Monday, October 14, 2013

Shutdown Adds to Pairs Pain: Local Media Bias

On October 16, 2013, the Daily Breeze printed a blatant emotion-piece to dramatize the Washington D.C. shut-down as a cruel political ploy, by Republicans no less, which is hurting average Americans.

The feature focused on two male partners from Long Beach, Albert Sanchez, a Department of Defense employee furloughed because of the Government shut-down, and his partner Gregory Taylor, who suffers from Lou Gehrig's disease, or ALS.

Taylor shares at the outset:

"The maddening thing is they talk about 800,000 people like they're just nothing."

Exactly. There are hundreds of thousands of federal workers. But there’s more to the story than Taylor’s personal take.

First of all, federal workers will be getting paid soon for their previous work-period. The Daily Breeze forgot to mention that. Furthermore, not all of them have been furloughed. Some of them have been brought back. USA Today reported that the number of furloughed workers has decreased, especially in the Department of Defense, where Albert Sanchez works.

Yet for the hundreds of thousands of stories of hardships and struggles, why did The Daily Breeze choose to focus on two male partners and their adopted son?

The complex interjection of hot-button, left-leaning issues was just too much for a declining newspaper to pass up, one must suppose.

There's the argument over gay rights, the recognition of homosexual couples, their authority to adopt children, for example. With their nineteen-year old son, the reader sees the rising financial problems of seeking an affordable college education in the face of fewer instructors, classes, and an uncertain future. Of course, the struggles of a former businessman, since Taylor owned a gift-card shop that closed down, plus the burdens of paying off a home all focus the economic tensions which touch many readers throughout the Los Angeles area.

Of course, the government shut-down symbolically reflects the organic shut-down which autoimmune diseases like ALS perpetrate on patients.

Now, the pain of losing one's life-partner, the struggle to pay one's bills, to keep one's home, to hold onto adequate health care, these are terrible hardships which many people face, whether the government has shut down or not.

Yet at the same time, the Daily Breeze's blatant editorializing makes it seem as if the government shut-down is immoral as well as unfeeling because of the financial hardships bracing this couple, their adopted son, and their future, and the shut-down "added to their pain."

Where's President Bill Clinton and his lip-biting when you need it?

The article specifically targets "conservative Republicans" in Congress for causing this shut-down, neglecting to mention the growing number of Democrats, in California (Raul Ruiz-Redlands) as well as across the country, who have voted for partial funding of essential government offices and who have also voted for a one-year delay of Obamacare and repeal of the job-killing medical device tax.

The article forgets to include Senate Majority Leader's ongoing refusal to negotiate on Obamacare or anything else. Where's the integrity in that?

The article then dresses up Obamacare, or the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as, "families buy health insurance or pay a tax". Obama claimed over and over that Americans would not be paying a tax, that the law was not a tax. Why didn't the Daily Breeze point out the President's double-dealing on this issue? For that matter, the report could have indicted the President for not acting as a chief executive and negotiating with Congress, both Democrats and Republicans.

Then the column shares another interesting fact:

"Taylor rests in front of a living room TV, watching MSNBC, the SyFy Channel and Chiller."

MSNBC, huh? Why do we need to know this? More importantly, though, this detail reveals the political leanings of this couple, a fundamental one since "They both shared an interest in politics."

The whole article articulates every liberal, left-leaning talking point, and intends to leave the reader with the unthinking impression that anyone who wants to scale back the federal government, that any negotiations revolving around the government shut-down or inherently bad because of the sufferings of two men.

The government shut-down is about more than a media-hyped perception of Tea-Party driven vendetta's to hurt President Obama. The President and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have received ample opportunities to pass piecemeal funding. They declined all of them.

One would hope that the local press would so a story on the lasting damage to a country that spends more than it takes in, and how President Obama's failed economic policies have prolonged the financial agony for couples like Mr. Sanchez and Mr. Albert.

Sympathy with emotions is easy. Sympathy with thoughts is far more difficult, once quipped flamboyant essayist and playwright Oscar Wilde.

To argue that the government shut-down, at the exclusive behest of "conservative Republicans", has added to the male couple's pain is an illogical step taken too far, and an insulting one to any self-respecting reader.


(For the record, The Daily Breeze also printed three Letters to the Editor in the same edition of the paper, all of which criticized Obamacare for doing exactly the opposite of what its authors intended)

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