-By Warner Todd Huston
This is why newspapers deserve to be buried in the dust bin of history, at least unless they clean up their act. For well over 20 years a southwest suburban Chicago newspaper called The Reporter has employed a columnist named Michael M. Bates. He has been the local conservative columnist for many years until, that is, his latest column on Barack Obama was altered to add malicious content aimed at the columnist by the paper’s editor.
Bates was one of those conservatives (like myself) that wrote that he hoped that Obama would not succeed as president IF success meant that all sorts of socialist, unAmerican policies would be implemented. Bates was not wishing the president to fail except in implementing policies that Bates felt would be bad for America and even more to the point Bates was not saying he wised the U.S. as a whole ill. But it seems that “nuance” is not something that Bates’ editor understands because the editor decided to add some things to Bates’ column that Bates did not say.
Here was Bates’ main point in the column:
Support them in driving this country into the ground? If Obama delivers on his campaign promises, it’ll be an unmitigated disaster. Good luck for him means bad luck for the United States.
Simply put and unmistakable. Bates wants the country to do well and Obama’s bad policies to fail.
That wasn’t clear enough for the editor of The Reporter, though. Initially Bates headlined his piece against Obama’s policies “Count Me Out” (column can be seen here). The editor, however, decided to change the headline, a practice that is not uncommon in the Newspaper industry. The new headline became “Success for Obama would be disaster.” Obviously a far more negative headline.
But the headline change wasn’t the only alteration — nor the most egregious — that the editor made to the piece because a subhead was also tacked onto Bates’ column. The added subhead read: “Bitter conservative can’t wish U.S. well.”
Amazingly, the editor decided that Bates was a “bitter conservative” and was one that couldn’t “wish the U.S. well.” But, that was not what Bates was saying at all. Bates was standing against Obama’s bad policies. He wasn’t wishing ill will on the entire United States!
Realize what happened here. An editor attacked his own columnist by adding headlines and subheads that the columnist did not write that portrays his own employee as an America hating, “bitter” conservative.
Worse, there is no way that the reader could be aware that this headline and the added subhead wasn’t something that the writer wanted included in his column. To the casual reader, it looked as if Bates was calling himself a bitter conservative that wants the U.S. to fail!
What else can be said here? This editor, in print, without previously alerting the columnist, attacked his own employee , making him look as bad as possible.
Needless to say, columnist Bates has quit his job of over 20 years at The Reporter for being so badly treated. Who can blame him?
This is the sort of hate for conservatives that the Old Media is so steeped in, isn’t it? And if this is how badly editors treat their own employees, no wonder they are so hateful against conservatives in the news!
____________
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, Human Events Magazine, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
Fair Use: This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in my efforts to advance understanding of political, human rights, economic, democracy, and social justice issues, etc. I believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research, educational, or satirical purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site/blog for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.