{"id":5071,"date":"2010-08-10T00:42:15","date_gmt":"2010-08-09T20:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bobsiegel.net\/wp\/?p=1176"},"modified":"2010-08-10T00:42:15","modified_gmt":"2010-08-09T20:42:15","slug":"of-course-the-mainstream-media-is-fair-oh-wait-how-are-we-defining-fair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bobsiegel.net\/wp\/2010\/08\/10\/of-course-the-mainstream-media-is-fair-oh-wait-how-are-we-defining-fair\/","title":{"rendered":"Of Course The Mainstream Media Is Fair. Oh Wait. How Are We Defining Fair?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This article was originally written on\u00a0 Feb. 22, 2010. A few evenings after its publication, I was interviewed about the piece\u00a0 by radio talk show host, Gayle Falkenthal, substitute hosting for<strong><em> The Rick Amato Show.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Well, it didn&#8217;t take them long. Almost  immediately after pilot, Joe Stack flew his small plane into the federal  building in Austin, Texas, the FBI uncovered a suicide note in which  the murdering thug explained his motives. Actually, a litany of  complaints were discovered, including a hatred for the IRS. Well, say no  more. This was red meat for the mainstream media. After all, anyone who  doesn&#8217;t like taxes must be connected to those nasty Tea Parties. Right?<\/p>\n<p>A <em>Washington Post e<\/em>ditorial described Joe Stack&#8217;s alienation as  &#8220;similar to what we&#8217;re hearing from the extreme elements of the Tea  Party movement.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>New York Magazine <\/em>said the suicide note &#8220;could have been taken  directly from a handwritten note at a Tea Party.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But you have to hand it to the<em> The Daily Cos<\/em>. They were much  less subtle, refusing to beat around the bush at all with a blog post  titled,&#8221;Teabagger Terrorist Attack On Federal Building.&#8221; Sweet!\u00a0 They  aren&#8217;t satisfied with<em> holding an opinion <\/em>of Stack as a kindred  spirit of Tea Parties. Indeed, they are<strong><em> absolutely positive<\/em><\/strong> the man is a real honest-to-goodness Tea Party patron.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, Stack&#8217;s other passionate scents, carried in by a more\u00a0 left  leaning wind, are being conspicuously omitted from the articles quoted  above. Yes, the man hated taxes. He also ranted against George Bush, big  corporations, and anyone who would seek to delay health care reform.  That was just for starters. His dramatic closing points praised  Communism and denounced Capitalism. Yeah, I get guys like this mixed up  with Conservative idealists all the time.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ll mercifully put aside the <em>Daily Cos<\/em>. We expect such  poisonous drivel from unaccountable bloggers. As for our\u00a0 &#8220;mainstream  media;&#8221; Have you no shame?\u00a0 I guess that&#8217;s a pointless rhetorical  question. Why pose questions to people who do not know how to ask  questions of their own? They&#8217;re only journalists after all. What would  they know about tough, fair, probing questions?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article was originally written on\u00a0 Feb. 22, 2010. A few evenings after its publication, I was interviewed about the piece\u00a0 by radio talk show host, Gayle Falkenthal, substitute hosting for The Rick Amato Show&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aboutpolitics","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobsiegel.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobsiegel.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobsiegel.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobsiegel.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobsiegel.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bobsiegel.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5071\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobsiegel.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobsiegel.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobsiegel.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}