Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Advertiser hides the truth from readers on ACORN story
by Larry Geller
Today’s Advertiser carried a highly edited short story on the breakup of ACORN. Everything printed is the truth, but the lie is the selective use of paragraphs of a more complete AP story. Reading what the Advertiser gave you gives the wrong impression of what happened. They edited-out paragraphs that you would need to have to understand the story.
The complete AP story is here. If AP also promulgated this highly edited version, the shame would be theirs. Who wielded the scissors on this one? Usually these stories are cut to fit, so the chopping is done locally. Also, they did not attribute the story to the AP.
Since the editors had the complete story, their edit was a distortion of the news.
As astute readers probably know, the ACORN video was a fake, and a court restored the funding that Congress, in its panic, withheld from ACORN.
Now, the Advertiser is hardly alone. The New York Times has been under intense pressure because of their own inaccuracies, which they refused to correct until today (3/23/2010). And as this story (NYT Admits It Was Wrong About ACORN, But Still Gets It Wrong, 3/23/2010) from FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) notes, they still have not played straight with their readers.
The right wing has been after ACORN for years. If the media wanted to report this story completely, they could. But that seems not to be what they want.
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