Review-Journal Story Makes False, Sloppy Claims in Hatchet Job on Reid Ad
In just the latest attempt to swing the US Senate race for their preferred candidate, Sharron Angle, the Review-Journal this afternoon published a story suggesting claims made in this new Harry Reid ad were inaccurate. The R-J declares in a headline authoritatively – with absolutely no caveat or reservation – that "New Reid ad stars teacher whose job wasn't saved by stimulus."
The warrant for this erroneous and reckless claim by the Review-Journal is that the school “didn’t get any recovery funds” – an argument that is offered without proof, and that fundamentally misunderstands the nature of disbursement of the stimulus dollars and the way educators’ jobs were saved. The reality is that stimulus funds were distributed by district, and the Clark County School District received funds that saved an estimated 1,400 jobs. Gov. Gibbons’ stimulus director Charles Harvey has said as much, specifically about Clark County:
“We utilized state fiscal stabilization funds to basically retain thousands of jobs within the school district. And so those are educators and administrators that are directly – those positions are directly tied to the stimulus funds that have been utilized. So we’ve been able to save jobs in that regard.”
Moreover, this shoddy journalistic attempt to undermine the work of Sen. Reid in saving thousands of jobs through the stimulus is egregiously irresponsible. The truth is, neither the Department of Education nor the individual districts specified in their reports which schools would have laid off workers. In fact, the quote they use as evidence the stimulus didn’t benefit the Bertha Ronzone Elementary School proves the R-J doesn’t and didn’t bother to understand stimulus disbursements. The principal said: “We're lucky that we haven't lost any teachers” – proving the very point that distribution of monies, which are fungible, within the Clark County School District was able to stave off the very cuts discussed in the Reid ad.
Of course, the Review-Journal didn’t bother to contact the Clark County School District, or attempt to get its facts straight any more than was necessary to generate their anti-Reid headline and story. But the burden of proof when calling the claims in the ad false clearly lies with the Review-Journal, a burden their shoddy journalism didn’t even come close to meeting.
This latest story comes in the context of unquestionably biased reporting on Sharron Angle’s campaign advertisements. The Review-Journal dutifully reported on Angle’s “first advertisement of her post-primary U.S. Senate campaign,” even though the ad was produced and released on the internet only. The Review-Journal’s “journalism” in the case of this report consisted of playing stenographer for the Angle campaign, not even bothering to investigate the claims in the ad about whether Reid has been offering solutions for Nevada’s economic problems. (He has. Repeatedly.)
More recently, the Review-Journal devoted more than 1,200 words in “previewing” Sharron Angle’s Las Vegas “press conference” on the estate tax, then produced another stenographic account of the “event” with a second article the next day. The article noted – without rebuttal – that Angle “told the women, many of whom were senior citizens, not to believe commercials from the Reid campaign that say she wants to kill the program.” This claim by Angle is a lie, for which others in the press have called her out – but not the Review-Journal.
Finally, since the Review-Journal purports to be concerned about the accuracy of campaign ads in the Senate race, it is particularly ironic that they’ve failed to review new false and misleading attack ads currenty being run by Karl Rove’s pro-Angle front group American Crossroads – ads which have been resoundingly debunked by multiple independent fact-checkers. Of course, their failure to fact-check these ads is especially curious, given that the information the pro-Angle front group uses in such a brazenly misleading way is from ... wait for it … the Review-Journal.
Review-Journal Story Makes False, Sloppy Claims in Hatchet Job on Reid Ad
In just the latest attempt to swing the US Senate race for their preferred candidate, Sharron Angle, the Review-Journal this afternoon published a story suggesting claims made in this new Harry Reid ad were inaccurate. The R-J declares in a headline authoritatively – with absolutely no caveat or reservation – that "New Reid ad stars teacher whose job wasn't saved by stimulus."
The warrant for this erroneous and reckless claim by the Review-Journal is that the school “didn’t get any recovery funds” – an argument that is offered without proof, and that fundamentally misunderstands the nature of disbursement of the stimulus dollars and the way educators’ jobs were saved. The reality is that stimulus funds were distributed by district, and the Clark County School District received funds that saved an estimated 1,400 jobs. Gov. Gibbons’ stimulus director Charles Harvey has said as much, specifically about Clark County:
“We utilized state fiscal stabilization funds to basically retain thousands of jobs within the school district. And so those are educators and administrators that are directly – those positions are directly tied to the stimulus funds that have been utilized. So we’ve been able to save jobs in that regard.”
Moreover, this shoddy journalistic attempt to undermine the work of Sen. Reid in saving thousands of jobs through the stimulus is egregiously irresponsible. The truth is, neither the Department of Education nor the individual districts specified in their reports which schools would have laid off workers. In fact, the quote they use as evidence the stimulus didn’t benefit the Bertha Ronzone Elementary School proves the R-J doesn’t and didn’t bother to understand stimulus disbursements. The principal said: “We're lucky that we haven't lost any teachers” – proving the very point that distribution of monies, which are fungible, within the Clark County School District was able to stave off the very cuts discussed in the Reid ad.
Of course, the Review-Journal didn’t bother to contact the Clark County School District, or attempt to get its facts straight any more than was necessary to generate their anti-Reid headline and story. But the burden of proof when calling the claims in the ad false clearly lies with the Review-Journal, a burden their shoddy journalism didn’t even come close to meeting.
This latest story comes in the context of unquestionably biased reporting on Sharron Angle’s campaign advertisements. The Review-Journal dutifully reported on Angle’s “first advertisement of her post-primary U.S. Senate campaign,” even though the ad was produced and released on the internet only. The Review-Journal’s “journalism” in the case of this report consisted of playing stenographer for the Angle campaign, not even bothering to investigate the claims in the ad about whether Reid has been offering solutions for Nevada’s economic problems. (He has. Repeatedly.)
More recently, the Review-Journal devoted more than 1,200 words in “previewing” Sharron Angle’s Las Vegas “press conference” on the estate tax, then produced another stenographic account of the “event” with a second article the next day. The article noted – without rebuttal – that Angle “told the women, many of whom were senior citizens, not to believe commercials from the Reid campaign that say she wants to kill the program.” This claim by Angle is a lie, for which others in the press have called her out – but not the Review-Journal.
Finally, since the Review-Journal purports to be concerned about the accuracy of campaign ads in the Senate race, it is particularly ironic that they’ve failed to review new false and misleading attack ads currenty being run by Karl Rove’s pro-Angle front group American Crossroads – ads which have been resoundingly debunked by multiple independent fact-checkers. Of course, their failure to fact-check these ads is especially curious, given that the information the pro-Angle front group uses in such a brazenly misleading way is from ... wait for it … the Review-Journal.
