Read a Pacific Northwest, liberal perspective on world, national, and local politics. From majestic Redmond, Washington - the Northwest Progressive Institute Official Blog.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Right wing columnist distorts what happened at Baird town hall

Dina (Elizabeth) Hovde of The Columbian tries to keep the right-wing messaging going regarding the Baird town hall meeting. Apparently she just caught the replay of Brian Baird on CVTV, the local government cable station:
It was painful watching U.S. Rep. Brian Baird defend himself against disgruntled supporters at an Aug. 27 town hall meeting. I caught the spectacle - which came just short of a public flogging- on television.

[...]

People were booing, laughing and eye-rolling. Baird pleaded for understanding or patience, only to be met with scowls and scoffs. With friends like that, who needs Republicans?
Over at Ridenbaugh Press a few days ago, Randy Stapilus, who was actually at the meeting, had a decidedly different take:
Baird did make his case, outlining it in some depth in the opening 15 minutes or so of the meeting, and expanding on it in response to questions; the audience sat quietly as he made his initial points, and only occasionally hooted at him later.

He was shouted at on several occasions, usually by individuals barking a short slogan, but he was not silenced; he handled the meeting with skill and grace (both tested severely) and maintained control of the proceedings. When he had something to say, he spoke; when he wanted to cut off a rambling monologue, he did (on several occasions), and the crowd accepted that.

A number of questions were asked, and Baird answered them. The session was highly emotional, and emotions were expressed along with more intellectual responses, but it did not degenerate into chaos.
One highly unfortunate aspect of the entire Baird-storm is that the right wing media and their plants in traditional media continue to just make stuff up. (Long-time readers may recall that Hovde came to The Columbian from Jeff Kemp's Families Northwest, a Washington state based Dobson affiliate.)

It's ridiculous that Hovde, who works for the daily newspaper in the largest county in WA-03, forms her opinion weeks later from a government channel replay. Meanwhile, Stapilus proves himself ten times the journalist Hovde could ever hope to be.

So who is less credible, blogs or traditional media? Basically Hovde is NRO-lite on newsprint, published in a newspaper with a declining circulation of under 50,000 in a growing county with over 400,000 people.

And people wonder why newspapers are in trouble. The opinion pages certainly aren't compelling people to subscribe.

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