making news.....

A "do nothing" weekend ahead of us. Morgan has to run off to the Padres game because country artist, Pat Green, is performing at the "Park at the Park". That is the family park area outside the ballpark behind centerfield. Cassie has a swim practice tomorrow morning, and besides church Saturday night, that is it. I look forward to nothing.

I have been mentioning about newspapers, and how they are cutting staff and/or their paper size. Well, our San Diego newspaper, the Union Tribune, has gone through those cuts, in the size of the paper. In my opinion, it was pretty thin to begin with as compared to other papers I have read in larger cities, but now it is even smaller in "page" size. I shrugged it off, and have kept subscribing, but today I received notice of a $2 monthly increase in my shrinking paper. That made the decision to cancel much easier. Maybe I will keep just the Sunday paper coming, but no longer will it be thrown on my driveway every day of the week.

"Palin Says War with Russia Possible"

Did the headline get your attention? Good, because it was meant to. It is not truly accurate, as it was only part of an answer (almost like those movie review one-liners you see), but it is the headline ABC News used on its website last night in promoting the interview Governor Palin had with Charlie Gibson.

I am not going to rip the interview. I thought Charlie presented fair questions, and I thought, although a little nervous sounding (and why not, knowing how this would be dissected), Governor Palin did well for herself. The question concerning the "Bush Doctrine" had me scratching my head at first, as it is not normally described that way (As a matter of fact, David Gergen, who last worked in he Clinton White House defended her by stating that was not the normal description of the "Doctrine". It is usually called the "Imminent Threat Doctrine"), but I thought once she got a handle of it, she did well.

Did she give direct answers to all questions? Yes, for the questions she was asked. Some of them were "talking point lines", but everyone tries to "stay on message". I can't believe anyone expected any bombshells from this interview.

Before I get to my problem with ABC, I will say this about one criticism I heard last night. Some were saying that she was "overly confident" and "seemed to have a high opinion of herself" when answering Charlie Gibson about being ready to be VP. As John King, from CNN noted, what was she supposed to say, "No".

OK, so the above headline was used by ABC News and is part of an answer given by Palin, and is not a fair account of the question and answer. The discussion was concerning Georgia and Ukraine joining NATO (Which Russia's Putin is fully against), and what would happen if Russia then invaded Georgia, like it did weeks ago. Governor Palin correctly stated, that if a fellow NATO country aggressively invaded another NATO country, then under the NATO "laws", the remaining NATO allies would take action against the aggressor. Charlie pressed her and asked if that meant a war with Russia. Governor Palin then said, "a war with Russia is possible under those circumstances", but then added it would be part of a NATO alliance, and we would try all diplomatic efforts first (formal discussions, sanctions, etc.) before it would ever come to that scenario. Seemed the headline writer left that part out.

Worse then that was when I watched the interview again later on Nightline (I can hear your yawns), they edited the interview to leave out the sanctions and diplomacy part of the answer. Her answer was cut to say, "A war with Russia is possible".

What kind of garbage is that? No news organization should be edited down any answer to the questions being asked. That edit took a her answer, and completely turned it 180 degrees. I understand ABC is upset this week because they were left off the debate schedule (PBS will moderate 2 debates, NBC & CBS once each, and ABC was given none), but news organizations are supposed to present the news, not make it, or in this case edit it to make news. I found this a terrible mismanagement of their news responsibility. Someone only watching Nightline heard a completely different answer than those that watched it on World News Tonight, or who might have read the transcripts.

I'm not saying they can't edit out a question for time, but cutting an answer in half is not how a news organization should be conducting itself. ABC knows better, and should clarify the matter.

- Ike is going to be devastating. We are praying for those in its path.
- Could SNL become relevant again?
- Rock Band 2 comes out on Sunday. Woo Hoo!

Until the next time.....