My local paper, Foster's Daily Democrat, saw fit to put this article at the tippy-top of the front page today. Headline:
This is front page news, why? Let's see. The story, by Foster's reporter Charles McMahon, begins:
It's nice to know that a state employee doesn't just read the newspaper or listen to the radio at work.
Clichés-R-us.
Gee, they got twelve entire people from all over the Seacoast? And are you wondering how the reporter verified that they were all "working class citizens"? My bet: that's what he was told, and that's what he wrote.
And note the sneaky inclusion of the demonstrators' talking points, not as a quote, but as part of the here's-what-happened "news". We'll see that again.
You can view a picture of Ms. Chabot and her "Oink of America" sign at the Foster's site; the "O" is a sketch of a pig. Heh!
What the reporter fails to mention is that "NH Change That Works" is hardly a grassroots organization. In fact, about 30 seconds on Google reveals it to be a completely-owned subsidiary of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
The SEIU is remarkably sleazy, even for a union. Part of the Illinois Blagojevich scandal involved the SEIU acting as an intermediary between the Obama Administration and Blagojevich; part of the deal was to guarantee the Gov a cushy SEIU-sponsored gig once out of office. [The good folks up at GraniteGrok have long been on the case of the local SEIU, especially their equally phony "I'm a Healthcare Voter" schtick awhile back.]
So the Foster's reporter fails to accurately convey the sponsorship of the protest; however, he does manage to drop a hint or two [emphasis added]:
"We really need a serious and proper health care system to help all Americans," said Chabot.
Yeah, yeah. So a union activist, in a thinly-disguised union activity, parrots a standard union line? Why is this news?
Approximately 10,000 working people in cities nationwide also took part in similar demonstrations at the offices of major banks Thursday afternoon.
I strongly suspect these numbers were not independently verified by the reporter, or anyone; he's meekly reproducing what he was told by the SEIUites. (The 10,000 number also appears in the SEIU press release here, produced before the demonstrations.)
Certainly that would go together with his echoing, once again, the union-produced soundbites, not as quotes, but as "news".
Finally, the reporter manages to put quotes around the propaganda. He doesn't feel obligated, however, to point out the inconvenient facts about those corporate bonuses being a Geithner/Dodd production.
The reporter might have more accurately identified Ms. Choi as Communications Director for a couple SEIU puppet groups.
For a Communications Director, Ms. Choi is remarkably incoherent:
I am baffled as to what "giving workers and consumers a little luck" might possibly mean. Lottery tickets? I am, however, mortally certain that the surest way to drive Bank of America further into the ditch would be to let people like Monica Choi set its fees and employee compensation.
"This is the people's opportunity to take it to the streets," said Choi.
"And also," she thought to herself, "my opportunity to use those old sixties slogans Grandma always told me about."
By the way, the "action day" yesterday has its own website, takebacktheeconomy.org
:
you'll note that the Foster's reporter used this slogan
uncritically in
his headline.
It shows that the national effort was sponsored not only by SEIU, but
more of the usual left/Democrat pressure groups: ACORN, Moveon.org, Rock
the Vote, etc. And once again, the Foster's reporter
might have disclosed this backing in his article, but apparently
was too busy with uncritical copying of the tendentious talking points.
Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention: the groups involved in this action are solid partisan shock troops backing whatever Obama is doing this week. At least for now. As their invitation put it: "Congress needs to join us and President Obama to deliver real change…"
Or: "Please lie down right here, and remain quiet as the steamroller approaches…"
Sure it could. But here's an opposite view that won't be making it into Foster's anytime soon:
If we let them, we're dumber than they are.
Indeed.
So to summarize: Foster's decided to put an SEIU press release at the top of their front page today. Is this the newspaper's full-fledged dive into the fetid water of left-wing advocacy journalism? Or are they just stupid? I don't think there's a third possibility.
(Pun Salad's previous screeds about stupid stuff in Foster's: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.)