Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Our Fearless Media Keeping The Public Informed (Not)

Even rinky-dink outlets like Virtue Online and our local throwaway, the Los Feliz Ledger, have agendas, and they would seem to be as blinkered and biased as the drivebys. Let's be clear: they can cover what they choose. However, both Virtue and the Ledger have given the St Mary of the Angels case prominent coverage in the past, for instance here at Virtue Online, and as recently as a month ago in the Ledger.

With the worm beginning to turn, though, neither Virtue nor the Ledger appears to be interested in the case. I published my e-mail to David Virtue Saturday. Here's the subsequent exchange I had with Virtue. He replied, verbatim:

I wrote to Bishop MArsh who referred me to canon Rivers. When I get a statement from him I will write a story. many thanks for the alert

David

Seeing the potential for a runaround -- Rivers is one of Marsh's stooges -- I answered:
I’m curious, David. My guess is Rivers will either say nothing or refer you to someone else. If he doesn’t reply, does this mean you don’t cover the story?
Clearly peeved, he replied:
Of course not. I will cover it one way or another
To which I then replied,
When? So far, you’ve been very pro-ACA.
As of this morning, there's no news on the case at Virtue Online, though in the past, he ran numerous pieces containing wild allegations against the parish like the one linked above.

I copied the Los Feliz Ledger on my e-mail to Virtue. The editor, Allison Cohen, replied,

John: I will be in touch with you Monday. Thank you.
However, I didn't hear from her yesterday.

At the moment, I'm assuming that the policy of the ACA, Mr Lancaster, and Mrs Bush will be not to comment on the case, although normally, media will simply cover the story and note that such-and-such indicated he/she had no comment. In fact, the Ledger had a reporter at the trial and featured it prominently while it was underway. The apparent lack of interest in doing follow-up on stories they've featured prominently speaks to the agendas of those involved.