Sunday, December 28, 2008

The N&O on Obama team's "clearing" Obama team

Yesterday I posted A headline classic. And what about the N&O?

The short of it: Andrew Malcolm’s LAT Top Of The Ticket blog post headline,

Obama team probe of Obama team finds no Obama team impropriety,
is a classic. I wondered what headlines the McClatchy Company’s liberal/leftist “Anything for Obama” Raleigh N&O ran for the story?

I promised to check and get back to you.

The front page of the Dec. 24 N&O has a small lead-in headline in bold and capitals :
BLAGOJEVICH CONTACT CALLED CLEAN
That’s followed by, in normal size print:
Emanuel was the only one of Obama’s team to have a direct talk, but there was no dealing, internal report concludes
Readers are then directed to more of the story on pg. 3A.

There, the two-column-wide headlines read:
Contact with Blagojevich called clean

Internal inquiry finds only ‘innocent’ discussions with the Illinois leader over Obama’s Senate seat
Well, of course.

What could be more ‘innocent’ than “‘innocent’ discussions with the Illinois leader over Obama’s Senate seat?”

Sounds like just the sort of thing responsible public officials would do, doesn't it?

What's all the fuss about? No wonder the “internal report” found “there was no dealing.” Let's turn to the funnies.

Request to McClatchy Watch: Please consider posting on the N&O’s latest “Anything for Obama” headline “reporting;” and then asking bloggers who watch other McClatchy papers to provide those papers’ headline reporting of Malcolm’s story:
Obama team probe of Obama team finds no Obama team impropriety
Malcolm's entire post's here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

And while we're on the subject, Thomas A. Schweich, who served the Bush administration as deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement affairs, has some good advice for Obama:

The Pentagon is muscling in everywhere. It's time to stop the mission creep.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/12/19/ST2008121902949.html

JWM said...

To Anon @ 3:50,

Your comment is undoubtedly serious but appears off-topic to the post.

John