Town Talk Endorses Slocum in More Ways Than One
TT endorsement goes beyond editorial opinion...
I am reposting here a comment I made on the TT forums regarding today's sheriff's race endorsement. I would like to point out that my quarrel is not with whom that have endorsed, but more so with the colour of the situation.
I find it strange that aside from a very light story downplaying the recent scandals reported by Michelle Godard that the Town Talk have steadfastly remained near silent, only to issue a glorifying endorsement of the candidate in question a week before the election.
My comment follows:
I have often been convinced that the Town Talk is less than objective in selecting candidates for their endorsement and have thought reading most of them that they seem to have likely had their minds made up long before.
This particular endorsement however does trouble me. Mainly, I am left wondering whether the Town Talk has been purposely ignoring the recent stories reported by KALB.
Now I don't if KALB also makes it a point to issue endorsements as the Town Talk does. This practice seems strange as it shows anything but discretion and neutrality in journalism -- neither of which have been tenets of the Town Talk at least since its buyout by Gannett.
However, the fact that one news outlet - KALB, has been reporting on the possibility very egregious behavior on the part of one candidate's campaign while the other - the Town Talk has all but ignored the story then only issue an endorsement of that candidate at a later date seems far from serving to the citizens of Rapides Parish.
We all have our own political leanings, and are free to express our support or dismay for any issue or candidate. We have unfortunately seen in this race that dirty politics does not stop at the soap box, nor the church door, nor your email accounts and computer desktops. Even in the realm of Law Enforcement we have now been shown that it crosses the professional doorstep into the workplace.
And now, it appears that in Alexandria political aims even trump the sacred ethics of free, neutral, honest journalism.
1 comment:
After rummaging through the online version of this Sunday's Town Talk, I have a few more observations that concern me as they seem to add credence to this post:
The Front Page story today is "Candidates for sheriff vow to stick with issues". Right below this headline is a single photo of Mike Slocum. Granted, if you click into the article there is an additional picture of candidate Wagner. However, the TT staff posting this story obviously knew the first photo would appear on the front page while the second would not. So rather than combining the two pictures in Photoshop (an effort that would have taken 2-3 minutes) they instead chose to provide a publicity shot to "their candidate".
The opinion piece announcing the TT's endorsement of Slocum proudly states: "Our view: Rapides needs Slocum's skills and experience". Yet, they fail to actually mention any of these skills in their endorsement. They simply state that he has coursework and training.
Below the main opinion piece, in the slot normally occupied by the "Talk About Town" feature is a second reader endorsement of Slocum "Your mail: Elect Mike Slocum sheriff".
This letter is separated from the other reader submissions, given top billing, and presented in a much larger typeface. A letter supporting opposing candidate Wagner is listed two letters below in the same manner as all other letters.
This second place billing also ensures that the letter of support for Slocum appears on the front page of the website whereas the third place listing of the letter supporting Wagner means it will not appear on that page.
Again, the Town Talk seems to have crossed a line between supporting a candidate and creating a false view of local politics by giving the impression that support for Slocum is near universal and absolute in Cenla.
I am neither for nor against either of these candidates. However, I am absolutely against the idea that our local newspaper chooses to use Fox News styled tactics to skew media support toward the candidate they have chosen.
I learned better than this writing for the Cumtux in 10th grade at Bolton!
Post a Comment