By now we know that the mainstream media's notion that every story has two sides that have to be reported as if they have equal weight simply keeps the idiotic "both sides do it" meme afloat. ("And now, here's what the Flat Earth Society said.") Here's a particularly teeth-gnashing example.
Public radio reporter Kitty Felde of KPCC in Southern California, decides to do a story on two new Congressmen who recently made the move from the legislature in Sacramento. How does D.C. gridlock compare to California gridlock? I suppose there's a story there.
To set it up Felde reports thusly:
Even in a town known for gridlock, the bottlenecks in Washington these days have gotten pretty ugly. On Friday the GOP-controlled house voted almost entirely along party lines to avoid a looming government shutdown only if it's part of a bill to gut President Obama's healthcare law.
Democrats reject the Obamacare cuts and have added demands of their own: They want any stop-gap funding measure to roll back the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration.
http://www.scpr.org/...
What is this? Mere stupidity? Willful stupidity? Republiklan shilling? In what universe are Democrats equally responsible for gridlock? Boehner knows that the only way he can get anything passed is by appealing to cooperative Democrats, as he did with the Sandy relief bill and the Violence Against Women legislation. In this Congress the right owns impasse as a way of life and they're proud of it.
The only way House Democrats can be seen as creating gridlock is if you have the belief, which Felde may, that their obligation is to make sure the ACA is shredded.
At any rate, I don't need to make that case here.
If you find this kind of reporting not only annoying but the equivalent of journalism malpractice, you might let Felde herself know.
https://twitter.com/...
kfelde@kpcc.org
Phone: (202) 263-0200
Try, really try, to be polite. She needs to understand she just can't say things because they sort of sound good. She's not going to get the message if people yell at her.
Melanie Sill is Felde's editor.
msill@scpr.org
Phone: (626) 583-5198
Although KCRW is flashier and has more of a national presence, KCPCC is linked to Minnesota Public Radio and has all that Garrison Keilor wealth. It's a Southern California heavyweight with news or perhaps "news" programming when KCRW plays music. Felde's robotic neutrality, if that's what it is, does damage.