WRAL’s chief news fabricator sinks his teeth into Greg Brannon

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binker rollBinky & The Shi-Tzu are the two primary cartoon characters responsible for providing us our statewide political coverage in the mainstream media.

We gave mad props to the shih-tzu earlier for actually getting in the face of one Kay Hagan — NY senator Chuck Schumer’s Sock Puppet.™   Binky has decided to let his reporting consist of waiting around for various opposition research types to dump dirt in his lap.

WRAL’s Mark Binker can’t be bothered to interview the CEO of the firm at the center of the court case involving Greg Brannon.  That individual lives in Raleigh.  Asheville radio host Pete Kaliner managed to find him and do one heck of an interview.  Binky decided to read from the opposition research-provided talking points and report about, oh, twenty-five percent of the story.  

During the court case, Binky also gave us the *blockbuster* report about Brannon being late on his property shihtzutaxes (by roughly one month).  Today, we get a story about how the US Senate can’t find an ethics disclosure report from the Brannon campaign.  Hmmm.  It took the FEC to the end of February to post campaign finance details that had been turned in at the end of 2013. ( I know.  It’s *hard* to imagine a federal government entity being disorganized, slip-shod and basically screwed up.)

*Binky has clearly stumbled onto evidence of some kind of nefarious plot by that Cary baby-doctor. Perhaps he’s using his position as an OB-GYN to shape state government policy to benefit campaign donors and to shake down people with interests before state government for campaign cash.*

It’s interesting to see Binky now wearing the badge of the ethics police.  Why, it was just in October that he got busted fabricating a quote from a legislative hearing.  He had the benefit of his station’s own video feed, but chose to terribly misquote a Democrat senator in a manner that led to embarassing publicity for him and Gov. McCrory’s DHHS secretary.  (We’re still waiting for the apology.)

In November,  Brannon was honored for his work as a medical director for a faith-based crisis pregnancy center in Wake County.  Binky showed up — with the shih-tzu in tow.  The two of them saw the whole presentation, and got oodles of private time with Brannon after the event.  They managed to take a very moving, spiritual event and turn it into Brannon somehow approving of slavery.  

In July 2012, Binky decided to publish a database of the personal info for every concealed-carry permit holder in North Carolina.  He got all indignant –got his bloomers in a wad — when a gunowner rights group turned the tables on him and disseminated his personal info on the Internet.

i am told that Binky and the shih-tzu purposely steer clear of tough coverage of Thom Tillis. My Raleigh sources tell me that Tillis — as House speaker — has a lot of leeway in being able to ban reporters from the legislative building.  Get on his bad side, and you’re DONE.  My question is this:  What good is it to your readers / viewers if you have “access” but don’t bother to tell the truth?