Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Student Shows Biased, Professional Reporters How To Report

Catherine Grace, a student journalist from The Chronicle, a campus newspaper for Purdue University-Calumet, turned in a thoughtful piece on last week's Revolt At The Statehouse Rally in striking contrast to the negative attacks of hack political reporter Jim Shella. Something Grace covered but Shella deliberately left out of his reporting was this:

The litany of issues raised included the proposed state bailout of the Capital Improvement Board (CIB), which operates the Pacers' Conseco Fieldhouse and the Colts' newly-built Lucas Oil Stadium. According to the Indianapolis Star, legislators have been negotiating behind closed doors on how to fund up to $15 million to keep the stadiums afloat. Ideas in play include a state-wide alcohol tax, although lead legislators have said solutions affecting only Marion County are more likely.

"The individuals on the CIB clearly do not have the best interests of the people of Indianapolis in mind when they decide they need to give another $15 million of our tax money to billionaire sports owners," said Gary Welsh, speaker and author of the blog "Advance Indiana."

Shella is an advocate for raising taxes to providing millions more in public subsidies to the billionaire sports team owners. Ergo, his report included no interviews with speakers at the rally or the substance of what they spoke about. If Grace had an agenda, it can't be discerned from her news reporting. Isn't that how a good journalist does it? A good political reporter would have been all over Ruth Holladay's revelation that the Pacers had just recently entertained more than 60 of Indy's corporate elites at an all-expense paid trip to an exclusive resort in Cancun, Mexico. This seems at odds with the Simons' claim that the team is losing millions of dollars each year--the impetus behind their request that taxpayers pick up $15 million they currently pay to operate their NBA franchise at Conseco Fieldhouse. Shella won't utter a word on this story. It doesn't fit with his agenda.

4 comments:

M Theory said...

That young lady did her homework! She found out about the Revolt from publicity we did. She then contacted me to say she was coming. I invited her to the luncheon so that she could get more interviews easily. She stayed the entire time and interviewed a lot of people!

M Theory said...

Shella is supposed to be on WXNT AM 1430 on Friday morning about 8am. Someone should call and read the article to the loser!

Gary R. Welsh said...

I should add that lunch was dutch treat for everyone. No corporate sponsors or special interest groups there to pick up the tab.

M Theory said...

Nope, nobody picked Catherine's tab. She did the whole thing on her dime. She doesn't even get expenses paid by the newspaper yet. I believe she does it for the love of journalism.

In the parking lot later I made sure she knows about the kind of write offs you get when you minus mileage and food to do you job on your taxes.