Saturday, October 04, 2008

Unbalanced "balanced" reporting

We were only able to watch the Biden-Palin debate for about a half-hour. After about the third time that Gov. Palin refused to answer a question and went on to something else, we turned the TV off and went to do other things.

I was amazed later in the evening to find hardly any mention of this in online commentary. I was still amazed when the Duluth News Tribune gave both fairly good marks for their performance. It was only when I got to the very end of an article about UMD students watching the debate did I find this:

“She keeps changing the subject, cutting off the issue, like she’s trying to hide something or doesn’t have an answer,’’ [Josh] Clarke said. “She just shows a lack of experience, kind of naive.’’
- Duluth News Tribune, 2008-10-03

Fortunately, similar comments are appearing today. And surprise, more of it is coming from so-called conservative or centrist commentators. So-called liberals seem to be afraid of any criticism of Palin; that would make them part of the "biased media."

I'm sorry, but if most people understand there is a problem, and one candidate states there is no problem and another states we must address this problem with thoughtfulness; shouldn't we be more critical of the first?