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Give me some substance
That’s My Opinion
By Bob Robinson
I believe most will agree that County News Online, under my
“leadership,” leans to the right. Some might say it has stepped off the
right-wing cliff, though I would disagree.
I try to make sure that the opinions CNO publishes are backed by some
semblance of support for the conclusions of the authors. They
occasionally might be wrong in their facts or assumptions – and I could
have published unsupported rhetoric by accident – but my goal has
always been to continue the tradition that I established nine years ago
with my weekly opinions at The Advocate…
Provide support for those opinions. I expect the same from CNO bloggers.
I’m a firm believer in a concept I learned a half century ago from a
retired newspaper editor at Texas A&M: “You are going to learn more
about issues and events by absorbing what different people think about
them than you ever will by simply reading newspaper stories or by
watching 30-second segments on the nightly news.”
That has been my experience.
CNO subscribes to daily feeds from a wide variety of news and opinion
outlets: left, right and (supposedly) center. The primary ones are
Townhall, Newsmax, Fox, Politico, Dayton Business Journal, Rasmussen
Reports, MSNBC, Truthout, Progressive, Sojourners and several more
(left and right).
In case you are wondering, I couldn’t find a “sign-up” for MSN, and CNN
wanted access to my facebook page. That was a deal breaker.
At any rate, I peruse articles and headlines every day (50 to 100 or
more) and try to choose those that I believe CNO readers won’t
typically get from other local sources… and might also be interested in.
“Sure would like to see more from the left,” said a couple of my loyal
“left-leaning” readers. “Sure would like to see some left leaning
rhetoric that I can use,” I sometimes replied.
This is what I typically see… and does NOT get published for obvious
reasons:
Progressive: “For generations… union leaders ‘haven’t rocked the boat.
But now the Republicans have gone and torpedoed the boat.’ Public
sector workers ‘could stay at work all night’ to demonstrate that they
are being overburdened. Or they could all go on break at the same time.”
Other than telling me how some on the left view their work ethic I
didn’t learn much.
From a different author: “A great cross-section of the public turned
out to oppose the essential rightwing narrative: that we are in a
“budget crisis” and public employees must pay their “fair share” by
giving up benefits and collective bargaining rights; that the solution
to the economic downturn is to give tax breaks to corporations, destroy
environmental protections, and gut the infrastructure and public
investment that make for a decent, livable society; that public schools
have failed, teachers are lazy and overpaid, and we should shift to a
privatized system of lean, mean education in which students’ fate is
decided by lottery, by vouchers, by privately managed experiments, and
local schools with public accountability are gone.”
Even though I wasted time reading the entire article, not one of those
statements was supported.
Truthout: “Is Barack Obama the community organizer who cares first
about the lives of the other 98 percent of America that doesn’t roll
around in money all day? Or is he the politician who sees that the 2012
election will be bought and paid for by the richest corporations and
their board members, CEOs and the Chamber of Commerce? We know who the
Republicans and the corporatists in the Democratic party will support.
Who is Barack Obama going to side with?”
Then there’s the “pitch”…
“Tomorrow, our Democratic president will announce a slew of cuts to
crucial programs - and the corporate media will cheer the dawn of a new
age of privatization. At Truthout, we won’t gloss over the placation of
big corporations and plutocrats at the expense of working people.
Because we don’t take money from corporate sponsors, we’re able to rip
through the façade of the corporate state and tell the stories no one
else is telling. Please help us stay on this course with a
tax-deductible contribution.”
And: “On Wednesday, the Democratic president of the United States will
stand somberly before a bank of television cameras to announce the
orderly annihilation of the social contract that has guarded and
sustained the American people for generations.”
I can’t believe the following was written with a straight face…
“Truthout is here to get real news and critical analysis into the hands
of people who need facts and solutions. Today’s lead story, for
example: Dean Baker’s “Government by People Who Hate You” takes on the
shock-doctrine tactics being used against the American middle class.”
Ironically, Sojourners is the site on the left that I pay the most
attention to... they toss out their hate rhetoric on occasion, but I
don’t use it. Mostly they link to left-leaning stories that actually
have some substance. Chicago Tribune, New York Times, Los Angeles Times
and more. You’ve seen them on County News Online.
I firmly believe that in order to make an informed decision, you have
to know all sides of an issue: left, right, center and in-between.
I’m open. I hope our readers are. But for crying out loud, give me some
substance!
That’s my opinion. What’s yours?
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