August 3, 2011

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel gets selective

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's editorial board mandarins have seen fit to denounce Democratic candidate for Senate Sandy Pasch's failure to have her name removed from a third-party outfit's website, where she is listed among its board of directors. The third-party group is active in campaigning against Pasch's political rival, the incumbent Republican Alberta Darling, and coordination between candidates and third-party outfits is unlawful. The Journal-Sentinel's concern was apparently raised by complaints filed with the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board by the State Republican Party. However the complaints do nothing more than note the appearance of Pasch's name on the third-party's website.

Those complaints present no evidence whatsoever of any coordination between Pasch's campaign and the third-party, yet they don't hesitate in directly accusing Pasch of breaking the law. In fact the two complaints, filed on Monday and Tuesday respectively, are sterling examples of piling inference upon inference upon innuendo to reach their fallacious conclusions. Yes, obviously Sandy Pasch's name on the website looks bad.

But that isn't evidence of anything other than a name on a website.

Meanwhile the Koch front group Americans For Prosperity sent mailers to liberal Democratic voters advising them to be sure and get their absentee ballots in by two days after the August 9 elections, but the Journal-Sentinel has not been so moved to condemn that sleazy ploy.*

And Alberta Darling has been ignoring the left/liberal advocacy group One Wisconsin Now's open records requests for months, whereas the Wisconsin statutes command ORR recipients to respond "without delay." OWN filed an actual complaint, in court, containing substantive allegations, as compared with the WISGOP complaints to the GAB, whose allegations are groundless. Yet the MJS mandarins decide the first of these three situations is what merits their finger-wagging treatment.

Our librul media and the choices it makes, I guess is what that is.

* The MJS happily publishes AFP's op-ed pieces, however.

4 comments:

Mike said...

The newspaper business in this country is imploding and good riddance. When pressed, they wrap themselves in the First Amendment, but the purpose of that provision was to provide an independent check on government, not support a self-interested profit center that is itself out of control. They are declining rapidly and there is no scenario where that even levels off, considering background demographics and the ongoing evolution of communications technologies. One of my favorite pastimes is Googling newspaper decline.

illusory tenant said...

I'm sorry to see it go. I was just reading Todd Rosiak's excellent account of the ballgame last night. But the MJS's op-ed stuff is pretty dreadful for the most part.

Anonymous said...

Dude, that mailer was merely a typo.

The "9" key and the "11" key are like right next to each other.

It could happen to anyone.

illusory tenant said...

This one goes to 11.