Category: Media
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Bacon Bits: Purges, Clickbait, and Drunkenness
Pushing back against the New York Slimes. Liberty University is suing the New York Times for defamation, accusing the paper of crafting a “clickbait” story intended to create the erroneous impression that there was a COVID-19 outbreak on the school’s campus this spring, reports the News & Advance. The lawsuit says that reporter Elizabeth Williamson…
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What It Is, Is Not Journalism
By Dick Hall-Sizemore I never thought that I would agree with Jim Bacon on the slant of the RTD’s news coverage, but an article on evictions today just really irritated me. It was the usual article about activists demonstrating at the Richmond courthouse and protesting evictions. (At least the demonstration on Thursday was peaceful; no…
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Spanberger Vs. Trump
By Peter Galuszka U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-7th District, continues to draw international attention as a “New Look” Democrat from Virginia who is savvy about the intelligence community and global affairs. The former CIA case officer was featured on CNN criticizing the administration of Donald Trump for ignoring reports that Russian military intelligence had paid…
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Another Use and Abuse of Statistics…
by James A. Bacon The Fairfax County Police Department publishes a statistical report every year on the police use of force in the county. There were 594 use-of-force incidents reported in 2019, up from 510 the previous year. The publication provides data with minimal commentary. This is the headline from the Reston Now article summarizing…
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BR’s COVID-19 Parallel Universe
By Peter Galuszka Almost every morning, I wake up a little before dawn, make coffee, let the dog out and feed her and start reading the news. I take The Washington Post in print along with The New York Times, Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Virginian-Pilot, NBC News, various television stations and, of course, Bacon’s Rebellion online.…
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The Very Real Threat of “Boogaloo”
By Peter Galuszka White protestors have smeared a statue of Arthur Ashe, the African-American tennis star who faced systemic racism when he was growing up in Richmond. True, the Ashe memorial had earlier been defaced by “Black Lives Matter” messages spray painted on its base. On Wednesday, a small band of protestors painted over the…
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Libertarians Need Not Apply
By Peter Galuszka The Virginia Republican Party had a big shock Saturday. Far-right candidate Bob Good snatched the party’s nomination in the fifth congressional district from incumbent Denver Riggleman, who was backed by President Donald Trump and Jerry Falwell Jr., the head of Liberty University. The remarkable twist could presage an arch-conservative backlash against Trump’s…
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The Times-Disgrace Earns Its Nickname
By Steve Haner Competitors of Richmond’s venerable morning newspaper have long teased it with a derogatory nickname: The Richmond Times-Disgrace. With its decision to stop reprinting 75-year-old front pages for some unidentified offense to some unknown persons, the nickname is fully apt. “There are terms and phrases that were used in this newspaper in the…
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The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear (of COVID-19) Itself
by James A. Bacon The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) and Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association (VHHA) publish a wide variety of data about COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths. It is easy to get overwhelmed by all the numbers, yet the data is woefully incomplete. Perhaps the greatest deficiency is that we have no ability…
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Reality Is What Ruth Marcus Says It Is
by James A. Bacon Derek Chauvin, the policeman who killed George Floyd by placing a knee on his neck, is not just a “bad apple,” opines Ruth Marcus, deputy editorial page editor of the Washington Post. “The problem of policing is not individual apples, but bushels of them. It is a diseased tree” infected by…
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“Systemic Racism?” Damned Right!
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in Blogs and Blog Administration, Business and Economy, Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Corruption and Scandals, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Culture wars, Demographics, Health Care, Housing, Immigration, Media, Politics, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Social Services and Entitlements, TransportationBy Peter Galuszka There has been much debate on this blog regarding whether there is “systemic racism” in Virginia and the rest of the country. It’s a crucial question in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, an unarmed and handcuffed African American who was killed on video by a white Minneapolis police officer…
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Democracy Dies in Darkness — and We’re the Ones Turning Out the Lights
by James A. Bacon The New York Times has published a piece today describing the revolution in the nation’s newsrooms. In what the author appears to regard as a positive development, the news and editorial departments of prominent newspapers are jettisoning the old idea of “objective” journalism in favor of social justice journalism. Citing the…
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Our Gutsy Governor
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in Bacon and Pigs, Blogs and Blog Administration, Business and Economy, Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Culture wars, Defense, National Security, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Efficiency in Government, Elections, General Assembly, Governance, Government Transparency, Government workers and pensions, Gun rights, Media, Politics, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t OversightBy Peter Galuszka On June 24, 2015, Nikki Haley, a Republican who was South Carolina’s first non-white governor, called for the removal of a Confederate flag that had been flying over the state’s capitol grounds for years. “This flag, while an integral part of our past, does not represent the future of our great state,”…
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Beware Fake Tweets
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in Blogs and Blog Administration, Business and Economy, Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Culture wars, Defense, National Security, Elections, Electoral process, Federal issues, Government Transparency, Infrastructure, Media, Money in politics, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, TelecommunicationsBy Peter Galuszka Around midnight Monday, reporters in downtown Washington D.C., stood by ready to cover the next round of protests about the slaying of African Americans by police. They started getting tweets marked #dcblackout suggesting that internet service was being interrupted because of a secret program presumably run by the government that would cut…
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The Real Danger with ANTIFA
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in Bacon and Pigs, Business and Economy, Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Corruption and Scandals, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Culture wars, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Electoral process, Federal issues, Government Transparency, Gun rights, Immigration, Labor and Workforce, LGBQT, Libertarians, Media, Money in politics, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t OversightBy Peter Galuszka Get ready. The names of all kinds of leftist organizations are going to be kicked around as the masterminds behind violent, cop-beating looters, especially the so-called ANTIFA movement in Virginia and across the country.. But what is reality? I don’t have clear answers but I have some ideas to share since I…