Breaking! Texas Media Watch is BULLSHIT!

[fudge stripe cookays]

Hi all.

I heard through the grapevine about a voter registration incident that occurred with a reporter, and told reprehensor about it. We discuss everything about what's going on now.

He said I needed to send it to Texas Media Watch, and that sounded like a good idea to me. I'd heard about the site, and it sounded like something doing good work here in Texas, like FAIR or Media Matters.

When I began to check over old versions of the newsletter on the site, I didn't like what I began seeing. A clear pattern emerged of BIAS within the non-bias. Not much anger and vitriol about the Swift Boat Vets, but some seriously damning words for Dan Rather and CBS.

At first I thought, "Well, she's trying to be COMPLETELY without bias." At the story about our textbook change meetings, warning bells really began to go off.

In a September 9 news report on the State Board of Education hearings on how sex education should be presented in Texas schools, Houston Chronicle reporters Janet Elliott and Jo Ann Zuniga take sides in this opening paragraph:

AUSTIN - High school students in Houston and elsewhere may not learn about preventing pregnancy and disease in proposed new textbooks that teach abstinence exclusively.

Readers interested in learning the other side of the argument had to read to the bottom of the story. The last paragraph reads:

“Years of comprehensive sex education have failed. A double message blurs the direct abstinence approach," said Anne Newman, director of policy for The Justice Foundation, a San Antonio-based group that supports limited government and parental rights.

I thought, "huh?" A media watchdog is annoyed that a story about getting our kids TRUE information about contraception and STCs mentions very little about fundie thought processes?

So I did a little searching online for Sherry Sylvester, the Texas Media Watch guru, and here's what I found.

First, she had her own Website up until 1999 or so. New Jersey politics mostly. Complimentary on many Republicans, not so much on Dems. More warning bells.

Then, surprise! Here's the real gem:


(one person's photo was removed)

Now compare this with the front page of Texas Media Watch Website. In case you missed it, I've marked it with an arrow. See a little Fox copycat at work?



Apologies if you guys were already hip to this, but I'm sitting here fuming. If we haven't spread the news already, this needs to be out there. Texas Media Watch- more shilling.

FSC

[DulceDecorum]

1. They are everywhere

but WE have them surrounded.
And their PR tactics are NOT going to work.

"There's an old saying in Tennessee—I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, fool me once, shame on—shame on you. Fool me—you can't get fooled again."—Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002

[NoPasaran]

2. Sounds like it's not so much a balanced view of the TX Press

More like "fair and balanced"!

Good work!

[sonias]

3. They are fairly unbalanced

i.e. right wing funded. I've heard about them before.


http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/ireland/040321
Canceling liberal and Democratic bias in local newspapers
"Texas Media Watch was set up to counteract the ink that is biased against Republicans in newspapers around the state. It was necessary despite Texas being President Bush's home state, and Republicans holding all statewide elected offices. When an open records request revealed that an American-Statesman reporter had e-mailed four pre-publication article drafts to Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, asking for comments and suggestions, questions were raised."

------
Democrats keep out, unless you just like to get dirty that is.

Sonia

[crispini]

4. Bravo!

Good detective work!

[fudge stripe cookays]

5. Thanks!

Look at you with your 782 posts! I can say I knew you when!

FSC