Arkansas Blog

"...the meaning of relative placement of news articles...."

The DoG has long been hypocritical about separating news from editorial policy. You have only to look at intense, always favorable coverage in the DoG, of the Hussman- and Murphy-financed experiments in "merit pay" for teacheres in certain LRSD schools.

It just so happened that in today's (Monday's) paper that ignored John Walker's reply to the Askew motion to intervene , there was a story started in the lower right-hand corner of the DoG's front page with only about six column-inches of type, headlined "Health report held, said to be light on kudos." A Surgeon General's report that called on Americans to tackle global health care problems had been kept from the public by a Bush political appointee "whose family has long ties to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney," on grounds that it "did not promote the administration's policy accomplishments." But one had to turn to page 5A to understand that the administration's political agenda had been the reason for the withholding: "...this will be a political document, or it will not be released."

It was a Washington Post story, but the DoG, which regularly denigrates the Post and the NYt for bias, does not seem to mind biased emphasis when it suites the DoG's purposes.

Actually the placement of the surgeon general report story surprised me. It was pretty visible and it gave us reason 834 to worry about the people in The White House.

Why would you be surprised that this paper shows a bias?

This is the paper that gave Seth Blomely a cake and a bonus check for hammering away at Huckabee right up until the end.

This is the paper that massively rearranged sequences of events to try to win Mary Hargrove a Pulitzer for her manufactured work on the state DYS crisis a few years ago.

This is the paper that put Randall Bradford on the front page for like three weeks straight.

I find it interesting that because it is your beloved "gang of four" taking the shots that suddenly you all are worried about bias.

I can only imagine how you guys will weep and moan when you see the coverage and editorials when the world comes to town for the CentraL high anniversary. Again.....if biased bothers you you should have spoken up years ago.

Does this work?

Never mind

Freedom of the Press is a freedom for people that own presses. They are free to report or not report anything short of slander and libel.

What part do you have a problem with?

Personally I predict, if the DoG keeps getting more and more blatant with their slant then that will hasten the time when the DoG declines and we have some other entity take its place.

When is the Stephens rag in NWA going to expand into Central AR and challenge the DoG here?

Competition in journalism is the only way to have any oversite.

Years ago I hoped the AR Times could do it but it hasn't happened yet.

"Why would you be surprised that this paper shows a bias?
This is the paper that gave Seth Blomely a cake and a bonus check for hammering away at Huckabee right up until the end.
This is the paper that massively rearranged sequences of events to try to win Mary Hargrove a Pulitzer for her manufactured work on the state DYS crisis a few years ago.
This is the paper that put Randall Bradford on the front page for like three weeks straight."

StrangeTimes, might you be a disgruntled Huckabee sycophant and/or relative who perhaps no longer has a cushy state job thanks to the change in administrations?

Mike Huckabee's martyr/persecution complex, paranoia, and refusal to own up to making any major mistakes during his 10 years as Governor make him one of the most thin-skinned, self-absorbed politicians in modern American history.

Huckabee's pathological, knee-jerk urge to blame the media, the Legislature, other Republicans, the Sun, the moon, and the stars for anything that ever went wrong under his watch is the hallmark of an ego that makes him a gas giant among the planets in the solar system of political narcissism.