lindsay Lohan’s drunken activities need to be reported?

Sadly, yes. One of the first things that are taught to journalists are the three reasons why stories get reported on:

People want to know. People need to know. And people have the right to know.

So, if a celebrity decides to do something stupid, such as getting drunk in public and flashing their privates to innocent bystanders, that incident will fit in one of those three categories. Just because you don’t think it’s newsworthy doesn’t mean the person sitting next to you, who can’t name at least three presidential candidates, feels the same way.

However, just because a celebrity incident needs to be reported, it doesn’t mean it should lead a news cast or be on the front page.

Although, those who are following Simpson’s latest escapade should be spared of a bit of criticism. Many feel that Simpson got away with murder and now are hoping he will get what’s coming to him.

While the media reports on people who are destroying their own lives, let us hope they inform the rest of us of people who want to destroy ours.

Will New Imus Boss Learn From CBS’ Mistake?

As by now, everyone has heard that the notorious radio talk show host Don Imus has made a nice settlement deal with his former employer, CBS. But that’s not the real important item.

What’s important is that an anonymous source, according to the Associated Press, says that Imus is trying to get back on the air. Apparently, he may go to WABC-AM, according to this Associated Press source.

If ABC hires the I-Man, will it learn from CBS’ mistake of firing him?

Was Imus wrong for calling the Rutgers women's basketball team “nappy-headed ho’s?” You better believe it. In fact, he has made so many insulting remarks about people throughout the years, that it’s surprising he got so much attention now.

Was it wrong for people to call for the firing of the shock jock? No, they have as much right as American citizens to say what they want as Imus did.

Was CBS right in firing Imus? No. Besides the fact that his apology should have been enough, there was no need for Imus to be fired. CBS was trying to cover itself. It also shows that CBS doesn’t have what it takes to be a part of the confrontational world of talk radio.

If CBS can’t take any heat, then it shouldn’t be in the game. It’s that simple. And CBS is one of the big three, certainly a pillar of broadcast journalism, and a symbol of the First Amendment. If CBS caved in so easily like a house of cards because people were screaming bloody murder about Imus’ stupid remarks, then CBS has no idea what journalism or freedom of speech means.

And ABC has dealt with a lot of heavy hitters like its own talk radio hosts Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. It would seem logical that ABC can handle a tamer Imus compared to those two.

But Imus’ firing reflects what is happening to America in a certain degree. No more Evelyn Beatrice Hall’s infamous and inspiring words, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

No, it seems as if we have to protect everyone and not hurt their feelings. And while being nice is a virtue that seems to be dwindling away in today’s society, it should not be an unwilling accomplice in the murder of the First Amendment.

How Fair Would A Renewed
Fairness Doctrine Be?

After media giant Rupert Murdoch’s recent deal to purchase of the Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal, many Democrats and the left will be screaming with more vigor for the return of the Fairness Doctrine.

But just how fair would a renewed Fairness Doctrine be, assuming it would be the same one that was abandoned more than 20 years ago? The doctrine was essentially for licensed broadcast media networks, television and radio, to report on issues fairly and with balance.

However, in 1987, the FCC deemed the Fairness Doctrine unconstitutional because it placed a restriction on the journalistic freedom of the broadcast press.

But lately, the doctrine is in huge demand, with a fair dose of one-sidedness from its supporters.

It’s hypocritical for Democrats and liberals, self-knighted caretakers of free speech, to want to restrict what they see as conservative takeover of the airwaves. With the spread and popular growth of conservative talk radio and the FOX News network, many on the progressive side want to squash it.

It almost seems that the Democrats and the left want to actually confine the American public from freely choosing what they want to watch and listen too. It certainly does not sound very fair, does it?

But would a newly reinstated Fairness Doctrine, assuming it would be the same one that was abandoned so many years ago, actually help the Democrats and the left?

For example, let’s say MSNBC is interviewing war-activist Cindy Sheehan about her run for Congress and Sheehan again says that President Bush lied about former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction. Would MSNBC be forced to have include Georges Sada, a retired general of the Iraqi Air Force, who has claimed that the former dictator had the WMD shipped to Syria?

Or better yet, if presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich is on CNN and is discussing how he is in favor of renewing the ban on assault-type weapons, would CNN be required to show a U.S. Department of Justice study that showed the bill did not stop crime?

The Fairness Doctrine would definitely come back and haunt the Democrats and the left and it would undermine their chances of winning the White House in 2008.

But the left and the Democrats seem hell-bent to reinstate the doctrine, as if to rid conservative talk radio. However, that is as likely as Hillary Clinton reciting the reasons why her husband launched Operation Desert Fox against Hussein, which mirrors those of President Bush’s.

What many liberals and Democrats have to understand is why conservative talk radio is so popular and why the liberal Air America isn’t. It all comes down to money and ratings and it’s as simple as that. Or maybe they do get it and that’s why they are so upset with the popularity to begin with.

Let’s face it, if ABC thought it could gain more advertising and more people tuning in to listen to finger nails on a chalkboard, we would never hear Sean Hannity’s voice on the airwaves again.

There is a big difference between reporting on the news and commenting on it. Placing the Fairness Doctrine on talk radio is wrong, because it doesn’t report the news but gives an opinionated commentary about it, thus restricting hosts' freedom of speech.

If the Democrats and the left truly want fairness and balance, then they would abandon their witch hunt against talk radio and place their efforts in having the doctrine only for reporting the news.

Clearly, fairer, objective and balanced reporting on the issues would be far more beneficial to the American public then limiting the opinion that the majority of America wants to tune into.

What I Learned In College

This weekend I’ll be attending a college newspaper reunion. My former college editor sent an e-mail, asking all of us to write personal stories of our experience at the college newspaper and how it helped shaped us for the real world.

I’m actually pretty stumped because I did learn a lot from the two college newspapers that I belong too.

My first college newspaper was called The Dome, at Widener University in Chester, Pa.

As a freshmen, I didn’t report on normal college stories about scholarships. No, because the university was in Chester, a little city known for its crime, I did stories about a student who allegedly (believe me, there was no “allegedly”) kidnapped his former girlfriend and drove her to a Motel 8 in Maryland and allegedly (again, no “allegedly”) tried to smother her to death with a motel pillow. And once she escaped, tried to run her down. Allegedly.

It was a good story because when I spoke to the girl, she was OK. I even spoke with the accused while he was in a Baltimore juvenile detention center. I admit, I was proud of myself. I beat out a few local media outlets with that story. None of them took the time to speak with the alleged (*cough*cough*) attacker. But one thing I’ll always remember about speaking to him was what he said to me. He said that the incident might be a life lesson, since he was a criminal law major.

After my sophomore year, I transferred to Rider University, in Lawrenceville, NJ, and became a staff member at The Rider News. Actually, Rider was my first choice but I wasn’t accepted but I was the spring of 1998. And who says you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression?

Rider was very different from Widener. For one thing, no one was kidnapping their girlfriends. Again, allegedly. But I had a lot of fun being the Op-Ed editor. And the fraternities, bless their drunken little souls, certainly gave all of us at the newspaper plenty of ammo.

One time, the school’s fraternity/sorority advisor called up the newspaper a week before Christmas, saying that one of the fraternity boys, who was a journalism major, wrote a story about a local Christmas tree farmer who was being victimized with pranks.

Well, your’s truly picked up that phone on that fateful evening and went over to the advisor’s office. I read the article, using the term so loosely it should fall out of this column. It was a small, one-sided story with a lot of holes in it. But a bell went off in my head and I decided to call this farmer up.

Boy, it was interesting to hear his side of the story. Someone stole one of his Christmas trees and he called the police, if I remember correctly. The farmer and the boys in blue followed the trail of pine needles from his farm all the way to the lounge of one of the frat houses. And guess what? That frat boy who wrote that article? Yep, you guessed it, he belonged to that fraternity where that Christmas tree was displayed.

Well, I wrote a little editor’s note under the story, which my editor decided to run as a letter since it didn’t have any qualifications of a real news story. (You know, objectivity and truthfulness.)

The guy called up the newspaper the day after the issue ran and once again, I picked up the phone. (You see, I spent more time in that office than I did in my classes.) Let’s just say he wasn’t happy with the newspaper and I told him what a disgrace he was for even being a journalism major.

So, here I am, trying to think which lesson or experience that really helped me in my career as a journalist. I guess there is one important lesson:

We had a female reporter whose beat was to speak with the dean of students at Rider University every week to see what was up. (At the time, we didn't realize how much she admired the dean.) When he was first hired, I interviewed him and he promised an open-door policy to all students.

Well, we found out a student had a list of complaints and wanted to take it up with the dean. Now, at college, every student complains about his or her campus but usually does nothing about it. So, this female reporter and I (and I don’t really remember why I went, since I was the Op-Ed editor by this time) wanted to sit in on this meeting. The dean said no and kicked us out, closing the door behind him.

I explained what happened with my editor and after a meeting with senior staff, it was decided the dean needed to be reprimanded with a fiery editorial, by your’s truly.

Well, all hell broke loose when the female reporter barged into the newsroom and yelled the riot act to me and the editor in front of the entire newspaper staff because of the editorial attack on her beloved dean. With tears in her eyes, she stormed out of the newsroom and slammed the door shut.

My editor and good friend taught me one important lesson at that very moment that none of my journalism professors ever taught me in four and a half years of college: He turned to me and said:

“Tony, there’s no crying in newspapers.”

It’s Not Easy Being A Blogger

One of the toughest things about having a blog is keeping up with it. There are so many important breaking news stories that I want to comment on but I just do not have the time to do so. Mainly, I work and that has to come first. After all, I do have a family to support. Also, some topics are so detailed and have a long history, that I need time to do a bit of research on them, so I know what I’m talking about.

And when I do have the time to write, the most important news story is a good week to two weeks old and no one wants to hear commentary about a topic that’s been talked about to death.

With this in mind, I sincerely hope that readers will understand why The Times Observer is not updated as often as I would like it to be but to please be patient.

More Headlines About Good Will Towards Man

One of the things I love about this time of year, besides seeing Christmas decorations and hearing holiday music being played nonstop on a few radio stations, is the kindness being reported on.

This is the time of year where newspapers and local and national media networks report how organizations, churches or just a person is having a food drive or is collecting clothes for the needy. Many radio stations have "adopted" a down-on-their-luck family and people will call in, donate money, clothes or food. Most of the time, you will hear a store owner who will donate toys for the family's children or other items that family requires.

Sadly, however, the media only reports these types of stories this time of year, bringing them down from the attic, very much like someone taking the Christmas decorations out and putting them on display. Sure, maybe during the year the local newspaper or network will do a story on how someone showed an act of kindness by helping them out with a payment or a person is trying to keep a half-way house running.

I think one of the best pieces that has been reported this year is Secret Santa Larry Stewart, as reported by Reuters. Back in 1971, he says he was hungry and homeless and a kind soul gave him $20. At that moment, he pledge to God that he would reward that act of kindness by helping others. That started in 1980, by giving someone in need $5.

Today Stewart is a self-made millionaire by investing in cable and telecommunications and has handed out about $1.3 million over the years, he estimates. Depending on the person and situation, Stewart has gone up to them and gave them either a $100 or even as much as $10,000.

"We are all supposed to share our blessings. This is just one way," said 58-year-old Stewart, as Carey Gillam reported, a Reuters’ journalist.

We need more people like Larry Stewart being reported on. I'm not saying the media should ignore the negative aspects of the news but reporting on human kindness is very important as well. It gives hope in a society that is constantly bombarded with stories about rape, murder and war. There is a lot of good that goes unnoticed and I do not see why it cannot make it in the evening news and newspapers more often.

Because we need that balance in a world that has seemingly gone mad.

What Journalism Is And What It Isn't

Journalism is supposed to be about fair and balanced reporting, covering both sides of the issue and allowing the readers/viewers to decide. However, this is not always the case.

Too many networks and newspapers lean towards one side of the political spectrum or the other. The New York Times is accused of being liberal, while FOX News is charged with being too conservative. Sadly, many people say that this is just fine with them because they can go to different stations or newspapers to get information, because each news outlet has its own "political agenda" as some have labeled their stance on certain issues.

This is wrong. A person should be able to go to one news source and feel comfortable with the fact that he or she are getting a just and balanced report on the issue they are reading/watching about.

Sometimes, though, when two people read the same thing, they each have a different opinion on the stances of the writer of the article. This happened to me after the last presidential elections a few years ago while I worked as an editor for a weekly newspaper.

Not believing that newspapers should support any politician because it may cloud their reporting, I took a neutral stance on the elections. I wrote an editorial about a week before the elections were about to take place and it was going to appear a week after the results came in. I finished the editorial after a few days after the election, just to see who one so I could properly name the winner. The editorial basically said that as Americans, we should all come together after the bitter mudslinging fight and should support President Bush, as well as Sen. Kerry.

Well, I received two letters to the editor, with one person saying I supported Bush, while the other accused me of being a Kerry supporter. I ran both letters and wrote an editorial, stating how interesting the reactions were, considering I wrote the editorial a week before the elections results came in.

Thus, this proves my point that some readers and viewers decide what a news outlet's political leanings are. And that is true. Even the most objective reporter and editor cannot do anything about that. However, it is also true, from personal experience, that certain news organizations will put their own political slant on certain news stories or intentionally not even bothering to include certain views.

But that is a blog for another day.