Media
Sarah Palin’s new book, “Going Rogue: An American Life”
(I haven’t decided whether Palin would make a good president or not, but I’m going keep an open mind, read her book, and consider who else jumps into the race for 2012.)
Anyway, since Palin’s a conservative pro-life woman who commits the cardinal sin of being attractive as well, the Left must destroy her. Predictably the Associated Press offer a fact check of the book and its claims. A fact check, mind you, that required 11 reporters to come up with six claims of inaccuracy.
Yet even six is an exaggeration. Jamaes Taranto of the Wall Street Journal says two of the alleged “errors” aren’t even errors and the third is just opinion. While Palin says in her book that she didn’t “often” stay in pricey hotels as governor, the AP team finds one expensive hotel she stayed in. She didn’t claim that she never stayed in an expensive hotel.
Palin also says she was a victims’ advocate in the decades-long Exxon Valdez trial and that she was happy the final appellate rulings went in favor of the people. But the AP says she was unhappy that the punitive damages against Exxon were reduced and that it took so long for the lawsuit to be resolved. Those are not contradictory claims. The AP is the one that is wrong here.
Finally, Palin says that it’s not ambition, but altruism that led her to run for political office and then leave the Alaska governorship early, while the AP claims that “Going Rogue” has the earmarks of the typical pre-campaign manifesto of a politician preparing for a run for president. That may eventually turn out to be the case, but the AP can’t claim it as a “fact” and an “error” for Palin to claim otherwise unless they have evidence that she’s said otherwise or that they can read her mind.
When it comes to the Associated Press’s “FACT CHECKs”, the reality is that they’re less about facts than they are about the further erosion of journalistic objectivity and integrity by much of the mainstream media. To wit: Where is the honest and objective “FACT CHECK” on Obama’s autobiography?
This is the type of story that is the bread-and-butter for your typical tabloid newspaper, like the Boston Herald. It’s a typical stirring-up-of-emotions that the average reader will identify with. In this case, the story is a level-3 sex offender who was working as a flagger on a road construction site in the wealthy suburb of Boxford, putting the residents on edge.
But there’s more to this story, including an undercurrent typical of Massachusetts politics and a shading of journalistic ethics. First, the background:
A Level 3 sex offender who was working as a state-certified flagger on a busy Boxford street gave horrified residents a Halloween fright this weekend as police officers went door to door to tell them the perv was working nearby.
David Giacalone, 45, was convicted of aggravated rape in 1985 and received his state certification as a flagger at New England Laborers Trust Fund in Hopkinton in June, state officials confirmed.
That’s pretty much all you need to know about the story. It’s not illegal for an ex-con sex offender to work as a flagger, but because of the ruckus he won’t be returning to the job site. I don’t know if the ruckus is justified. The state’s sex offender registry doesn’t provide much information beyond what the article says: He was convicted of a 1985 aggravated rape and the offender registry board considers him a serious threat to offend again. In that case, notification of the community may be justified.
On the other hand, there’s a whole political subtext at work. Gov. Deval Patrick recently ordered that, in certain circumstances, companies employing road crews no longer need to hire off-duty detail cops at very steep rates, but may instead employ civilian flaggers like nearly every other state in the country does to no ill effect. Police unions were understandably upset by this loss of lucrative off-duty work for their members.
Which all leads me to this question: Is it standard practice for police officers to go door to door in a town whenever a level 3 sex offender is nearby? Or did they only do it this time because this sex offender is also a civilian flagger and it would be a useful weapon in their battle with the governor? And why didn’t the Boston Herald reporter and editor ask the same questions? Or if they did, why didn’t they publish the answer?
Once again, I point this out to remind everyone not to take everything you see reported at face value.
Check this out. My brother and his family were featured in this episode of CatholicTV‘s House+Home show.
This is the house I grew up in. What’s now the girls’ bedroom used to be the room I shared with my brother when we were kids. It looked “a lot” different then. Also look for the steer horns that Melanie and I brought back for my nephews from one of our trips to Texas.
Catholic Vote is back with another great pro-life TV commercial, “Imagine the Potential 2”, a follow on to their earlier ad that showed a child who had everything going against him before he was born but grew up to be our current president.
[Thanks to Amy Welborn.]
