Democracy Has Prevailed.

January 14, 2012

Of Course The Trib's Politics NEVER Skews It's Reporting!

Never?  Well, hardly ever.

Take a look at this short blurb from today's Tribune-Review:
Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pennsylvania are receiving a $3.5 million federal grant to collaborate on transportation research for the U.S. Department of Transportation, school officials said.

The grant will establish CMU and Penn as a University Transportation Center, with its research focusing on identifying ways that technology can improve transportation safety and efficiency. Most of the work will be done on CMU's Oakland campus, school officials said.

U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Forest Hills, said CMU, as one of the nation's leading computer science and engineering schools, was "an obvious choice for research on ways to use computers linked to sensors to improve transportation safety, identify infrastructure that needs repairs and reduce congestion."
Looks rather mundane, doesn't it?  No loose ends to the story, right?  Until you Google Doyle's remarks.  Once you do that, you'll see what the news division of the Tribune-Review did.

They left out (omitted, expurgated, skipped over, voided) Congressman Jason Altmire.

Take a look.  Here's the announcement at Almire's Congressional website.  It begins:
U.S. Congressmen Jason Altmire (PA-04) and Mike Doyle (PA-14) today announced that Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pennsylvania would receive a $3.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) for the University Transportation Center (UTC) proposal, titled "Technologies for Safe and Efficient Transportation (T-SET)."
And here's Doyle's remarks one paragraph later
"Carnegie Mellon University is one of the nation's leaders in computers and engineering, so CMU's an obvious choice for research on ways to use computers linked to sensors to improve transportation safety, identify infrastructure that needs repairs, and reduce traffic congestion," Congressman Doyle observed. "I was pleased to join my colleagues in the Pennsylvania delegation in supporting the CMU-Penn intelligent transportation proposal." [Emphasis added.]
Googling those words as of this writing (9:20am on January 14) leads to only 5 hits - 4 lead back to the reporting in the Trib and one back to Altmire's webpage.

So how do you think the Trib got that quote?  However it was, they had to know it came attached to the Altmire office.

I am sure there's a very good reason why they expunged Altmire's name from the story.  Just as I am sure that whatever the reason, it has nothing whatsoever to do with any upcoming election.  I mean, the Trib's news division would never do anything so obvious to undermine a political candidate, right?  The editorial board would of course, but never the news division, right?

Never?  Well, hardly ever.

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