This is journalism in Pat Powers's world. He takes a photo of Rep. Kristi Noem and Oklahoma Rep. Frank Lucas holding forth at the State Fair and declares the meeting "packed to the gills!" (yes, exclamation point included). Let's count heads... and empty seats:
In this frame, I see 11 audience members. I see maybe eight empty chairs. Granted, they the photo shows only the front row, and since every public meeting in South Dakota is like Lutheran church, there may be a higher density toward the rear, outside the shot.
But journalists choose photos that support their words, not to mention words that reflect fact. "Packed to the gills!" is not an AP-approved synonym for the "slightly more than half full" shown by the photo under that headline.
Update 11:45 CDT: I posted a comment to this effect under Pat's original post. It appeared; then reverted to "awaiting moderation," meaning Powers took it down.
What was an Oklahoma politician doing at our State Fair, with Noem? doesn't she have enough self confidence to appear by herself?
you must be really upset with the DWC.
you know that 'awaiting moderation,' mean there was something in the comment that flagged it. It could be multiple links or a combination of words. it is all designed to keep out spammers
And here I thought that Republicans being fiscal conservative and good with numbers would be accurate in their counting and above all else, we all know honest they are!
By having a nimrod from Oklahoma here with our nimrod, it means that both would not have to appear at the MLK anniversary in Washington. These two can give one another cover from the terror of being around folks of color, scary stuff indeed.
By the way, it is sure good to have Madvilletimes back up and running!
Baloney, MC. It appeared, then Pat took it out manually. I've never seen an automatic spam filter that allows comments to appear, then reviews them and takes them out.
Also moderated: a comment on this post of State Fair photos in which I said, in response to seeing a Lake County neighbor chatting with Rep. Noem, in toto, "Neal McIntyre is everywhere!" No links, no combination of words I can discern that would set off an alarm unless Neal McIntyre is a new brand of male-enhancement pills.
The DWC must be really upset with me.
Joan, it's all about lending Kristi authority. Curious: how many events does Noem appear at in other states?
Thanks, Jerry! MadvilleTimes.com has been up and running without problems for 12 of the last 19 days. By PP's math, the blog has been running continuously all month!
On one of DWC's many posts complaining about Angie Buhl, I once asked Bill Clay when there would be an actual policy discussion. Shortly thereafter my comment was put into "moderation" never to be seen again. "Policy" must be one of those trigger words at DWC. Similarly, my comment appeared long enough to get a reply before being taken down.
Bill Clay's math is fuzzy at DWC. A co-worker left our booth to drop in on Kristi's meeting yesterday and she said there were a lot of empty seats. Not packed to the gills. More like to Bill Clay's rather expansive waist line. By the way, it's a rather boring state fair this year.
C, I put the comment below on an Aug. 27th DWC post and it went into moderation. It was added after about one hour.
"Bloggers are now journalists…Perez Hilton, Pat Powers and Larry Kurtz is the same breath. I wonder if a Twitter account qualifies? And the Pulitzer Prize for reporting in 140 characters or less goes to…"
I believe it was Perez Hilton or Larry Kurtz that flagged my comment.
The judge in the Willard case should have quaified the "journalist" definition a bit..... I think in the case of the DWC, he meant tabloid journalism......
The DWC could take a page from the FOX Network and remember to use a past picture with good attendance to make their false claims. Like the way FOX used to show the same Tea Party demonstration footage to cover all Tea Party news stories, regardless of how dwindling the Tea Party crowds became over time. Or how about the time, when the crowd continued to grow throughout the night at the gates of the White House, upon the death of Bin Laden, but FOX kept showing only the early film footage of the eventual building crowd outside the White House gates.
Journalists are suppose to print and or cover the truth, which is a new challenge for partisan journalist, isn't it?
They say with every right there is a responsibility. Well, if you want First Amendment protection when it comes to our court system, then I also think you need to heed the adjacent duty as well.....