Our lazy newspapers are guilty of one of these: Either newspapers are so hungry for content that they print whatever the Associated Press dribbles out, or they actually love shoddy, inept and biased journalism.
Today’s Virginian-Pilot has this dreck of a story today:
“Gerrymandering distorts Virginia’s House makeup”
That headline is pure opinion! I don’t think gerrymandering distort’s Virginia’s House makeup. Obviously, the writer does. That’s fine. But that doesn’t make it true. Just because you agree with an opinion does not automatically make the opinion a fact.
The horrible writer, Mr. Larry O’Dell, who spends his free time loving the Oscars and the Redskins (maybe he can protest himself), then proceeds to quote a Stephen Farnsworth, a government-paid former reporter who teaches at a taxpayer-funded University and has written such fine tomes as “The Nightly News Nightmare.”
I don’t fault Mr. College for having an opinion, although the lazy reporting of quoting college professors who teach politics but have never won a campaign in their lives is still pretty sad.
My problem is that the AP stopped there. No second source. No second opinion. No opposing point of view. Nothing!
O’Dell writes his premise, follows up with no less than six quotes from Farnsworth, and calls it a day.
That’s not a news article. That’s an editorial with a double byline.
If that’s what passes for news in 2014, Farnsworth and O’Dell just started a new nightmare for the professor’s next book.
