blogger interrupted

My family gets the print edition of the Cleveland Plain Dealer.  I think it’s because my dad is retired and my mom became addicted to suduku.  Whatever the reason, I only read it now for more evidence of just how deep in the tank the Plain Dealer is for John McCain.  And for the sports page.

I’ve already proven this through the utterly absurd, false, and completely misleading coverage of the ads in this presidential campaign.  Thanks to their little money saving “cooperation” with every paper in the state, the only thing the PD actually writes for these “reviews” is the headline.  And their headlines of ad coverage in this campaign leave only one impression - Obama is running a negative campaign, and McCain is not.  

Of course, that is clearly laughable, so I’ve stopped bothering with the ad “reviews”.  But the headlines in today’s paper, which are representative of just how in the tank the PD is for John McCain every single day, really caught my eye.

Front page.

McCain vows to try to save Ohio jobs.

That’s the headline in the print edition, not the web story at the link.  The headline PD subscribers see first thing in the morning.  From the metro section, another ad “review” of one of McCain’s rare non-negative ads.

Ad seeks to show McCain as Washington outsider

They grade it “5″ on a truthfulness scale.  Also on the back page of the A section.

McCain returning questionable donations

Out of the blue, McCain is a good government guy.   As if he wasn’t forced to return tens of thousands of dollars in illegally bundled money from a foreign national.  He just did it out of the goodness of his heart.

And of course, what would a good partisan rag be without throwing more fire on the Clinton-Obama drama.  Also back page of the A section, which I cannot find online, because the Plain Dealer’s website is a god damned trainwreck and almost unusable.

Party is still debating Clinton role in Denver

That’s just the print edition.  Here’s the headlines from the PD’s online coverage of McCain’s visit.

McCain pledges help for Wilmington, will call for anti-trust hearing and touts energy plan.  

McCain talks about energy, not Wilmington DHL deal, at stop in Lima

McCain wants Senate hearing and more on DHL.

This, after the entire DHL episode was created by his own campaign manager, Rick Davis, and was only brought to light by Sherrod Brown.  Another headline from the online edition.

“Exxon-McCain?” Lately, it’s more like “Exxon-Obama”

Again, laughable.  

I would get more upset about this, except for the fact that the PD, like almost every newspaper struggling for relevance, is digging its own grave here.  They rely on subscribers who skew older, and who are a bit more sophisticated than the PD editors believe.  Anyone who sees a newspaper whose coverage of John McCain’s filthy, negative, personal attack laiden campaign is so wildly off the mark is going to decide that the PD is, in fact, wildly off the mark.  And the next decision those readers are going to make is that the PD is in the tank for John McCain.  

The next decision those readers make is to stop subscribing.  And that, MY FRIENDS, is change PD editors already believe in.

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