An interesting shift in reporting from the local to the national level
Tags: Bias, Politics, News, Reporting, Deception

Someone thinks it's better to leave the militias out when informing the nation.

Did you see the legislative spectacle in Oregon? A contingent of Republican Senators has left the state and gone into hiding in protest of a cap and trade bill. The cap and trade bill is designed to limit CO2 emissions among the largest sources of emissions in the state. Enough Republicans have left the state to deny the state Senate a quorum to vote and pass legislation.

I’ve seen this happen before, both Democrats and Republicans alike have left their states to deny a quorum in their respective statehouses. But what is so notable about this event is that one of the state senators, Brian Boquist, seemed to threaten violence. Boise State Radio reports:

“Send bachelors and come heavily armed,” Boquist said in a television interview. “I’m not going to be a political prisoner in the state of Oregon. It’s just that simple.”

For those of you unfamiliar with American geography, Boise is in the state of Idaho, and Idaho is a neighboring state to Oregon. Some Republican Oregon state senators have fled to the state of Idaho in order to deny a quorum in the state Senate that is required to pass the cap and trade bill they are protesting. But that contingent of Republicans is also preventing the consideration and passage of other important legislation, like the state budget.

But I just can’t help but wonder what they must be thinking. Send bachelors? Come heavily armed? And do you know who is helping those Republican Senators from Idaho? From the same article previously cited:

Eric Parker, president of The Real Three Percent of Idaho, told Boise State Public Radio his group has both been helping the Republican senators and connecting them with sympathetic Idaho elected officials.

So I checked the national III%’ ers website. It reads like the leaflets I used to see when I was in the Patriot Movement of the 90s. Yes, I was one of them, but I found out that I was not much like them. The III%’ ers claim they are pro-government and that they use peaceful means to seek redress of grievances with the government. But a review of their vinyl stickers would say otherwise. Most of them feature guns, talk about guns, or threaten violence.

During my research for this article, I noticed an interesting shift in the coverage. At the national level, there is near zero mention of the Idaho militia group, the state chapter of the III%’ ers. But as I looked at the local coverage I saw more and more references to the militia group. I noticed that in the news, the III%’ ers are identified as a state militia group. But on their website, they say emphatically, that they are not a militia. The vinyl stickers they offered for sale, suggest otherwise.

It’s an interesting shift in reporting from the local to the national level. Did the national news organizations see little to no support for the statement that the III%’ ers are a militia group? Did the national news see that there was no value in reporting that connection? Who made the decision to omit the connection?

This experience is an incentive for me to look at the local reporting of events that reach national headlines, especially when it comes to violence or potential violence. I’m starting to wonder if important details are often left out that local reporting has the time to pick up. I’m also starting to wonder if the national news would rather not connect the Republican Party with a potentially terrorist organization.

Write on.