Our "local" corporate paper is the Glens Falls Post-Star. Its owned by the publishing empire known as Lee Enterprises who currently own 51 dailies across the country. As with many small corporate papers, the Post-Star doesn't do a terrible job with local news and many good people (including some friends) work there. However, they have a monopoly in our little town and are widely hated for their bias and lack of integrity by most people I come across (regardless of their individual politics).
The P-S buried their recent advance story on Ralph Nader's April 26th visit to our little town. It was carefully placed on page B7 in Saturday's paper (which few people read). When I got them an actual interview with Ralph, hoping they would do something front page or at least, more substantive, they did do a tiny bit better, giving him a small right hand sidebar story on page B1 with a tiny photo. As for coverage of the actual event, they only came to the fundraising dinner and not to the public Wood Theater event. We had about 225 people come out to see him. There was a lengthy standing ovation and there were four TV stations there (the local Time Warner and NBC affiliates covered it). There were three other videographers and six print journalists there from different papers (indie and otherwise). The Post-Star printed a little story on the visit on Sunday and had their anonymous an cowardly sniper, Don Coyote ("Dumb Coyote"), tell us all on the front page, "No wonder way more people went to see Rachael Ray than Ralph Nader. He didn't even have an ice sculpture." (Rachael Ray was in Lake George, her hometown, that same night, at a annual fundraiser she holds at at her alma mater, Lake George High School.)
What would it be like if Ralph made a living hawking Dunkin Donuts on TV instead of working tirelessly on our behalf? Would he then warrant some substantive coverage in the Post-Star's
precious little pages? Is that what it really takes to get on their "radar" and to earn their respect? You've got to be on TV selling crap? I can easily imagine that Miley Cyrus is the editorial staff's favorite singer (they've likely never heard of KD Lang or Lyle Lovett or Blue Rodeo, those people aren't on TV often enough to be "relevant" singers). I bet McDonald's is their favorite restaurant ("Aw shucks, them burgers is on the tube all the time, dude!). These are not people one could accuse of being too bright and they control the mainstream's access to information!
Apparently, they have never heard of journalism or substance or truth. They are so caught up in their bullshit TV world, they have lost the ability to focus on things that actually matter.
Since then, their lack of coverage has caused the story on the dinner to be the "Most Commented" on their website. Check it out.
The editorial staff have also regularly responded to online criticisms of their biased coverage (or non-coverage in many cases) by attacking me or the others who make note of their criminal behavior. John Thomas had a great letter to the editor published about the Post Star's pathetic behavior (I've copied it below). They responded (as always, using anonymity) with an "Editor's Note" saying that they had given "ample" coverage to Ralph. They also said this to me in an anonymous editor's note ... "Just declaring yourself a presidential candidate doesn't automatically make you equal to the others. If McCain, Clinton or Obama came to Glens Falls, our readers would be expecting, and we would be giving them, much more coverage than Nader. That has nothing to do with the "corporate media" junk you keep throwing out. It's common sense. Any other paper, big or small, corporate or privately owned, would do the exact same thing."
Amazing! All I can think of is that old adage we have all heard many times over the millennia, "If little Mikey jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you do it, too?"
Apparently the Post Star management will follow their corporate media "leaders" right off the bridge. Their God, the mighty Boob Tube, can do no wrong. Sad little people ... all of them. If the many other media mechanisms we often think of as more "credible" didn't also cheer lead the war, water down the issues, ignore and marginalize candidates, promote big business and parrot wire stories, I would think the Post-Star was a truly evil mechanism. Knowing that they are just following the lead of NBC and PBS and Disney and the NY Times and the Washington Post makes me feel better. If they are just stupid and easily-led ... that means there is hope for them yet! ;-)
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