I props to Angel Clark of SCCOR for managing to secure her group a front-page puff piece in today's WNJ; as the group's public relations director she has achieved her goal.
The WNJ, which has some talented reporters in Ginger Gibson and Rachel Kipp, however, got taken for a ride.
Here's why:
1) The reporter didn't bother to interview anybody even vaguely critical of SCCOR; we know the WNJ staff reads the blogosphere, so how could they have missed the large numbers of folks worried about the use of language [even if I disagreed with them completely, their concerns are part of the story].
2) The reporter is apparently blissfully ignorant of the Bill Colley Catholic Lord's Prayer controversy, and SCCOR's insistence on a particular Protestant version of that prayer at all their meetings. Instead, the article just mentions WGMD as fueling SCCOR without mentioning the controversy.
3) If the report was going to mention the group targeting certain politicians for defeat, or that certain politicians spoke at SCCOR meetings, then it would have seemed important to get a response from some of them. For instance, why didn't the reporter ask Pete Schwarzkopf for a response?
4) I didn't see any mention of the Victory Garden, either.
I have vehemently disagreed with others in the blogosphere who have labeled SCCOR a potentially violent group, but that argument is--or should be--part of the story.
jason asks a real question over at DL today (or last night) regarding rhetoric and responsibility for violence.
Here's part of the answer (as unpalatable as it may be to bloggers): that discussion won't really matter to 98% of Americans until it actually makes it into the MSM.
And with coverage like the SCCOR story just got, don't count on that happening for a long time.
Interesting aside: the story may be on the front page of the print edition, but you have to search to find it online. Wonder why?
The WNJ, which has some talented reporters in Ginger Gibson and Rachel Kipp, however, got taken for a ride.
Here's why:
1) The reporter didn't bother to interview anybody even vaguely critical of SCCOR; we know the WNJ staff reads the blogosphere, so how could they have missed the large numbers of folks worried about the use of language [even if I disagreed with them completely, their concerns are part of the story].
2) The reporter is apparently blissfully ignorant of the Bill Colley Catholic Lord's Prayer controversy, and SCCOR's insistence on a particular Protestant version of that prayer at all their meetings. Instead, the article just mentions WGMD as fueling SCCOR without mentioning the controversy.
3) If the report was going to mention the group targeting certain politicians for defeat, or that certain politicians spoke at SCCOR meetings, then it would have seemed important to get a response from some of them. For instance, why didn't the reporter ask Pete Schwarzkopf for a response?
4) I didn't see any mention of the Victory Garden, either.
I have vehemently disagreed with others in the blogosphere who have labeled SCCOR a potentially violent group, but that argument is--or should be--part of the story.
jason asks a real question over at DL today (or last night) regarding rhetoric and responsibility for violence.
Here's part of the answer (as unpalatable as it may be to bloggers): that discussion won't really matter to 98% of Americans until it actually makes it into the MSM.
And with coverage like the SCCOR story just got, don't count on that happening for a long time.
Interesting aside: the story may be on the front page of the print edition, but you have to search to find it online. Wonder why?
Comments
Thought I would return the favor since some of them came to our, and the speaker at the meeting asked if I was going to be there...
fun fun.
That being said, yes, people may have opposing viewpoints, and fairly said, they should be able to be expressed, but I thought the article was well written, and could help get more people interested in the cause of the Constitution, and isn't that what we're all really fighting for?