Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Quick media notes

Today, around 2:30 p.m., I heard an AFSCME radio spot on WBZ 1030 out of Boston attacking Obama's health care plan and using the 15 million people uninsured figure. However, there was no mention of John Edwards in the spot like there was in the mailer.
But the question begs to be asked: Why is AFSCME spending its radio money in Boston? While WBZ has a ton of New Hampshire listeners, is that money well-spent considering how expensive their ads are? Wouldn't that money be better spent on New Hampshire radio stations, including those news talk stations? ... Well, OK, there are only a handful of those. And, of course, if you are trying to reach voters who are going to cast votes for Obama, they probably aren't listening to many of the AM stations in New Hampshire since most of them are rightwing talk stations.

Also, I heard a new Teachers Union radio spot supporting Hillary Clinton on WGIR-AM late this afternoon. It included the voices of three New Hampshire teachers, all women, proclaiming, "I trust Hillary," and "We need change and Hillary has the experience to bring it," among other prepackaged slogans. The ad ran towards the end of "The Rush Limbaugh Show" so it was effectively placed and whatever money was spent on that ad was money well-spent ... Not! How many Democratic primary voters and teachers were listening to the 'boob's substitute host this afternoon? That's right, close to none. Who is doing the media buying for these unions? Do they know anything about New Hampshire? S'heesh!

Then, I happened to be flipping through the FM side of the dial, and I stopped on NHPR. At the top of the 4 p.m. news, Xenia Piaseckyj read two news headlines. The second was about an incident in the Hillsborough County prison. The first sounded like script from the AP about the Concord Monitor's anti-endorsement of Mitt Romney from Sunday's newspaper.
I thought for a second, It's Wednesday afternoon and the anti-endorsement made headlines nationally on Saturday night and through Sunday. Why are they talking about this on Wednesday, four days after the story broke!?! Is there not any other news they could be reading? Then, at the end of the story, there was a short bit about the full-page of letters reacting to the anti-endorsement [it was close to a full page but not quite]. And then I thought, Ah, another day to bash Romney. Boy, this story sure has gotten its legs, eh?
But, at the same time, the story is more than four days old. I know it is a slow news week. But is there really nothing else to read during the 4 p.m. hour? With all their news staff, they couldn't hunt down a few state stories today? If not, that's a pretty sad state of affairs.

Speaking of the almost full-page worth of letters reacting to the Romney anti-endorsement, I must congratulate the Concord Monitor, specifically for publishing the following letter from Evan Whipps of Hopkinton:
On Nov. 19, the Monitor gave Romney the thumbs up in an editorial called "Romney has a good grasp of nation's problems." Now they're doing something unprecedented by strongly urging people not to vote for Romney. What has changed? Is the Concord Monitor flip-flopping?
Most of my readers will note that I posted this point four days ago. And, frankly, it isn't like the Monitor doesn't allow criticism of its coverage or editorial positions in the newspaper. It does. But, to basically allow a letter writer to call you a hypocrite? Well, that's pretty impressive.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Tony - they still have a ways to go. They leave out my comments when they are negative towards Hillary Clinton or Gov. John Lynch. Evan Whipps