Yahoo News Item on N.J. Mayor's Arrest Avoids Party ID; Short AP Item Waits Until Final Paragraph
If for no other reason than the uniqueness of the alleged crimes involved, the story of the arrests of West New York, New Jersey Mayor Felix Roque and his son deserves attention. It is getting some, complete with the predictable downplaying and omission of the Mayor's political party affiliation, which "just so happens" to be as a Democrat.
Since it's currently appearing at Yahoo News, which is the Internet's most popular news site, with an estimated 110 million unique monthly visitors, Alex Fitzpatrick's Thursday report on the mayor's arrest which originated at Mashable.com is worth calling out, especially because in almost 300 words, Fitzpatrick failed to identify Roque's party. Get a load of what this guy and his son allegedly did to protect their jobs:
Story Continues Below Ad ↓A New Jersey mayor and his son were arrested Thursday by the FBIfor allegedly infiltrating and sabotaging a website tied to an effort to recall him.
The story gives a new and troubling definition to the term "political hack."
The FBI has accused Felix Roque, mayor of West New York, N.J., and his 22-year-old son of illegally canceling the domain name registration of Recallroque.com, a site that wanted Roque taken out of office in a recall election earlier this year, according to Politico.
... Roque's 22-year-old son Joseph was the mastermind behind the hack. According to a criminal complaint made public this afternoon, he learned how to penetrate email accounts and Recallroque's host, GoDaddy.com, by searching for instructions on the web.
Roque, however, didn't stop there. After taking down the site, he called the owner of the site, who was identified only as a government official in Hudson County, N.J., to intimidate him. Roque told the owner that the site was removed by "high government officials" and that "everyone would pay for getting involved against Mayor Roque."
He also said he had a friend at the CIA, which is how he "got information" ...
These guys are real pieces of work. They should have been ID'd as Dems.
Over at the Associated Press, things were a little better. Roque got identified as a Democrat in the final paragraph of an unbylined five-paragraph story on Friday afternoon. Readers can be quite confident that if Roque were a Republican, his political affiliation would have been mentioned far earlier, in the story's headline -- or both.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
- Tom Blumer's blog
- Login to post comments
Comments
Oh No
Submitted by bmacdmac on Sat, 05/26/2012 - 12:27am.
A democrat can do no wrong so this must be a huge mistake and the media will ignore it like every other thing a democrat does that wrong. Somehow they will spin this towards the governor.
It's worse then that;
Submitted by olddog3006 on Sat, 05/26/2012 - 2:02am.
If you look at the story from WPIX news, it not only doesn't mention his D party affiliation, the 1st paragraph makes is appear that he's a Republican by stating that he was highly endorsed by Gov. Christi.
Yahoo news is in my opinion
Submitted by okie-pastor on Sat, 05/26/2012 - 2:30am.
Yahoo news is in my opinion more blatantly liberal and obnoxiously anti-Conservative, than any other news media there is. There really should be a Yahoo news watch or something because they are, hands down, the most biased news org there is (including MSNBC). Go there right now and see what their "news" says about Romney and then look at what they say about Obama. It's an absolute joke! No it's an absolute disgrace!
Once again, one need not strain to ascertain the mayor's
Submitted by Jer on Sat, 05/26/2012 - 6:23am.
party affiliation. The NYT, CBS, ABC, Politico, Raw Story, AP are just a few of the numerous news outlets which ID Roque as a Democrat.
Yet a Yahoo omission is enlarged into a pervasive partisan blackout in order to promote the notion of an insidiious media conspiracy more imaginary than real.
Jer
Yes. Because I go to every single one of those for my news.
Submitted by The Vet on Sat, 05/26/2012 - 6:47am.
I spend 80% of my waking hours rereading the news that is posted on all those sites. No. Wait. I usually just get the news from one site. If I do end up on another site, I will ignore stories I am already aware of.
Are you suggesting we go to every one of those sites and read about the same news story again and again?
There you go again ...
Submitted by Tom Blumer on Sat, 05/26/2012 - 8:03am.
... putting words in someone else's mouth.
The importance of the Yahoo-carried omission was made clear by citing the site's audience size. Nowhere is there an assertion that there is otherwise a pervasive partisan blackout of Roque's party ID.
But you couldn't find it in the post, so you just made it up.
But, since you seem to think you've "disproven" something, try this:
"Felix Roque" -- 55 results (Google News, past week, sorted by date, without duplicates so the AP item doesn't skew the result)
"Felix Roque" Democrat -- 22 results
... and that's before investigating the "Democrat" results to see how many of them are there only because commenters noted Roque's Dem affiliation in reacting to stories which didn't.
I would also suggest that AP's final paragraph ID may be there partially because sites like NB and commenters at AP subscribing outlets are on the alert for and call out party ID-free reports.
Tom Blumer -- Prognosticator Extraordinaire.
Submitted by The Vet on Sat, 05/26/2012 - 8:16am.
Mr. Blumer: Readers can be quite confident that if Roque were a Republican, his political affiliation would have been mentioned far earlier, in the story's headline -- or both.
Not even 24 hours later, headline Yahoo news ---
Senators admonish Oklahoma GOP senator
If it wasn't that one, it would have been something else
Submitted by Tom Blumer on Sat, 05/26/2012 - 12:41pm.
And the complaint against Coburn is really pathetic.
Dear Prognosticators Extraordinaire:
Submitted by Jer on Sun, 05/27/2012 - 6:21am.
And well before that there was, for example, this, in blaring headlines:
Scandal-Plagued Democrat Senator Chris Dodd Retires at Lowest Point in Career
Apparently Yahoo missed the Soros memo.
Jer
Sorry Tim
Submitted by Someone Said on Sat, 05/26/2012 - 8:35am.
You lose this round.
Sorry Troll.
Submitted by The Vet on Sat, 05/26/2012 - 8:45am.
Who is Tim? Ahh, it is a troll that is deliberately calling someone by another name.
Time and again.
------
Was his name-o.
Bingo!
Submitted by Someone Said on Sat, 05/26/2012 - 8:50am.
The credibility of the story is undermined by the selection of sources.
Look at that boys and girls, a suck troll.
Submitted by The Vet on Sat, 05/26/2012 - 11:58am.
A suck troll is a troll that is such a miserable failure at trolling that the rest of the trolls only allow him to suck the leftover troll gruel from the other trolls plates.
Hey suck troll Tim, you raising lots of bile here, are ya? Fail, suck troll, fail hard. Gonna be a hungry night again, huh?
Once again, a lefty stating his concerns that NB's is ---
Submitted by matthewdean on Sun, 05/27/2012 - 4:04am.
doing precisely what it's mission statement says it will do.
MD
If political party ID is omitted
Submitted by ohio granny on Sat, 05/26/2012 - 10:12am.
If political party ID is omitted or buried in the story, you know it will be democrat.
We are onto this scam by the so-called MSM, not buying what they are trying to sell. Losing more credibility by the day.