Air America: Compare The Scandals
By Captain Ed on Radio
Captain's Quarters
Today we will hold a contest to see how the Exempt Media coverage of Air America's funding scandals holds up against that of another stoy of financial shenanigans. Let's take a look at how many articles the Exempt Media has written about the Air America-Gloria Wise misappropriation of public funds, as opposed to the Martha Stewart insider-trading case -- in the past 30 days:
Media outlet AA/GW Martha
NY Times 0 16*
Wash Post 0 10 (14 day search)
LA Times 0 3
CBS News 0 1
ABC News 0 4
What does this show? The Exempt Media has plenty of resources to continue coverage of a single celebrity who allegedly engaged in insider trading over 4,000 shares of ImClone stock, avoiding $51,000 in losses when bad news hit just afterwards. (Stewart wasn't convicted for insider trading, but obstruction of justice and perjury.) That amounts to 1/18th of what Air America got in misappropriated public funds by sucking money out of Bronx charity -- money intended for poor kids and Alzheimer's patients. Yet the New York Times has mentioned Martha Stewart* in 16 articles over the last 30 days, some of those in-depth reporting on Stewart and her ongoing legal struggles, but have not managed to put "Air America" and "Gloria Wise" into the same article even one time -- despite the misappropriation of public funds occurring in the Paper of Record's own back yard.
Instead of dumpster-diving into the private records of the adoptions of John Roberts' children, Bill Keller should have his paper looking into the public records of the malfeasance that took place in his own back yard. It certainly seems more newsworthy than covering a months-old scandal that has been thoroughly played out.
(Inspired by CQ reader Dan Kauffman)
Michelle Malkin also points readers to David Reinhard's column in the Portland Oregonian this morning (Power Line also notes it):
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First, its listeners should unleash their "we know better" candlepower and their you-can't-fool-us cynicism to get to the bottom of the Air America's kids-for-kilowatts scandal. And, clearly, a scheme that hurts children and Alzheimer's patients to fund left-wing outreach should appeal to progressives' dark sense of irony.
Second, Air America's listeners should go beyond the network owners on the financial front. Simply repaying funds to club isn't enough. Really, how cover-your-assets corporatist is that? Leftist listeners need to really showcase that storied compassion of theirs. Yes, how about a radio-thon to raise funds for kids and Alzheimer's patients across this broad land? Lefty listeners could, well, "Give piece of change."
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Mark Steyn also lends his considerable intellectual heft to increasing the coverage of this scandal, in his latest column, "The New Democratic Strategy -- Almost Winning":
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Speaking of shivering coatless girls in Bush's America, spare a thought for the underprivileged urchins of the Bronx. The Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club, a nonprofit social-services organization in New York, receives millions of dollars in government funds to give disadvantaged youth in poor neighborhoods a leg up the ladder of life. But mysteriously much of the money wound up being diverted to the coffers of Air America, the liberal talk-radio network whose ratings are yet another example of "deferred success." The needs of disadvantaged Al Franken and his pals apparently outweigh those of Bronx welfare recipients. Perhaps Janeane Garofalo is the coatless girl John Edwards was talking about all those months. Air America looks like the broadcast version of the U.N. Oil-for-Food program, whereby money earmarked to save starving moppets somehow winds up in the bank accounts of bloated self-described do-gooders with political connections.
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The Exempt Media covered for Eason Jordan for nine days. They've protected Air America for almost two weeks now.
UPDATE: If one does a search following the instructions of the NYT on "Martha Stewart" and "prison" using the Boolean + sign, it generates 270 matches. If "prison" is removed and just run on "Martha Stewart", it drops to 16. I'm using the latter number as more accurate. It still shows that the NYT finds Stewart so fascinating that they have to run a story on her every other day.
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