"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have"
Thomas Jefferson

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Editorial or Reporting?

While reading the Watertown Daily Times this morning, this paragraph appears in a story about the Governor's visit to Washington DC, written by Marc Heller.
Their visit also came on the heels of the Republican-led state Senate's failure in an emergency session to reach a deal to reduce New York's budget deficit, estimated at $1.5 billion this year. Mr. Smith vowed to make better progress next year when Democrats assume the majority there, as well.
Republican-led state Senate's failure in an emergency session? This appears without quotes, so a fair assumption is that any good reporter would follow that up with factual information to support such a statement, but he did not follow up.

Hmmm interesting, at last check there were 5 people in the meeting: Governor Paterson, Assembly Leaders Silver and Tedisco, Senate Leaders Skelos and Smith, that would be 3 Democrats and 2 Republicans! Yet, this is one persons fault, amazing.


8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Stop glossing over the real issue - Skelos failed. See this quote from today's WDT editorial:

Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos's bankrupt leadership gave political cover to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Mr. Skelos, R-Rockville Centre, had refused to consider the governor's proposals unless the governor presented his 2009-10 budget. But then he abruptly changed his position in an attempt to embarrass the governor by promising a Senate vote certain to defeat the proposed cuts. It was political posturing rather than a serious desire to work with the governor to confront the fiscal crisis.

See also the editorial page in the WDT or the WDT website that re-prints editorials from the Buffalo News, New York Daily News, The Syracuse Post Standard and the New York Post. All point out that Albany failed completely in this special session.

Instead of taking umbrage at a single line in a story, pull out of the trees and take a look at the forest for once.

Anonymous said...

1) Who leads the Senate? The Republicans.
2) Was a deal struck? No.
3) Was there a failure by Skelos to strike a deal? Yes.

I don't see how this is editorializing. He's just pointing out a fact. The Senate is led by Republicans. The Senate did not reach a deal. Ergo, the Republican-led Senate failed to reach a deal.

I think, on this one, you're looking for boogeymen that just aren't there.

HQ said...

Yup. The above A. Nony Moose has it right. I was gonna write much the same thing but he/she beat me to it.

Anonymous said...

C'mon IV. Don't you read Bob Gorman? The Times always covers the news with the utmost fairness and integrity!

That's why everyone hates them!

The fact that you are even questioning the paper's integrity just proves the point.

Anonymous said...

Hmmm. Anon 9:24 --

1) Who leads the Assembly? The Democrats.

2) Who hopes to lead the Senate in January? The Democrats.

3) Who controls both houses of Congress? The Democrats.

4) Who controls the Executive? The Democrats.

You're right -- It must be Dean Skelos' fault!

Anonymous said...

To blame it on Skelos alone is bs. You donkeys know that, but its better than admitting the truth.

The truth is they all failed. The unions are laughing, as we knew they would, and the taxpayers are screwed, again.

And you guys play the donkey and the elephant game. Good for you. That's just what the teachers and other "children lovers" want you to do, fight amongst yourselves.

I still support the Gov as the most honest broker, but I am critical of him for not taking it to a vote. Screw Skelos, call his bluff. But it would have called Silver's too.

Anonymous said...

The Watertown Times, and the people working for them, are not honest providers of information. Why act surprised when they bend over and write blather. That's all they ever print.

Anonymous said...

9:54 That IS funny. Thanks.

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