Call from local media on my email [View All]

[Democrat 4 Ever]

criticizing their Michael Moore report. I posted here last night that the NBC local affiliate, WAVE 3 TV in Louisville, KY was doing an exposé on Michael Moore as part of their "investigative reporting" for sweeps month. It was a biased hack job and I let them know my opinion through their web site. Was not impressed and told them so. Short, sweet and to the point.

Well, the General Manager of WAVE 3 called me this morning to discuss my email. He took exception with my opinion of his station's reporting. He used words talking about Moore as hack, dishonest, user of people, was not a documentary, etc. I immediately knew I was taking to a guy who not only drank the Kool Aid but also one who was responsible for mixing it up and passing it out to his reporters, employees and the station's viewers. Not sure why he called me except I think he thought he could sway me with his magnificent powers of persuasion to come over to the dark side.

The conversation lasted for over an hour. Us debating back and forth a whole array of political issues with no success of one converting the other. We discussed the budget, the war, Bush agenda, the Gannon story, Swift Boats lies, election coverage, etc. I say this with some measure of pride - I was better informed (read that as I at least knew about the issues and could discuss them - thanks DU!) than this guy who is the General Manager of a strong local affiliate of the NBC network. Had never even heard about the Gannon story but once I brought him up to date his fall back position instantly became "every administration does it." I told him that I didn't believe that because I watched eight years of the media going tooth and nail straight at Clinton and the man never once dodged a press conference or a question and there is no evidence that Clinton resorted to planting "reporters" in the press pool to lob him softball questions. He still believes every one does it.

He then started in on the liberal media and that Fox News was the only station that was actively biased for the right. Came right back at him and started citing examples of the biased coverage of Leslie, Tweety, etc. Told him that CNN was now Faux Lite and he was just astounded that I could possibly believe that. He then stated it was a well known fact that 9 out of 10 reporters were liberal. I asked him to cite where he got that stat and of course, he couldn't. I told him that even if it were true - who cares? It is not the job of the reporter to foist their opinion of a story on me but to just report the facts. That got him riled up when I added that I felt that if that figure is accurate it just proved to me that reporters are educated, understand the issues and voted on that information. That really got him going because I think he thought I was either calling him stupid or voting ideology instead of what was best for the country. Of course, I was, but really surprised he picked up on the nuance.

I finally ended the long, convoluted conversation saying that I didn't care what he chose to report on as long as he fairly reported the whole story. Whether it was on local, state or national issues Americans need the full story and not cherry picked facts to promote one side or the other. Said I was confident enough of the liberal position on most issues that if both sides were fairly and completely reported that those positions would compare favorably with other positions and a viewer could make their own decisions without prompting by one side or the other.

Guess what I'm trying to say is, I think the media is starting to feel the heat that our emails, letters and calls are starting to resonate on both a national and local level.