Thursday, April 5, 2007

A letter to ABC News

Sirs,

Your article about the appointment of Sam Fox as ambassador to Belgium is a wonderful example of why your network (and most of its competitors) is accused of a left-wing bias. The second paragraph, which is not a quote from a political figure but the words of your reporter Tahman Bradley, is simply unconscionable. The needless insertion of "slanderous" makes it an editorial, and an offensively biased one at that. Additionally, the reporter apparently did not bother to contact any administration spokesperson before filing the report, because the only quotes (other than a quote from Mr. Fox from hearings held six weeks ago), are from Democrats. Nothing from the Republicans, but two extremely partisan Democrats (Senator Kerry, the target of the ads, and Senator Dodd, who is running for president) are invited to trash both Mr. Fox and President Bush.

A quick Google search on Mr. Bradley revealed a blog post he submitted about Rep. Duncan Hunter's speech to CPAC a month ago, another piece in which he was unable to maintain a sense of decorum and balance. Perhaps ABC's editors should have a talk with Mr. Bradley and encourage him to moderate his tone, and the managing editor should talk to the editors about their sloppiness in letting such shoddy coverage pass through the vaunted "multiple layers of editing" that the broadcast media are proud to possess.

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(Inspired by National Review's Media Blog, here. A link to Rep. Hunter's speech, in which he neither bellows or lashes out, can be found here.)

posted at 08:43 PM | permalink | Comments (0)