Counting is HARD.
McClatchy-Raleigh treated us to this fair & balanced headline today: Protestors cry shame on NC’s hands-off policy on new health law. I see there are no quotes around any words in this headline over a HARD news item. Now, how many protesters were we talking about?:
About 20 protestors rallied before the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services Thursday morning to express frustration that state officials are doing little to promote the new health care law.
About twenty ???? That’s a small enough gathering where you ought to be able to get an exact number. Granted, it may involve the, um, “journalist” removing his or her shoes.
And does it really count as a “rally” when only “about twenty” people show up?
The Houston Chronicle — yeah, THAT Houston — reported on more than 1000 people showing up in Salisbury, North Carolina for a rally to support the county board of commissioners in their prayer dispute with the ACLU. McClatchy could not be bothered to cover THAT. But, hey — “about twenty” dirty leftists from Chapel Hill-Carrboro hang out and holler in front of the DHHS offices and THAT is freakin’ news!
Back in January, some Tea Party folks hosted a rally at the NCGA building in Raleigh urging a fight against ObamaCare. “A few hundred” people showed up, but no one at McClatchy or WRAL or ABC 11 could be bothered to drive over and cover it. But, man,get about “about twenty” folks to show up to yell at the DHHS building …
Let’s take a look at what North Carolina’s mainstream media thinks IS newsworthy. Here, ONE union protester going after IBM got an article and photo on WRAL’s web site. “About two dozen” lefty protesters got a photo and a mention in a Triangle Business Journal article HERE. In THIS ARTICLE, WRAL gave a photo and story to SIX lefties who chained themselves to the front door of DENR’s offices in Raleigh. HERE, WRAL provides a story, photo AND video for “DOZENS” of Occupy nut-cases. In this story, WRAL published a story about FOUR lefty protesters.
Pravda in Soviet days used to have on its masthead ”official journal of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union”. The North Carolina media is just as much in bed with the left wing of the Democrat Party as Pravda was with the Communists. If they believed in truth in advertising, they would put something like ”voice of the left wing of the Democrat Party of NC” on their masthead. That is all they all. They do not report news, but instead spew partisan political propaganda, and if lying about issues helps them make their political hachet job, they are not above that.
I think we are being a little hard on the McClatchs. From what I understand the investigative journalist in charge of “protester counting” had his hours cut so he would not be an Obamacare expense. So the guy doing the reporting had to write the story, take the photos and then grab the bus back to the office. One ace reporter stated, “I didn’t go to college to do no math. I went to learn bias.”