Name Calling Sells Newspapers

Being a Journalism school graduate and a liberal/progressive/flower codger (flower child just doesn’t seem to apply any more, if it ever did), I find the Herald-Leaders attempts at being fair and balanced interesting.

Let’s be honest here, every media outlet has a political and financial agenda. Whether it’s the Herald-Leader or FOX news, the news is always presented with a slant and presented in such a way as to attract as much attention as possible.

But I have to wonder if the editorial board of the Herald-Leader is staging the op-ed page to bash conservatives while maintaining a veil of fairness.

Here’s why:

Last Sunday they published a column by Jenean Mcbrearty titled “Hippies still trying to ruin the country”.

Jenean took aim at folks like me “Radicalized, the flower children morphed into lefty loonies who now masquerade as social progressives”

Now I don’t really think of myself as a lefty loony or a radical. I went to college in the 60’s and 70’s so I remember what real radicals look like. Some of my friends in Oregon tell me I’m really a moderate Republican, I don’t really see that either. Let’s just say that Jenean agrees a lot more with Stan Lee than she does with me on most issues.

So, in today’s paper there were a number of letters to the editor that slammed Jenean for being a “right-wing nut job”.

I don’t think there’s much question whether Jenean is a “right-wing nut job” or not, her writing speaks for her.

But my question is this:

Did the Herald-Leader give column space to a KCTCS Political Science Professor they new was a “right-wing nut job” just so they could have the readers bash her or did they think Jenean was a thoughtful conservative voice?

By the way, I don’t think Jenean is still working for KCTCS, at least that’s the impression I get from Jenean’s space blog.

Regardless of how Jenean got the columnist gig, the bottom line here is that the Herald-Leader’s editorial staff should be doing a more professional job of presenting differing view points.

Leave the “right-wing nut jobs” and the “lefty loonies” to write their blogs (I'll keep writing mine) and use the op-ed page for a more thoughtful discussion of the issues.