Unbiased charlatans | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: Jim Bispo's weekly column appears in the Beaufort Observer.

    So, whose news reports can we believe. In time gone by, we had available a myriad of news services. It was frequently possible to read the same story being reported by more than one of those services and get an indication of how "matter of fact" the reporting was. Those days would seem to be long gone

    A quick check of Yahoo reveals 62 news services, many of which are devoted to "specialities" (such as World Entertainment News Network, Ltd., a subscription based music & entertainment news wire). To see the Yahoo list click here.

    In the Yahoo listing (when sorted by popularity) the first two we find are "Reuters, the news services which provide news reports and financial information to world's newspapers and broadcasters" at number one. They are followed by "Associated Press and its news services to the media industry through its bureaus in more than 121 countries across the world.". Beyond those two, it is difficult to find many "household names".

    With AP there is no doubt as to from whence they come. Let me give you two specific examples. There's plenty more...

    On July 6, 2013 Mr Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, of the AP wrote the following concerning implementation of ObamaCare, "The rollout might go well in mostly Democratic states that prepared, while it clatters and clunks in mainly Republican ones that resisted Obama's law. Millions of poor people will be denied coverage next year because they live in states that are refusing the law's Medicaid expansion. But most workers now covered on the job should not see major changes."

    Does that sound even a little bit biased?? Well, no. It sounds a lot biased.

    And then there is Bill Barrow, also of the AP. On July 5, 2013 he wrote about the Supreme Court decision concerning the Voting rights Act. His article opened with, "When the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights act last week, ...." (emphasis added). Gutted?? Give me a break. Clearly Mr. Barrow has never been subjected to anything like the one person one vote scheme for electing County Commissioners in Beaufort County North Carolina.

    For the record, what I understood was that the Supremes found that relying on statistics such as the percentage of minorities in the population compared to the percentage registered to vote versus the percentages actually voting as compared to non-minorities in the same categories may have been an indicator of discrimination in the past, but not so any more.

    Another quote from the same article: "States like North Carolina and Virginia provide apt examples of the potential fallout. An influx of non whites have turned those Republican strongholds into battlegrounds in the last two presidential elections, and minority voters helped President Barack Obama win both states in 2008 and Virginia again in 2012." I am quite sure the non-white vote is what carried the Anointed One, but all the while I thought it was the local non-white population that carried him. Of course, if Mr. Barrow is correct and it was an "influx" of non-whites that swung the election, it is no wonder that he and folks like Al Sharpton (nationally) and Rev. William Barber (locally) are dead set against implementing voter ID. Let's bring in an influx of non-white voters (who will vote as we tell them) and let 'em all vote... That should make things fair.

    In the last election North Carolina elected the first GOP government in over 100 years. And this was because of an influx of non-whites?? Hardly...

    Mr Barrow of course does not demonstrate any bias when he alludes to the GOP core as "..older, white Americans." I suppose we should be grateful that he seems to believe that even at our advanced age and with conservative leanings we can still be classified as Americans.

    He quotes Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R Wis. in support of his argument that the SCOTUS has "sinned" (my word). That would be the same Wisconsin the population of which approximately 6.5% is black or African American. How Mr. Sensenbrenner's district measures up, I have no idea. But it seems to me as though Mr. Sensenbrenner may be stuck in a circa 1865 time warp.

    I don't mean to be finding fault with these folks personally. What I do mean to do is impress every thinking person to pay attention to the source of the so called facts to which we are treated each day and take them with a grain of salt. We need to begin to read, think, and reason much more critically lest we be led to fallacious conclusions by the charlatans in the mainstream media and the self serving politicians among us. It has already happened to way too many Americans.

    D'ya think??