Friday, April 16, 2010

The R-J Stoops to New Lows Today

Never before have I witnessed a "newspaper" that not only refuses to actually report the news, but works to "create it". The R-J is doing just that.

Let's start with their sh*tty excuse for a "poll" released this morning. Just like their earlier misleading "polls", we can't really trust it. We know very well that The R-J is out to attack all Democrats, and even if their radical right ideology wasn't permeating every part of the paper (including the supposedly "objective" news stories!) there are enough flaws in Mason-Dixon's polling to raise real questions on the accuracy of the data.

I'll let LV Journal Review explain.

The Review-Journal once again pounds Harry Reid with poll results at the top of the fold today. [...]

But the entire poll is based on the premise that [Sue] Lowden is the [Republican] nominee. So is the RJ trying to influence the GOP primary?

Certainly seems that way to us.

The paper did its regular polling last week and trickled out the results over the weekend and into this week.

This survey, taken Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, is all the more interesting because separating it from the other questions proves its purpose as a push poll.

And while we respect the validity of the sample size and margin of error, we have to wonder really why they chose to look at this hypothetical -- and to look at it as we hit the final stretch to the primary finish line.

It's clear the RJ has picked its GOP primary winner. Now it will conduct polls and front page stories to support that candidate.

I'd just add that it's becoming increasingly clear The R-J is also trying to "crown a winner" long before we actually vote in November! They want us to believe "Sue Lowden has this in the bag" so that we progressives can be demoralized, and so they can depress support for Harry Reid. It's just that simple.

But again, even if it weren't obvious that they're push-polling for Lowden, a Republican who hasn't even won her party's primary yet (and may not, considering Tea Party Express throwing its weight behind Sharron Angle), there's no way we can really trust this data. They won't release the internals, so we can't really tell if they oversampled Republicans and/or undersampled Latinos and/or undersampled voters under the age of 30 and/or oversampled men. And considering Mason-Dixon's rather poor track record of polling Nevada (remember when they claimed Obama was "only ahead by 4%" while the Titus v. Porter CD 3 race was "a tie" in 2008?), The R-J's lame@ss polls really aren't worth a hill of beans.

Now I wish that were the only problem today. But no, it gets worse. The R-J also refused to properly cover yesterday's tax day rallies and protests. Again, I give you LV Journal Review.

As a former reporter, I'm happy to talk with media any time.

I enjoyed chatting with Kristi Jourdan at ProgressNow Nevada's tax fairness event Thursday.

And, I'm thick-skinned enough to not bristle about quotes that lack full context.

The "stimulate the economy" part of my quote was directly tied to the pot initiative. And I spoke of these taxes in the context of Nevada's looming $3 billion budget deficit.

I don't even want to link to The R-J story, as they completely mangle and twist everything that Erin Neff said when she explained why we were at the post office yesterday. At least The Sun was fairer, although they didn't really report much on any of the protests. As usual, their radical right ideology infected the newsroom and produced these biased and misleading stories on the tax day protests.

But oh my, this takes the cake for today's worst R-J "word vomit". R-J editor Tom Mitchell actually wants to repeal the 19th amendment, which gives women the right to vote in this country!

We don't even know where to begin with RJ Editor Thomas Mitchell's blog post urging the repeal of the 19th Amendment.

So, let's just say this. If Mitchell was trying to use irony, it doesn't work, because his readers wouldn't understand that. If he was just trying to be funny, even the Grateful Dead knew better than to mess with us gals.

Our general reaction is to laugh it off. But we know the paper and watch its daily jihad against Democrats.

This just proves, it's no wonder the RJ has no women in real positions of power on the news side. (We know the City Editor is a woman, but she answers to the cowboy at left).

And it's no wonder the RJ has no women on the editorial board. It's no wonder they don't pay women what they pay men. And it's no wonder why Mitchell thinks it's OK to blog this item, but not put it in the real paper.

This is just pathetic, and it shows the real misogyny motivating the right-wing blowhard boys running The R-J. Unless a woman is a "hottie" who knows how to mouth off the right radical right talking points like Sue Lowden and Sarah Palin, she's just a "nasty harpie" who must be destroyed. Just look through their archives and see their disgusting attacks on Dina Titus, Shelley Berkley, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, and other prominent Democratic women. And remember their many arguments against equal rights for women in health care and in the workplace. Are we even surprised that their "joke" about repealing the 19th Amendment would pop up today in all its sexist vitriol?

Honestly, I'm wondering if I should even bother linking to anything on that site any more. This paper keeps getting worse and worse, and its actions reveal that it cares nothing about reporting the news... It's trying to create the news, and we the people need to stop them in their tracks.

4 comments:

  1. Yeah, well when doing poorly, blame the pollsters.
    And of course the Las Vegas Sun has no bias, do they.

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  2. I sat and contemplated this Tea Party and Angle thing, and I've come to the conclusion that it's a very good thing for us.

    I didn't know much about Angle until this happened, and what I've heard from Nevada Week in Review and the Sun is that she's trying to create a nightmare like Prop 13 in CA. Now, I support PORTIONS of Prop 13 in CA for reasons that are unique to that state and not ours, especially since we have no income tax here and the tradeoff of that is money coming through other means like property taxes.

    So let's look at it this way, one of three things happens:

    a) Lowden wins the general: This is a good thing because it makes the Tea Party look ineffective.

    b) Angle wins the primary, loses to Reid in the general: See example "A"

    c) Angle actually wins the Senate seat: This is a good thing because it gets her out of state politics and sends her to a Senate that presently moves with the speed of continental drift.

    Sure, she's conservative, but there's no real way she can be more conservative than Ensign (who is already voting No on anything, you can't vote No more than someone who is always voting No).

    And Ensign is gone in 2012. Even my cat could beat him in an election thanks to his scandals.

    So really, the worst that could happen is a brief dark period for two years before things return relatively to where they were before, and the state legislature no longer has to deal with Angle's hawkish tax policy. And the least that could happen is an example of The Tea Party being unable to get it done at the ballot box.

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  3. I won't even bother with the GOoPer troll, since all he does at Mr. Gleaner's site is cause trouble and spout out tired old right-wing talking points. On to Mike...

    Am I crazy for not wanting either Suzy or Sharron? They both don't get it. One is so rich (off of profitting off the backs of mistreated workers) that she's extremely out of touch with Nevada's working families, and the other is just plain batsh*t crazy. Neither deserves to be our Senator.

    Oh, and Sharron Angle hasn't been in the legislature since 2006 (thankfully)... So there's no excuse for letting her pollute the US Senate with her radical right weirdness. Still, I hope she wins the primary because the NV GOoPers really do deserve her. :-p

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  4. Well, my opinion (and it's just that) is that Reid probably can't win against Lowden unless either the economy improves dramatically in the next few months, and since the Harrah's job fair still turned out more than 10x the applicants for the number of jobs says we aren't there yet.

    I also, personally, don't like Harry because I consider him responsible for letting Holy Joe of Connecticut trample him on the public option without any retribution. I think having Durbin as Majority Leader will be much better for America's left of centre than Reid.

    Nevada's left is just too scared of the "libertarian streak" of this state to lead the country reliably.

    (Ever notice how NV Dems, both the RJ and the Sun, and so many in politics here repeat time and again that the state is largely libertarian and so we have to triangulate how to enact policy without spooking this huge anti-government majority? But we haven't seen any signs of life from this 'silent majority' until the tea stuff caught on nationwide? It's like our state's own version of The Big Lie.)

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