The press can't hide from its role in the Obama school speech "controversy"

As I've said on here many times, the right wingers can gin up anything they want and it gets covered. You'd have to suspect that the mainstream press wants to go along too based on the way the've covered the education story.

Things are far too important in the US at present for this type of silliness to continue, something must be done though I wish I could figure out what.

The same media that gave a pass to Bush/Cheney is the same one that allowed Clinton to be hounded for 8 years and is now assisting the crazies in its insane rants against Obama.

A great majority of the people in media should be disgraced in the public square for distracting from the vitally important issues of the day.

I am disgusted.

this is where the conservative garbage that becomes conventional wisdom and taken as 'mainstream' is from.
The rightwing nuts can screech all they want and act as childish as they want but, it's the press that makes it seem like it's legit and how average people feel.
They label the tenthers, birthers and tea party nut cases as just average populist rage. Please.
Until the msm stop giving the far right a platform and legitimacy our country will continue down this insane path.

I don't know, I kind of think this side of the political spectrum ('progressive' or whatever label you want to give it), or their media advocates and representaives, they missed the boat on this one... this was a big fat pitch lobbed right in there, and they should have swung big at it, and immediately referred to what Fox News Channel (and others) were doing was calling for a boycott of the schools on that day... they ('progressives') should have ran like hell with the word boycott, and pinned it to Fox so hard that all Fox could do in response was deny it, deny they were calling for a boycott... and still, the nonsense should have been referred to as a boycott, and should have turned tuesday's school attendance into a national referendum of sorts, one that Fox would have lost in a near unanimous and crushing landslide...

I think this side is a little tired right now, and didn't exactly recognize a fastball right over the plate, and so mostly just looked at it, instead of hitting it out of the ballpark.

That's OK, it's just one pitch in just one at bat, there'll be other chances, and right soon.

"Resorting to "he said/she said" journalism when one side's claims are blatantly ridiculous is just pathetic."

But common for quite a while. See McCarthy, Jenny vs. actual science of vaccines

President Obama is starting to disapoint me a bit. First, he caves in to the right by eliminating the "end of life" part of the health care bill. Second, he caves in to the worksheet idea for the speech to children. Third, he caves in and accepts Van Jones resignation. Fourth, he caves in on the public option. WHO DOES PRESIDENT OBAMA ANSWER TO? FOX NEWS?

The MSM acts like if they don't report every little insane story that faux news comes out with then they will be seen as partisan. They always tell you to give both sides of the story and be objective but part of being objective is calling things as they are. If they are past reality then you state the claim but add the facts that brings the lies back to reality and discredit them. Being objective is not giving equal credit to a fact and a lie.

Printing such political nonsense as if it reflected reality (and just writing such stories gives them credence) harms the LA Times reputation for accuracy. The problem is that news media is always filtering when it chooses to write stories. You can find and interview people that believe all kinds of things, but you don't automatically put that in the news.

Printing such stories and thereby lending them legitimacy makes news sources like the Times resemble sources like the Weekly World News (see their latests story - "11 Hints you might be descended from Aliens")

"Resorting to 'he said/she said' journalism when one side's claims are blatantly ridiculous is just pathetic."

So very true. It's also important to instruct our top mathematicians that the derivative of x^2 is 2x, and to teach our top football coaches that it's usually good to punt on 4th and 25.

Most professions don't need bloggers teaching them kindergarten.

One of these days, an investigative news story should concern itself with the deterioration of Democracy via the so called "news" we are getting nowadays. It began with Fox News, and it only grows more ludicrous. That a t.v. program where the hosts and "reporters" are not journalists by trade, but commercial entertainers-- can call itself a "News" show or news station, is more than questionable.--Perpaps as a basic F.C.C. regulation a news show should be able to prove it is disseminating news and,or, at the least, distinguish its "news" from its editorial commentary. This would benefit all, including talk show hosts who have an agenda -- they can be even louder and more passionate -- as well as more ignorant and inane, without being called down for by serious news outlets. They would not lose ratings, I'd bet, but gain them. Afterall, viewers who watch Fox News are very out-front and unapologetic about their narrowness and even their passion regardless of education or information.

Those who can discriminate thoughtfully, i.e., not the regular Fox News viewer, would then not be detracted and distracted constantly by a need to counter the ignorant and slanderous propoganda Fox News delivers daily. The other stations would not have to deteriorate into food-fights, so as to reset the basic standard toward news delivery -- every single day. It's a waste of time for Rachel Maddow and Keith Oberman to have to give any time to the inanities flying at us from Fox. It amounts to serious journalists taking bat at flying pies! Meanwhile, real news keeps coming. It doesn't wait for Fox or MSNBC to catch up with it. Real citizens still want to hear real news.

The increasingly fanatical, unsubstantiated, and ignorance-driven broadcasts coming from Fox and co. would possibly begin to self-destruct via its own sorry sub-literate viewership. In any case, this last one -- creating a story around some fanatics so far removed from reality that they themselves have become irrelevant to it (The President's speech extolling virtues of education threatens their children!!!!!????), only underscores how far, far away from planet earth stupidity can be steered. It's sad. Let it self-implode or just sizzle out by way of its own dying relevance.

As I said elsewhere, NPR is doing yeoman work for the crazy rightwing:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112622675

At no point in their report is there any context or history. You'd think Obama was the first president ever to address our nation's kids.

Even worse, the two people NPR interviewed who are against this, Barbara Cargill & Neal McCluskey, are hardcore right-wingers with established ideological records regarding education. Just do a Google search on them!

For example, here's what the San Antonio Express-News reported Barbara Cargill as asking to someone being considered for the local school committee on Social Studies: "Would you consider yourself a conservative when it comes to patriotism, the constitution, the heritage of our forefathers, etc?"

Not quite sure what fits Cargill's definition of 'patriotism' but why would anyone bring on such a loon to discuss the topic?

Disgraceful.

As I said elsewhere, NPR is doing yeoman work for the crazy rightwing:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112622675

At no point in their report is there any context or history. You'd think Obama was the first president ever to address our nation's kids.

Even worse, the two people NPR interviewed who are against this, Barbara Cargill & Neal McCluskey, are hardcore right-wingers with established ideological records regarding education. Just do a Google search on them!

For example, here's what the San Antonio Express-News reported Barbara Cargill as asking to someone being considered for the local school committee on Social Studies: "Would you consider yourself a conservative when it comes to patriotism, the constitution, the heritage of our forefathers, etc?"

Not quite sure what fits Cargill's definition of 'patriotism' but why would anyone bring on such a loon to discuss the topic?

Disgraceful.