The online edition of Monday’s Virginian-Pilot this evening presented a startling yet unsurprising tilt on their main site:
Think your vote in Va.’s elections doesn’t matter? Think again.
12:00 am – This fall, a turnover of as few as two seats in the 40-seat Virginia Senate would shift control to the Republicans, who now control the House and occupy all three state executive offices.
You can almost hear the ominous tones accompanying such a ‘dire’ headline.
Then the first number of sentences in the ‘article’ (should have been an editorial):
Under Democratic control, the Senate has served as a floodgate blocking a steady stream of conservative initiatives emanating from the House of Delegates, where Republicans enjoy a comfortable majority.
The Democrats are a floodgate (definition: something serving to restrain an outburst); Republicans are a steady stream, wave after wave hitting this ‘safety barrier’ repeatedly, protecting the people from these outbursts! Oh the humanity!!
Next?
A shift of power in the Senate this fall – reinforced by Republicans who now occupy all three state executive offices – would give the GOP free rein to turn its agenda into state law.
DUM DUM DUMMMMMMMMMM!!! ‘Free rein to turn our ‘agenda’ into state law.’ My God, what could happen!
A balanced budget with no tax increases? An actual transportation plan? The first new funding for transportation in over a decade? Defending Virginia against the overreaches of federal government? The list goes on.
Maybe it’s just my 12:30 AM in the morning overreaction, and it’s certainly not news that the Virginian-Pilot is no bastion of conservatism. This same daily paper has been ‘boycotting’ Bearing Drift for nearly a year and a half now, thanks in no small part to Brian Kirwin’s constant well-deserved criticism, and perhaps a little something do to with me telling their editorial staff to do what is anatomically impossible to themselves for their slanderous, outrageous, yellow journalistic anti-Cuccinelli endorsement in 2009.
It’s an election year, Virginian-Pilot, it’s an election year EVERY year. Is it too much to ask that your coverage at least appear bipartisan?
[Update] In a response to a formal complaint from our own Brian Kirwin about the editorial ‘news’ article in question, a response from a Virginian-Pilot editor was received:
From: Denis Finley
Sent: Monday, February 28, 2011 8:50 AM
To: [email protected] ; Maria Carrillo
Cc: Denise Bridges
Subject: Re: Formal complaint
Unfortunately, I agree with you, Brian.
While I’ve worked hard to keep opinion and bias out of news articles, the occasional slanted piece gets through. It should never happen, but it does.
Thankfully, it’s rare, because it ticks me off.
Thanks for the note.
Denis Finley
Denis Finley
Editor
The Virginian-Pilot
150 W. Brambleton Ave.
Norfolk, VA 23510
757-446-2321
[email protected]
Dear friends,
I can’t for the life of me understand how this article is considered news. It is categorized as such and written by a reporter who has an exemplary career in news reporting.
“Think your vote in Va.’s elections doesn’t matter? Think again.” by Bill Sizemore.
It reads like an editorial, and contains an amazing amount of slanted and biased statements. Most troubling, however, is the over-arching and overt message of the article: Please vote and stop the Republicans.
That is a fine opinion for the author to hold, and in an opinion column to voice. But any news article should be scrubbed free of such bias, and in years past, it would have been.
Please explain to me how this article is the unbiased reporting of news.
Thank you,
Brian Kirwin
