Read this
online report from KXMB, titled “ND Farm Bureau Endorses Goehring” and tell me if something isn’t out of wack:
“The North Dakota Farm Bureau has endorsed Republican challenger Doug Goehring for North Dakota Ag Commissioner.
Goehring is running against incumbent Democrat Roger Johnson.
Today, Johnson said helping develop renewable energy in the state will be his number one priority with the state legislature which meets in January.
Johnson says the state is far behind neighboring states in supporting renewable energy such as ethanol, biodiesel, and wind energy.
He says if he’s re-elected, he’ll again be in front of the legislature, trying to push the state forward on energy issues.
(Roger Johnson, (D) ND Ag Commissioner) “I have testified innumerable times in front of state legislative committees for these types of things we’re talking about today. Sad to say we’ve lost most of those fights. The state has been pretty timid, pretty tepid in its support of renewable energy and result is that we’re where we’re at.”
Johnson is just back from his election as president of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture.
He says in that position, he’ll be spending a lot of time in Washington DC helping develop the new farm bill.
The current farm bill expires in one year.”
ONE SENTENCE of this story was devoted to Mr. Goehring. The rest was all about Roger Johnson and how he’s so great. Whether or not he is good as Ag Commissioner isn’t the point of my post; what is, however, is that the headline is misleading.
That’s how you spot media bias. Judging from the headline, you’d expect to hear about how and why a Republican challenger for the race got a very important endorsement in his bid for office. Instead you get a fluff piece about how great the Democrat is. Keep things like this in mind when you read news reports this election season, and don’t rely on just one source to be informed. These days there’s so much selective reporting that you have to go GET the information you need to vote responsibly.
If one were to give KXMB and their reporter the benefit of the doubt, and say that this is not motivated by political bias, then they at least need to have some remedial reporting and writing classes for the newsroom staff. That can go a long way to save the ol’ journalistic integrity. And let’s not leave out other local newsrooms either.
Full disclosure: This blog is syndicated on the KX Network websites. That doesn’t give them a free pass with this author, however. It’ll be interesting to see if this blog post stays on their site along with all the other ones, though.
