Congratulations to Rep. Dan Fabian, a Republican who represents Minnesota House district 1A and who is this week’s local media bias contest winner. We can’t give the usual $50 award, not only because he didn’t submit this outstanding mark up of the dishonest Star Tribune story about wild rice guidelines, but because Alpha News can’t really give money to a sitting legislator, at least during session. But thank you, Rep. Fabian, for what you did with a few pen strokes to the article and posting it on Facebook.
I’m not going to insult your intelligence by recapitulating what you can easily see at a glance in the image above. The appalling distortions speak for themselves and what they say is that you simply cannot trust much of local media to be factually honest, let alone unbiased. I say much because it would be wrong to say all of local media is this way. It isn’t and it is important that we keep that in mind.
Different media outlets have better track records than others. Even within those outlets that are pretty bad, reporters exist who try to get things right, cover both sides of the stories and let the readers come to their own conclusion about the matter at hand. We do a disservice to them and to our painful awareness of media bias when we default to a position that says all of them are the same.
That said, well done Star Tribune for being transparently dishonest. And thanks again to Rep. Fabian who shows how easy it is to point out media bias whatever its origin. Please keep those submissions coming. Click on the banner ad at the top to learn how.
John Gilmore
John Gilmore is an author, freelance writer & former opinion columnist for Alpha News. He blogs at minnesotaconservatives.org & is @Shabbosgoy on Twitter
