Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Fat Lip: "And the Texan just wasn’t going to have any of this journalism nonsense."

At LEO's Fat Lip blog, Jonathan Meador considers the Jeffersonville city council's no-tolls resolution, and recounts a surreal interview with 1Si's master of ceremonies, Michael Dalby. Is it just me, or are cracks in the pro-bridges contingent's demeanor becoming ever more obvious?

One Southern Indiana?, by jmeador on utter bullshit.

At any rate, here’s part of a transcript of a phone conversation I had with Dalby, which was painful but interesting in the sense that it shows
the kind of temperament these pro-bridges folks bring to the table.

11 comments:

Karen B said...

Wow, Dalby. Just wow. And *we're* the delusional ones.

RememberCharlemagne said...

I thought NAC was bad with its biased coverage of the ORBP, but the LEO has you beat, Roger. Does the LEO even consider itself a news source?

For a blog that champions itself as a more informative source of information when it comes to the ORBP I'm disappointed that you didn't provide a link to the “State of Affairs” broadcast from July 7th. I find less hypocrisy with the “State of Affairs” coverage.

I would encourage anyone interested in hearing actual fair coverage on ORBP listen to the show.

http://www.wfpl.org/2010/07/07/bridges-over-the-ohio/

One of the things that caught my attention, when I heard it originally aired, is that the No Bridge Tolls Facebook Group only favored no tolls on old bridges. Has that position changed?

New Albanian Style said...

Nothing wrong with bias. It's prejudice that is objectionable.

Karen B said...

There is a Facebook page titled "NO Tolls on the Sherman Minton, or Kennedy Bridges. Ever." Then there is a group "Say NO to Bridge Tolls." Groups and pages are slightly different on FB, but is that what you're referring to, RC?

The group's info says, "Help keep the Kennedy, Sherman Minton, and Second Street bridges toll free!

Tolls are being advocated to finance the Ohio River Bridges Project (ORBP). At $4.1 billion construction costs and up to $8 billion total expense. Even worse, toll financing could fall prey to predatory Wall Street banks.

The current Ohio River Bridges Project is an boondoggle. The benefits no longer outweigh the costs."

The page's info says, "We have to stand up against the creation of new economic barriers to existing regional transportation."

As for State of Affairs, I listen to that program with some regularity and I like it a lot. However, let's be real. Julie Credence doesn't run the kind of program that asks hard follow up questions of her guests. That's not a knock against her or her program, just the way the program is. She facilitates and moderates discussion more than anything.

So when she had the leaders of New Albany, Clarksville, and Jeff on recently to discuss Southern Indiana issues (including the ORBP and tolling), each man gave his opinion, and at one point I think there was a very brief back and forth between England and Galligan about their differing opinions, but no real deep examination of the arguments either for or against the issues. Further, someone called into that program and literally said he can't possibly understand people saying tolls will hurt local businesses, and by the way, he thinks $3 tolls each way are peachy keen, jelly bean (I believe the words he used were "completely reasonable"). The caller sounded like a shill, but regardless, Julie didn't follow up on the issue of how much those tolls will impact local businesses or families.

So while I will gladly listen to the ORBP SoA, I can't say I'm expecting it to be very deep or reveal anything that hasn't been reported in various media already.

RememberCharlemagne said...

I thought the Mayor's forum was a good show too.


I appreciate "State of Affairs" for letting listeners make up there own minds. So often, during interviews, follow up questions seem to be a reflection of political points of view and not the attempt to better understand the subject matter.

Of late I feel that NAC has created a “Straw man” of an issue during this election and has missed other important that that will matter more but its Roger’s blog.

Iamhoosier said...

NAC is against spending billions of extra dollars for marginal, at best, improvements in traffic movement(two bridges vs one)and they are the bad guys? I would think that every conservative around would jump on that bandwagon. Could it possibly be a bias against NAC?

Steve Magruder said...

"So often, during interviews, follow up questions seem to be a reflection of political points of view and not the attempt to better understand the subject matter."

This is absurd on its head.

RememberCharlemagne said...

It's not absurd. A listener wanting objectivity can easily find softball questions and hard ball questions that only display interviewer’s political motivations.

If you're listening to political discourse and can't find biasness in today’s atmosphere I guess you’re not listening to a variety of coverage’s.

The July 7th interview was an informative and great interview. When it comes to the bridges issue I don’t want interviewers following up with politically motivated questions.

Sadly it doesn’t surprise me that you would feel that way it seems most a lot of people only read and listen to what only supports their positions.

RememberCharlemagne said...

Mark, I'm not biased against NAC. I enjoy reading and discuessing different perspectives.

I haven't really read other perspectives when it comes to the ORBP on NAC.

Iamhoosier said...

How many "other perspectives" have you read on the Buildthebridges.com? Or others of the same ilk.? Also, no one is stopping you or anyone else from adding to the discussions here.

One person's politically biased question is another's tough follow up. It's up to each individual to determine which is which. I've found much information from politically biased questions--from all sides.

RememberCharlemagne said...

True Mark, but I'm a reader and listener who desire objectivity when it comes to interviews and issues.


And Yes, I agree one learns much more from someone who shares different perspective than someone of the same. That's why an interviewer should be interviewing more than one perspective.

"It's up to each individual to determine which is which"


To me this world has enough "Rush's" and "John Stewart's" and not enough "Julie's."


Haven't read buildthebridges.com
Never said I was being stopped I’m adding my perspective