Another Fine Example of 'Neutral' Reporting

They can't grasp how any black person could be a conservative, like it's some kind of anomaly. Hey apparently voter intimidation works, other forms will too.

I heard West speak once, and liked what I heard. If he walks the talk, I wish him well.

Right, so using "handful" which I can accept as an accurate description of a small number of people in relation to a whole (which, unless more than a tenth of the congressional primaries had an african american republican candidate in them, is a viable adjective), and "survived" which, unless there's a large population of african american republicans running in congressional primaries that are getting shot at, is a viable adjective for making it through the primary season, is suddenly racist. Good to know that unless all adjectives are politically correct and sterilized you'll call accusations of racisim.

The descriptions are carefully selected, out of a large number of possibilities, to delegitimize, DB.  Technically accurate, but clearly meant to convey more: that whatever else is attributed to the individual to which the descriptions are applied can be dismissed.  A not-so-subtle form of invalidation.

What other purpose do you suggest they serve?  How do they help the reader better understand?  What does the author want the reader to better understand?  The facts remain the same without those descriptions:

One of the GOP's candidates for Congress condemned President Barack Obama of exploiting race for political gain.

Allen West, the Republican challenging Rep. Ron Klein (D) in Florida's 22nd congressional district, sharply criticized the Obama administration for having allegedly declined prosecuting the New Black Panther Party on voter tampering charges for political reasons.

"For an Administration that promised a new era in race relations, Obama and the Democrats in Congress have demonstrated that race will continually be exploited for political gain," West said in a statement.

Sorry, but the 'accuracy' defense isn't accepted when the shoe is on the other foot, so I don't accept it here, though you are correct that the terms 'Uncle' and 'Tom' were not used.

Damn, when you said it all......

Ditto.

You missed the point, and Daiwa is doing a good job of explaining.  But I will add my own worthless 2 pennies.

Words have meanings.  And the reason there are over half a million English words s because the written word can often not only convey meaning, but also attitude (I was amused recently when I saw a Spanish Translation of an English Phrase - they lack our nuance).  So almost every "news" organization (MSNBC excepted) is going to accurately report the news.  But they do choose their words carefully to influence the reader.  The age old Joke of the Russian and American dual track meet is specifically aimed at what most of the MSM does.

The Americans beat the Russians, and Pravda reported it as "Socialist Heroes take second in International Track Meet!  Capitalistic Pig Americans finish second to last".  That is accurate.  However it is clearly trying to make a silk purse out of a sows ear.

Or maybe they're not so much 'carefully selected' as 'thoughtlessly selected', assuming you wish to give the author the benefit of the doubt.

But he could just as easily have written it this way:

An African-American GOP candidate for Congress has condemned President Barack Obama of exploiting race for political gain.

Allen West, the Republican challenging Rep. Ron Klein (D) in Florida's 22nd congressional district, sharply criticized the Obama administration for having allegedly declined prosecuting the New Black Panther Party on voter tampering charges for political reasons.

"For an Administration that promised a new era in race relations, Obama and the Democrats in Congress have demonstrated that race will continually be exploited for political gain," said West, a rising star among a growing number of politically conservative African-Americans seeking elective office under the GOP banner.

Still 'accurate', but conveys a completely different subliminal message and tone.

There's also the matter of why this particular candidate's criticism, of all the criticism out there, was chosen as the basis for the article in the first place, although I must give the author some credit for at least putting it out there, reluctant as his language would suggest he was.

What does the sentence(s) add to the West's campaign story? Nothing. How many times did it needed to be pointed out? No problem with mention of him being black. That's human interest stuff. There is only one GOP candidate in this districts race, and the article is about this race, not ALL GOP candidates.

Remember the flap in 2008 about using Obama's middle name? Seems the left didn't care much for that. Too racist.

How does this paragraph sound to you?

"Today President Obama, repeated his criticism of the Arizona illegal immigrant law". The president's aunt was an illegal alien for years, and has now been allowed to remain at continued taxpayer expense. Obama believes the AZ law is unfair to Hispanics, and singles them out for harrassment... The president, and relative of a once illegal person, has directed the Attorney General to file suit against AZ".

The statement is "factual", but you might say the second and last sentence is TMI at best and an underhanded slam at Obama at worst, it has little to do with Arizona, and you would be correct, even if you agree or disagree with the information provided. But it does advance a suggested idea...weakness on illegal immigration.

To say there is nothing there is disingenuous. Nobody is questioning its factuality. The author (desperately) wants the reader to know not many blacks are running for office as republicans. As far as the article goes, one mention in this short article might be overlooked, two? The author is attempting to stress something. You can decide for yourself if that has any racist overtones or not.

They were in the articles comments section. I believe some of these authors like to let their readership handle the "less tasteful" aspects of the issue.

Hah.  Hadn't even looked at the comments.  Surprised?  Not so much.

Talk about missing the point by 100 miles. To make it simple enough that a child can get it, the reporter had no need to point out how many, be it a few or a lot, Black people were candidates for the GOP and there was no real need to point out that these 2 particular individuals had survived their primaries since neither of these unnecessary comments added to the point of the story which was basically not all Black people agree with Obama just because he is Black.

But this "reporter" felt the need to not only report the news but to add his 2 cents in the process and turn the story from "Black people criticizing Obama" to "these particular group of Black people are stupid". In other words, this reporter never gave the readers the chance to decide who was right and who was wrong, instead he told them who were the idiots from the beginning.

So, when did you get the implant that prevents you from forming your own opinions? Around the same time as you got the one that forces you to get your news from blog sites? Oh, but of course it's my fault for dissenting with the popular opinion on this site that all left wing folks, no matter how far over the fence they are, are fucking nuts and deserve to be rounded up and stored in a secure facility.

DoomBringer, you either have no basis for your opinions or are unable to give a logical explanation of why you hold them.    You're not obligated to do so, of course, but childish projection is all I've seen so far.  If you're going to bother replying, might as well do so respectfully and with a cogent argument.

Debatable whether it is racist IMO. Yes it's not the most neutral choice of words, but I wouldn't say it's a good example of racist reporting. Maybe those words were chosen to try and liven up the sentence for example, rather than just removing them and keeping it very dry and factual.

isn't the la times a member of the dreaded msm cabal?  if so, how to explain this?

head & subhead reads:

"Jerry Brown Steps Up Latino Outreach As Poll Shows Whitman Picking Up Support
Whitman has seen a 14-point gain among Latinos in the latest Field Poll, propelled by TV ads, billboards and a Spanish-language website. But some find her ties to Pete Wilson troubling."

in following text of this article (written by one seema mehta and published by the times 7/9/2010), we're told: 

"Brown has come under withering criticism by fellow Democrats for his campaign's lack of visible energy and lack of outreach to Latinos. This week, the campaign hired its first fluent Spanish speaker, and a spokesman said its website would be translated into Spanish soon."

withering? fellow? visible?  fluent? soon?

then there's whitman's 14-point gain among latino voters which cannot help but leave one with the distinct impression brown is gonna have some splaining to do when the polls close, no?

even if one continues to read a few paragraphs into this mess to discover facts so cleverly buried and obfuscated by ms or mr mehta (who may or may not be a graduate of iraq's prestigious saddam hussein school of journalism) a sliderule or one of them ti calculators may be required to ascertain the whitman/brown ratio is really 39%/50%.

"Though Brown held an 11-point lead among Latino voters in a Field Poll released earlier this week, Whitman had the support of 39%, a 14-point gain since March and at the level that strategists say she needs to be to win in November."

????

I appreciate your opinion, aeortar, but given the left's willingness to call damn near any opinion contrary to liberal orthodoxy, no matter how unconnected to differences in skin color, 'racist', attempting to delegitimize a black man's opinion should qualify, hands down.

I know I'm odd, but I kinda like my news 'dry and factual'.  I'm not interested in the author's slant on it.  I'll read opinion columnists for slant.  It's bad enough that hardly anybody does much of anything these days but regurgitate the heavily, shall we say, 'nuanced' AP, which selectively filters what it considers to be 'news' in the first place.

And as I said before, there were lots of other ways to 'liven up the sentence' - but he chose a particular way, didn't he?

kb -

I know it's early in the morning on a weekend and I'm not at my sharpest, but I'm not sure I see your point, unless it's to agree with me.  Sounds to me like the LAT is scared shitless by Whitman's gains and wants to get the rallying call out for Brown to step it up.  What criticism isn't 'withering' these days?  And tanks be to Got that his newly hired Spanish speaker isn't just a Spanish speaker but fluent!  Does this mean he previously had non-fluent Spanish speaking campaign staff?  That he's lagging in BCN outreach?  It's the same sort of witless 'characterization writing' as opposed to reporting.

But at least it pertains to this particular political race. You may not care for the wording, but if it is relevant to the piece what's the big deal? Had the article said "Jerry Brown is one of many tired old Democrats the party is fielding in contested campaigns throughout the nation this year, in a lame attempt at the nostalgia vote", I would have agreed with you, because that would have little or no bearing on his campaign specifically, and even less if it was mentioned twice. I would say Hispanic votes (and issues related) on a whole are relevant to most California political races, maybe not so much in North Dakota.

agreeing with you in principle while also pointing out the blade cuts both ways.

indeed it is. 

How I wish.  I'd be on board with you on that score if it were the case.  'Cept for Camelot & The One, the press has been mostly and appropriately skeptical and critical of the gubmint.  Wish they'd get the stars out of their eyes (and tingle out of their legs).

I like Colonel Allen West. I would vote for him.

There is nothing more American than a black Republican.

One amusing sidebar to this is trying to find a news story that is controversial that lists a democrat's affiliation in the opening paragraph.  I always read the first paragraph and if no party is mentioned, I know it is a democrat.

No, you can't be serious, DG!

You're lucky if it's ever mentioned in the article at all, let alone buried in a paragraph on the continuation page.

Well, usually the article is picked up from the blogosphere or Fox News.  So you can trace it back to where the party is mentioned in that case.  Or just assumed.  But assumption implies risk of being wrong.  When it is all the time, that risk disappears.

A little necromancy:

Front page, above the fold, national 'news story' from today's newspaper.  Feature article by two Washington Post 'journalists'.

Subject header: 

Full page Headline: 

Subhead: 

Opening para: 

Emphasis mine.  I was going to spend a little time pointing out the details of the bias demonstrated here, but decided it is so self-evident (sure should be, anyway) as to not require it.  Again, this is not (supposed to be) an opinion piece - it's put out as straight news.

Of course, you would prefer the straight reality of class warfare.