You can almost be certain that there will be no letters on
the editorial page of The Telegraph or phone calls to WGXA TV 24 “News Talk
Central” pointing out this deception by The Telegraph. This has to be one of
the prime jobs of the Editorial Page Editor Charles E. Richardson. After all
look at the way The Telegraph covered up the influence peddling and the employment
of Richardson’s wife by the Bibb County Board of Education.
But then we know that at times for a “lousy
lunch” or “employment consideration” for members of the family The Telegraph
will skew things. This can be quite profitable; in the case of the Editorial
Page Editor Charles E. Richardson, it can be as much as “70,000
reasons” (second paragraph from the bottom) as in the case of his
wife Pamela and the Bibb County Board of Education. That is a lot of taxpayer money!
It would seem that The Telegraph’s preferred method of
deception at the moment is the polls. After carefully shopping around apparently
the Executive Editor Sherrie Marshall decided that they could get the most bang
for their buck with the “skewed” Pew Poll. After all according to reports the “Pew Poll”
has been skewing their results for the President “…over the past six months….”
This indicates they can be depended on for future results that will suit The
Telegraph’s purpose, that is deceive the people of middle Georgia!
This morning The Telegraph tells us in their: Poll:
President expands lead over Romney . They do note that:
“In the sample, 33 percent of respondents identified themselves as Democrats and 22 percent as Republicans. Among the registered voters in the poll, 38 percent identified as Democrats while 25 percent as Republicans, according to Pew.”
Surly the people The Telegraph caters to will
not notice this and if they do probably will not know what it means.
They have consistently ignored what Pat Caddell, Doug Schoen
and other democratic pollsters have said about Obama and the Polls.
In Judson Berger’s Pew
poll puts Obama ahead by 10 points amid questions about its methodology
we are told:
"Polling this year typically includes more self-identified Democrats than Republicans. Pew reported the difference in this survey, though, to be 13 percentage points – a wider margin than is typical."
“'It’s just ridiculous,' Democratic pollster Doug Schoen said, when asked about the Pew figures."
"Reliable figures for the percentage of registered Democrats to registered Republicans are not available, since not every state registers voters by party. But Schoen estimated that Democrats probably only have a 3-or-4 point advantage in that regard. He said the advantage was 7-8 points in the 2008 race, and certainly wouldn't have risen since then."“There’s systemic bias in the Pew poll,” Schoen concluded."
The Telegraph has a history of this. If we go back to Thursday, December 17, 2009, we find on page 2A an article by Liz Sidoti of the AP titled “Poll: Gains for Obama, not for his Afghan plans.”
The (Macon) Telegraph did not print
the link to the poll, however the AP web site did. In an attempt to find out
what “more than half” meant, we tried the link provided for the article. We
tried it every day for 21 days. Each day we got the Home page of the AP-GfK web
site, however for the specific poll we got “Sorry, ‘ap-gfkpoll’ does not exist or is not
available.” You would think that the
staff of The (Macon) Telegraph had to
know this and they probably did.
They
also had to know the material they used on May 12, 2011 was not true. The
day before The (Macon) Telegraph ran
the AP article, the article and the poll (AP-GfK poll) was all over the air
waves and cable. The gist of the coverage was about how the poll was loaded and
the dishonesty of AP.
On
May 11, 2011 at 8:55 AM, Jim Geraghty of the National Review
(http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/266932) told us how “Latest AP Poll Sample Skews to Democrats by 17
Points)
That
night, May 11, on Fox News Channel’s The Factor with O’Reilly, Dick Morris,
(former pollster and political advisor to Bill Clinton) and O’Reilly covered
both the poll and the article extensively.
Morris
said the sample was “a totally a screwed up sample, I mean this poll was hogwash.”
O’Reilly
points out that “if the associated press is going to cover the election by skewing
what is happening that is a major story.” He was talking about AP’s deception.
O’Reilly
and Morris probably put the truth in more homes in middle Georgia than The
Telegraph reaches in a week, however that does not excuse what reasonable
people could consider unethical and dishonest conduct by the staff of The (Macon) Telegraph and AP.
O’Reilly
also posed the following question. “Doesn’t it trouble you that the Associated
Press historically, (which) we depend on that, is now looks like it’s promoting
a left wing agenda, a democratic agenda.” Of course
Morris agreed.
It
was pointed out that AP’s explanation of the poll sample was “BS”.
They
cite the fact that Rasmussen who is described “as the best in the business” had Obama up “5 points”.
In
fact Dick Morris wrote an article on 05/11/2011-titled “Disregard the AP
Poll” (http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/disregard-the-ap-poll/)
Again it is pointed out that “This AP poll – with its 2:1 Democratic edge – is utter hogwash.”
He
goes on with: “Even by the standards of AP’s previous polls, this sample doesn’t
standup. It is vastly more Democratic than any of the organization’s recent
polls:”
Then on May 18,
2011 in a reply to a letter
from Mr. Merle Hazard of Macon the editors admit that according to
a Real Clear Politics poll “averages of 12 polls taken during about the same period,
President Obama had an average approval rating of 51.7.” www.realclearpolitics.com/polls
However they were telling the reader that it was 60%.
They
went on to admit the AP-GfK poll was skewed toward “Democrat or
leaning Democrat”
In
spite of all the evidence that the AP article and AP-GfK poll was misleading, The (Macon) Telegraph continued to push
the “60
percent” on News Talk Central the morning of May 12th.
Burgamy
(the ex-banker) did his job well. A token protest to indicate there may be
something wrong. Then there was some mention of the National Review article
followed by some hilarious comparison to some mystical off-the-wall poll on a
Ford Taurus.
In
response Richardson was reduced to stuttering in his attempt to defend the indefensible. That had to be a first!
At
no time did anyone inform the public that because of the skewed sample the
so-called poll was deceptive! Of course not!
In
his book “Polling and the Public – What Every Citizen Should Know” Herbert Asher
tells us that “More worrisome is the huge growth in the use of pseudopolls –
nonscientific and often biased polls conducted by private and public groups
through a variety of mechanisms, including the print and electronic media and
the internet, (emphasis added) and often confused with legitimate
public opinion polling.”
Asher
goes on to inform the reader that “Thus the media generate(s) much of the public
opinion data that in turn become the subject matter for the news stories that
they present. For some observers, this situation raises questions about a
conflict of interest – meaning that the definition of what is news worthy may
be unduly influenced by media-sponsored polls on particular topics.”
Back
in July 2010, we e-mailed President and Publisher George McCanless of The (Macon) Telegraph with some of our
concerns about the so-called news coverage by The (Macon) Telegraph and their commitment to community service. At
the time they had omitted any meaningful coverage about Congressman Rangel (D-NY),
other democrats and their political troubles.
In
his reply, in a very condescending manner he advised that “our commitment is
to THIS community, and I am very comfortable” that we have demonstrated this.
McCanless then
went on to inform us that “Mr. Rangel has been charged
with ethics violations…” and that “he hasn’t been convicted of anything
---yet.” However he assured us
that “When that happens I feel sure we will provide
adequate coverage…”
McCanless’
e-mail indicated that he would decide what news the subscriber gets and when
they get it.
We might note
that this is an entirely different standard than the one that was applied to
House Majority leader Tom Delay (R-TX) and Representative Mark Foley (R-Fla.)
among others.
Folks
the 2012 election will probably be the most important election for the future of this great
country of any election held in the last 150 years. To vote the people of middle Georgia need honest and correct
information. The “60 percent” story (among
other things) presented to the people as a news story by The (Macon) Telegraph on May 12, 2011, which we can only consider a
flimflam, convinces us we are not going to get the truth from The (Macon) Telegraph. We feel that what
we can only describe as bigotry by some of the staff will prevent any useful
coverage of this administration.
The
late Ron Woodgeard, former editorial page editor of The (Macon) Telegraph first called attention to this bigotry in his
“A
not-so-fond farewell”. (The (Macon)
Telegraph Sunday, January 21, 2001.)
Ron
tells us how his “liberal colleagues” would label people in order to put them
“in a defensive posture.” He points out that
this was “often calculated by the accuser”. The reason for this is: “It’s
intended to place you on the defensive, to generate doubt and divert the
discussion from the issue at hand.”
We
ask, is this the type of people you want to depend on for your news and
information at such a crucial time in the history of this great country?
If
anyone can point out anything factually untrue in what we have presented,
please let us know and we will correct it. Because we truly believe that:
“According
to American principle and practice the public is the ruler of the State, and in
order to rule rightly it should be informed correctly.”
Quote from William
Randolph Hearst, New York Journal-American, November 11, 1954
We could care
less about the bigotry and the politics of the staff at The (Macon) Telegraph until such time as they let it interfere with
the News. If they are going to present their self as a Newspaper, they have a
moral obligation to be honest.
The people of
middle Georgia need a newspaper; however a newspaper the people feel they cannot
trust is worse than no paper at all! The people of middle Georgia need an honest newspaper.
Have a nice
day.
No comments:
Post a Comment