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Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Gazette Kicks Off Towns Campaign With Snow Daze

Wednesday’s Janesville Gazette had a story titled, “Could bill have saved snow days?” on their hard-copy front page, which amounted to a GOP campaign kick-off article for former Wisconsin State Rep. Debi Towns (R).

Here the newspaper slyly interjected Towns, who is now a regular citizen, into the current public school snow days make-up discussion simply because Gov. Jim Doyle vetoed a bill sponsored by Towns TWO YEARS AGO, which could have possibly made making up time easier harder (matter of opinion). For whatever reasons two years ago, the newspaper did not seem to make an issue of the bill or the veto, and in this latest article, did not include a response from the Governor. Neither did they re-affirm the reality that if Towns had been able to keep her seat, she would not have been able to over-ride the governor’s veto and in truth, would have made no difference in today’s snow make-up day schedule.

Instead the newspaper brought in Towns and glossed over her position on the subject and spun the story in her favor against some non-existent opposition on the issue.

Last month Towns announced she will attempt to regain the legislative post she lost to Kim Hixson (D) in 2006. So the Gazette, at the conclusion of this article eventually ties in Hixson, assuming he is in opposition to citizen Towns position on this issue, and reminds the reader that Towns wants to regain her seat.

When it comes to political propaganda masquerading as a unbiased news story, it doesn’t get any better than this.

And it does raise a question whether the newspaper will offer uncritical front-page ink and equal time on this subject or any subject to Kim Hixson or any other candidate running for the district seat.

Note: Unfortunately, you must have an on-line subscription to link to the Gazette article.

1 comment:

nailgunner said...

Lets give the Gazette credit for encouraging creative writing. Positive attitude aside, it's still SNAFU!

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