Tuesday, March 11, 2014

More GOP journamalism, local edition

Good ol' Fort Bend Republican flack Burt Levine -- I've mentioned him here before a time or two -- has a piece in Houston Style about Kesha Rogers and her bid to be the Democratic nominee for the US Senate in November.  It's somewhat lacking in reality-based information, not to mention one of the elementary standards of journalism, however.

The article presents Rogers in favorable light, especially considering her demonstrative track record of abject lunacy.  That Burt wants to make a little mischief in the May primary runoff between Rogers and David Alameel is not the biggest problem, though.

The original included a quote from Harris County Democratic Party chair Lane Lewis praising Rogers.  The article you see now at the link I posted above has been been edited for removal of Lewis' name and mention of the HCDP.  Lewis clarified his non-participation in this Facebook status update yesterday.  As it turns out, Levine not only misattributed something said about Rogers to the wrong Harris Dem chairman and the wrong election, he also cut and pasted the bio data used in the story from Rogers' Wiki page.

I'm going to save Burt further embarrassment if he can prove himself himself capable of acknowledging his mistakes later today, but there are a few screenshots I can post, especially if any further edits to the Style piece are made.  You can follow the links I've embedded -- and read the comments at them -- to get the gist of it.

Burt: I hear Breitbart Texas has an opening.  You're qualified.

Update: the article has had another online revision without notification, adding this graf.

The former Chairman of the Harris County Democratic Party has said, "One of the things the Rogers at 37 years old is able to do is to engage young people. If she can turn out young people to vote for Democrats it is all the better."

That is indeed former HCDP chair Gerry Birnberg speaking in 2010, as previously linked.  Except that in 2010, Rogers was 33 years old.  And Birnberg did not reference Rogers' age at all in the Chronicle's account.

1 comment:

Elderlady said...

There is this new website I ran across this morning that Media Matters has just put up.... it's called "Mythopedia". They tackle a lot of the mis-information that comes from the RW Nuts on a national basis, and correct what they can.
Texas may be a hopeless cause.
Geesh.