Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Leopards CAN Changer Their Spots/ Bab West's Biden interview

Local Orlando health reporter and "news anchor" Barbara West's interview with Joe Biden had her quoting Marx and using other RNC talking points to the point where Joe asked, "Are you joking?

Buried at the bottom of a story on the interview in the Orlando Sentinel we find out that the inquisitioner had married Wade West, a Republikkkan media consultant: "Several readers questioned how objective West could be because her husband, Wade West, was a Republican strategist, who contributed $2,250 to Republican candidates from 2000 to 2006. Barbara West said he was no longer a strategist and instead runs America Fundraising Auctions, which stages charity auctions."

Earlier in the piece, the Sentinel TV critic, Hal Bodeker, did quote from person at the independen Poynter Institute on journalim: [Jill Geisler, who teaches ethics and management at the Poynter Institute journalism school, said West has a right to ask any question she wants. "Depending on where you sit, you may say, 'Somebody finally asked the question I had,'. " Geisler said. "Others would say it's loaded language."

Geisler found some of West's language hyperbolic and described the anchor as coming from a point of view similar to talk radio hosts Sean Hannity's or Rush Limbaugh's.

"I can ask you 'Have you stopped beating your wife?' and say it's just a question, but there's an assumption embedded in it," Geisler said. "There was a world view in those questions."][emphasis added]

Limbaugh and Hannity, journalists who call it right down te middle. She went on O'Reilly first to defend herself, kind of says it all there.

Later today I'm going to sprout wings and fly AND change my spots.

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