The article didn’t say what Casias or anyone else had to eat. The story simply discussed the race and the early results but it only mentioned the appetite of Langlois. Suppose if Langlois had a cheeseburger and fries on his plate, would that tidbit have made its way into the newspaper?

Definitely not!

But wine, lamb, and lobster sound a lot like the daily meals of patricians. And that was the snide subtle reference that Dorsett wanted to make. Also, it is entirely irrelevant that high level Democrats in this predominately Democratic city has memberships in country clubs and dines at fancy restaurants too. It was the unbalance that this reporter wanted to show.

And Dorsett isn’t the only one to blame for this blatant act of disingenuous reporting. Her editors also allowed this bogus inference to slip through. But for many in the press, it is business as usual.
 

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Admittedly, in many ways, the Republican Party is also at fault.

By allowing such false but subtle biased journalism to go unchallenged, it is merely giving license for reporters and editors to say and do anything they want without fear of consequences. Yes, the issue is minor but that was the whole point of it.

These types of images reinforce the distorted and unbalanced view that the media has of Republicans in particular and also of America in general. And by allowing the media to continually feed these small nuanced images to the public without taking them to task on journalistic ethics and integrity, the distortion about Republicans will keep growing.

Although it may seem petty for a county party to challenge an incident like, it is acquiesces of the incident itself that emboldens dishonest and sensationalist reporters and editors to methodically twist every story to their liking. At this stage, the press is no longer reporting the news, but rather it is trying to tell people what they ought to think. And that is the real danger because fewer facts will ever get to see the light of day.

But what can be done about journalistic dishonesty like the one described here.

It doesn’t matter if it is a candidate or a political party; the first step is to confront the reporter and the editor.

Some journalists are cowards. They love to hack and slash from the keyboard but face to face confrontations scare the daylights out of them. A confrontation either by phone or in person denies them that safe refuge and it at least gives them the opportunity to explain themselves. It won’t solve all your problems but it gives notice to the press that you are taking their actions seriously and that you are also closely monitoring what they say.

Other journalists are either partisans or just plain liars. And there is nothing that you can do to change that. But a confrontation does allow you to show them that you are not going to be bullied or intimidated by them.

And if confrontation has little impact, then the next step is to make it public. There are always other competing media sources that are hungry for an easy story. When it comes to journalistic dishonesty, these kind of disingenuous stories often write themselves, which is what the other media outlets love.

But finally, the worst step to take is for Republicans to play the victim game. That is, whining about how the press is totally against me and there is nothing that I can do, therefore I will do absolutely nothing.

This kind of acquiesce just invites bad journalists to continue to do these hatchet jobs or to insert the subtle innuendos. And worse, the press doesn’t just go away because you ignore them, which is perhaps the biggest flaw of many Republicans. The media is always going to be around and it is up to Republicans to face them.

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