Political Discussions
Inside the LA Times: Gore Takes Florida!
Posted by TheBigRuski • 11/08/08 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: Al Gore, Barack Obama, George Bush, los angeles times, media, Presidential Election
Ex-LA Times reporter gives us a glimpse inside the newsroom on election night 2000.
Working my first presidential election night at the Los Angeles Times, I was surprised to see an instant message go out to my colleagues working in the Orange County edition.
“Gore takes Florida!!!!!!”
As the words appeared simultaneously on the newsroom’s computer screens, a cheer went up.
WTF?
I had thought there was no cheering in the press box. Some time later, another message was sent out that went something like this:
“Oh, no! They’re saying Bush won Florida.”
A collective groan could be heard.
And F-bombs were dropping everywhere. I know, because I was there. Had myself and this writer stood up to cheer, there would have been a verbal flogging. Because that night, it was 50 liberal staffers to 2 conservatives.
Read "Newsrooms must be cheering!"
williamlobdell.com/archives/334
User Comments
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and jack welch from GE was said to have been just as angry when gore was declared the winner. who do you think REALLY has more pull in this world? the people who work in the newsrooms or the people who own them? stop kidding yourself about the so-called liberal media, it just looks silly.
www.buzzflash.com/interviews/2002/11/04_Palast.html-
"so-called"?
You have two eye-witness acounts...and you're still questioning the observation? Who was talking about "more pull in this world"? -
loverofjazz, you never cease to amaze me. Either your head is that far into the sand or you are aware for what is going on and just choose to ignore it. Read a book by a 30 year veteran journalist formerly from CBS named Bernard Goldberg and his book is called "Biased". Then come back and tell me that this whole liberal media thing has been made up. -
Or you can read Eric Alterman's book "What Liberal Media?"
Or you can type "Bernard Goldberg" into the search box at DailyHowler.com and find out Bernie's talking out his ass. -
"talking out his ass"
I think I am going to write a book soon:
The Top Ten Things Liberals Say in Closing - How Potty Mouth is Back in Vogue! -
The sage words of Vice President Dick Cheney on the floor of the Senate to Pat Leahy seem appropriate here...
Or maybe I should just swear in Russian. -
Yes, "so called". You have an "eyewitness account" of one moment relating to the staff of one newspaper--a newspaper in a very liberal section of a very liberal state. I'm sure you'd have a very different "eyewitness account" if the writer had been, for instance, in the offices of the Chicago Tribune, which this year endorsed a Democrat for President for the first time in its history.
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you are both utterly demented partisan lunatics.
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Name calling...a part of the liberal platform and mastery!
Constructive arguments? Hell no...we'd just rather call George Bush dumb...after all, we can do 8 years worth of that like a walk in the park. -
TheBigRuski and I are a bunch of utterly demented partisan lunatics huh? Yet that buzzflash thing you put up seems to only have articles that demonize the Republicans and I did not see anything except positive articles about liberals. And TheBigRuski and I are partisan lunatics?? I guess I got the answer to my question, your head is just in the sand. Go ahead loverofjazz, prove me wrong, why are you not partisan? But I do not think you will, I think you will just call me another name! Go for! Do your worst! Or will you actually challenge me with a substantive argument to why there is no such thing as the liberal media!
And here is the original article written by Bernard Goldberg from a REAL!! news organization
www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=95001668 -
@NB...you should have seen the name-calling orgy in general discussion awhile back. All the so-called "intellectuals" had a meltdown...acting like 3rd-graders on ritalin.
The threads had to be axed quickly, but they were up long enough to show the hate. You know, I love them anyways!
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if my earlier comment was rude, it just happens to be the truth as i see it.
news gatherers as a group are liberals. news organizations are generally nothing more than components of capitalist conglomerates. viewpoints that are explicitly liberal are not exactly slathered across the television screens on a regular basis.
many people think that recent election coverage proved some liberal bias. what little of it i could stomach did not bear that out.
there was plenty of negative reporting on barack obama's associates and mis-steps during the primaries. those stories simply had little purchase with the general public. they had a lot of importance to people like YOU and so you felt their eventual fading from prominence represented more evidence of that liberal bias you're always looking for.
i understand that conservatives who obsessed over this stuff felt left out.
as a liberal i would have enjoyed more coverage of bush spying on american citizens who just happened to also be peace activists or bush adding a signing statement to a bill saying he would disregard the posse comitatus act whenever he saw fit or the orgy of no-bid contracts that are responsible for the waste of billions of dollars in iraq or the little reported aspect of the so-called surge that the liberal media doesn't much talk about: the fact that we're now just paying the insurgents not to shoot at our soldiers. that's how it is, people see what they want to see.
as a liberal who held my nose when i voted for barack obama, i like to think i'm reasonably objective.
i can safely say that you are not.
read some of what's been polluting conservative op-ed pages since obama got the nomination. if you call that stuff "constructive criticism" i salute your ability to see the beauty in a steaming pile of dung.
let me guess: it's ok because of the bad stuff the liberals said about george bush? and the liberals said THAT was ok because of all the bad stuff cons said about bill clinton. and it goes on and on and on and...-
Do two wrongs make a right?
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nope. but the burden of civility does not rest with the left alone. i see no reason to affect some "nobler-than-thou" position as long as the other side is throwing sucker punches.
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Yes, but aren't they educated, wise, and masterful sucker punches?
Your point is well taken...vicious attacks certainly exist on both sides. I'd just rather err to the right!
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we can certainly agree to disagree.
and the fact that you and i have ended this in a reasonably civil fashion is a good sign too.
take care... -
Thank you...you too! But why "ended this?" That's another liberal fav! Call someone a name, then quickly move on.
I don't want to pick on you...so, we certainly can "end this" here. Have a great weekend!
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It's kind of sad, imho, that the two sides just keep talking At rather than With each other. feh -
Chris Matthews certainly proved he has no plans on delivering unbiased reporting the next 4 years.
www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/06/chris-matthews-i-want-to_n_141768.html?pa...-
Yeah, he's biased towards the U.S. If you hate our country so much, why don't you go home? -
A reporters job isn't to "make a president successful". At least not last time I checked.
But it's Matthews, not like we expected anything remotely close to unbiased reporting from him. -
I have issues with Chris Matthews on a lot of levels but he is one of the smarter pundits on television, though a real windbag like all of the pundits, on cable news all channels.
They are pundits, they take the news from real journalist and editorialize it. That is their job. They are not journalist and are not ethically bound by journalistic standards. Though some of them were journalists at one time, some have their authority from other fields. Matthews at least uses real journalists as his sources unlike Hannity and whoever do, they use sources which are have no journalistic standards.
Scarborough is a partisan hack who has slowly over the last couple of years been losing all credibility. his sources have often been quesioned recently. Matthews knows Washington, maybe the old sexist bag is right we may all need to help it work.
The bottom line is pundits are not where you get your news, you get news from the journalists, newspapers, nightly news, if you want to hear different takes on it you watch pundits yammer.
As was noted over there Scarborough and his partisan friends never questioned the Bush White house until two years ago and they spent 6 years before that destroying this nation on so many levels, so why all of a sudden is he questioning everything about a man who hasn't even taken office yet?
Anyway you get your news fro journalists everything else will be in some way biased by the people who editorialize it, some of the pundits have qualitifcations and some do not.
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I was an eyewitness too! While Clinton and Reno were creating a new moniker called, "The Rule of Law" and forcing an American family at gunpoint, to give up one of its own children, I was participating in the protest marches supporting that same family's right to live and exist without our government's intervention.
Elian Gonzalez's right to stay with his relatives in America and subsequently, our government's forced removal of him from Miami to Cuban cost Al Gore the oval office.
Clinton and Reno literally shot themselves in their own collective feet.
I watched the media and our President contort the truth - and I witnessed that debacle as an American citizen living and working amongst some of the coolest people in our country - the Cuban-American community.
On election night, those same "Cubans" voted "republican" instead of "democrat" across all of south Florida. The dems (and Al Gore) lost that election in Florida and the Presidency because our Latin friends were manipulated by the big boys in the oval office and the newsboys spewing all levels of "yellow journalism."
Butterfly votes my eye!-
Thanks for reminding us of that one. What a horrible moment in U.S. history that was. But, guess what...you'll be hard pressed to find it in any history book!
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