Fair and Balanced? You Decide!!!

Posted by South Park Diva

From an email I sent to a work colleague...

Here is a great example of why I get a great deal of my news from The Blaze, which is a fairly new website sponsored by Glenn Beck's Mercury Productions.

Have you heard the latest on the NPR funding controversy? Including some undercover video that appears to be very damning to some top execs? There has been one person fired and another person has resigned as a direct result of the video. Naturally, conservatives and Tea Party members were incensed and are currently organizing to pull NPR's federal funding. However, when The Blaze first reported this story, they questioned the journalism methods and raised some interesting questions. They then went to the trouble to get the raw footage of the video and followed up with this report and analysis: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/does-raw-video-of-npr-expose-reveal-questionable-editing-tactics/ (it includes a link to the first story they posted).

This is not a news source that is going to gleefully jump on the liberal-bashing bandwagon, regardless of what actually happened. If a conservative does something slimy, unethical, etc., they are not going to ignore it, excuse it or try to cover it up. And if they feel that someone on the conservative side has perhaps engaged in some questionable ethics in securing or airing/broadcasting/reporting an important story, they are going to talk about that! Their motto comes from Glenn: "The Truth has no agenda."

Perhaps you remember the whole Shirley Sherrod issue? Well, as many were pushing to have her fired, Glenn was cautioning his viewers, saying "we don't have the whole story - it looks like her comments were taken out of context." In the end, she was fired and he was absolutely right - and eventually apologies were issued, and she got her job back. But not before people actually blamed Glenn and Fox news for her being fired. She was fired before the story ever hit the airwaves! And neither jumped on the "Shirley Sherrod is racist and should be fired" bandwagon...

And lastly, I don't know if you are familiar with the voter intimidation case involving the New Black Panther Party in Philly. This case has been largely ignored by our Attorney General, and there are hearings concerning this case going on right now (the AG has been accused of ignoring any voter intimidation cases where the defendant is not white). AG Eric Holder made some comments that have been damned by many on the conservative side. At first, Glenn Beck was very critical (on his radio show) of what could be considered inappropriate comments. But when he heard the audio of the hearing, he realized that he may have misunderstood. He decided not to go ahead with the planned TV segment and then apologized to Holder the next day on his radio show. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/beck-rethinks-his-take-on-holders-my-people-comment/

He said, when there is doubt, we'll give him a pass on that. And that matches up with my philosophy of giving people the benefit of the doubt when it makes sense to do so. Glenn reminds me not to just jump on the liberal-bashing bandwagon, but to think critically about different stories - and to do my own research. As he often says, he is NOT a journalist, but an opinion person. His news site, The Blaze is journalism - with a debate sort of twist. You'll see all types in the comments section. Some real jerks and some normal, run-of-the mill conservatives. Takes all types to make a world! And of course, you'll see the same people over and over commenting. I'm like "why do you have all this time to comment back and forth, people? Don't you have jobs?!"

Anyway, just thought I'd share that with you. I'm very passionate about defending Glenn Beck, and I feel I have good reason. And I although I do not go looking for liberal blogs, I do trust that I am getting news from a wide variety - and from sources who honestly try to get the whole story, even when it reflects poorly on conservatives. I especially trust Michelle Malkin, Stephen Green, Glenn Beck and of course The Blaze. I have seen many issues on all four where they are willing to a) criticize conservatives b) present facts that reflect poorly on a conservative or the conservatives as a group c) do some research before they start pointing fingers at liberals and d) apologize and correct themselves when they have made an error. And they do NOT bury the apology or correction on "page 10"!!!!