Bill, Leslie, and Our Chicken Shit Media

One thing that I’ve always hated about this town is the expectations of our so-called leaders that nobody will ask any tough questions or criticize any of their actions. “Just trust us” seems to be the mantra, no matter how they’ve acted in the past.
It doesn’t help that our local news media tends to never ask any pointed questions, particularly the local television news crews. That’s to be expected, I guess, since it seems like all three channels are entirely staffed by interns.
We saw this in action last week when former Governor Bill Janklow made the rounds to “prove” to anybody who would listen that he did not clip a car in the Hy-Vee parking lot. For somebody who hates the media, he sure knows how to use them to his advantage. Over and over again, he pleaded ignorance (which comes easy to the man) to tapping the car, despite the fact that he moved his truck and trailer two parking spots over after inspecting the car he hit.
My favorite moment, though, was when he was asked by a reporter if he was indeed insured (that was one of the tickets he received). Billy Bob whipped out his cell phone, and called what he claimed was his insurance agent. Handing the phone to the reporter, the “agent” confirmed that he indeed had insurance on the vehicle.
I don’t doubt that’s the case. I’ve received speeding tickets in the past and haven’t been able to locate my proof of insurance. It happens. But a reporter can’t just take the word of whoever was on the phone. He needs to investigate to see if that is indeed the case.
That’s how the media works in this town, although once in awhile I’m a bit surprised. This past week we did have an example of the TV news attempting to do their job. Well, “attempt” is the key word. A reporter was sent by her station to interview Leslie Unruh about the controversial abortion ban, and almost immediately Ms. Unruh reportedly blew up and started ranting and raving about how unfair the “liberal media” is to her. Leslie, that might be a popular subject on talk radio, but nobody (and I mean nobody) can say that KELO, KSFY, or KDLT are liberal. They’re simply not smart enough to have any kind of bias…or intelligence.
Once she calmed down, the interview proceeded without incident. While the blow-up I described didn’t make the air (gutless bastards), Unruh did have a controversial comment about the recent commercial featuring a couple that had to abort one baby to ensure the survival of the second. Her claim was that the commercial was a lie, and that this couple’s story was untrue. She had no proof for this theory; she was just spouting out of her ass.
The station did air this comment, and of course in her mind that was once again proof of a liberal bias. Supposedly, she went up the chain of command at the station, bitching at how wrong it was for them to air this. Note to Leslie – don’t say stupid shit if you don’t want it aired!
Unfortunately, instead of telling Unruh to go screw, the higher ups completely kissed her ass and profusely apologized. Ugh. I can guarantee that their next interview with her will involve absolutely zero tough questions, which is par for the course in this city. The losers are us viewers, who next month will probably enter the voting booth ill-informed to make this extremely important choice. Oh, that’s right – Leslie’s against choice!