They all endorsed Melissa Bean for the 8th Congressional District seat.
But, voters ignored the newspaper endorsements.
They picked someone who represents their interests and not the liberal special interests of San Francisco.
They elected Joe Walsh.
That’s in spite of endorsements from the Northwest Herald, Daily Herald, the Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times.
All of them were for the liberal, Bean.
Even after the election media bias showed.
ABC was in Lake Barrington to capture Melissa Bean's victory celebration. Instead, they found "stunned silence."
ABC sent its reporter to Melissa Bean’s headquarters.
After that report, when it was looking like Bean might get beaten, the Channel 7 talking heads had to bring up Walsh’s financial problems.
Here's the photo relating to the 8th District race the Chicago Sun-Times published the day after the election.
The day after the election, the Chicago Sun-Times ran a photo of Melissa Bean, not Joe Walsh.
Two days after the election, the Chicago Sun-Times ran a story about the four Chicago-area Republicans who were newly elected.
Only the Tea Party Republican is not smiling.
The only one not smiling is Joe Walsh.
Same treatment in the Chicago Tribune Thursday.
No smiles for Joe Walsh in the Chicago Tribune.
And you thought the editors of newspapers only look out for the regular people by printing all-of-the-real-relevant-facts journalism?
Maybe if you are still attending 6th grade civics class.
If not then you may check out the facts yourself and go to other sources besides the newspapers. Guess what?
The internet is handy for this. I hope McHenry County Blog has been helpful.
Certainly from the spike in readership (over twice the normal daily hits), I’m led to believe it has been a useful reference tool.
I don’t remember any paper’s having compared Walsh’s education with Bean’s.
Walsh has a Masters degree in public policy from the University of Chicago. Bean has a Bachelors in political science from Roosevelt University
Couldn’t run anything that made Walsh look more qualified than Bean.
Well, it didn’t work.
That is, if vote totals count at the end of the day.
I guess many editors thought Bean was qualified because she voted for
- ginormous wasteful spending that created incredibly few private sector jobs
- new gigantic energy taxes
- Obamacare and the government takeover of healthcare
I guess ordinary people looked at the issues and ignored what newspaper editors wrote.
That’s happening more and more, national polling data says.
The Tribune did what amounted to a smear piece on Walsh about a week before the election.
Just in case you think no liberal “journalists” and editors work for the Trib. (Or maybe they were Carl Rove Republicans who believe if you’re not from the Establishment, you shouldn’t be in Congress.)
Endorsing Bean wasn’t enough in a close election for the Trib, apparently.
Anyone want to think that the Bean campaign, knowing the election was going to be close, didn’t push the papers to do a largely negative smear “info” article about Joe Walsh?
I almost forgot.
You are not supposed to research the facts on your own.
You are supposed to act not as adults, but as if you are in 6th grade civics class and believe all of the negative slant that’s given to you.
You are supposed to believe Bean really, truly is a “fiscal conservative” because a newspaper prints that liberal’s deceptive self-description.
You are supposed to believe Bean is a “moderate” because newspapers say it’s so in print.
Again and again and again.
People are smarter than this.
Even if editors and liberal staff writers choose to selectively ignore this when it comes to trying to get certain liberals–like Bean and Bill Foster–re-elected.
People can type McHenryCountyBlog.com into their browser and check out the facts.
Adults don’t need permission to do so.
They are no longer in 6th grade civics class.
Well said Mr. Skinner!!!
Hey the Tribune was Dumb enough to endorse Mahon too? What does that say about that paper.
I assume that you are going to attack all of the papers for endorsing Bill Brady, right? And I assume that you are going to talk about how the voters disagree with the editors at all of those papers?
I notice that you are strangely quiet about Brady’s loss.
// I guess ordinary people looked at the issues and ignored what newspaper editors wrote.//
Again, you represent HALF of the voters, not the majority. Don’t do make the mistake of feeling impeccable as a result of this election, or ignoring the HALF who disagree with you – or else the tea party too will get out of touch really fast and start dropping the ball on Americans.
Also, despite your bashing of Bean, you too have failed to do your own research. Bean held regular small business round tables and was very active in improving business conditions in the district. And are you saying you must have a Master’s degree to be qualified for politics? That’s pretty funny considering only 35% of people in this district hold even a bachelor degree. By that logic, the 65% of people in the district have little business representing the district vs. someone who holds a master’s degree. Sounds “elitist” to me.
The truth is that both Joe Walsh and Melissa Bean are fine Americans who are capable of representing this district and this vote tally will determine who the voters truly elected. I ultimately welcome and pledge to work with whoever that is.
Re: “The truth is that both Joe Walsh and Melissa Bean are fine Americans who are capable of representing this district ” per Frank says post.
That’s one way to look at it.
Another way is that it will prove whether or not the public wants to repeat the past and keep doing the same things that didn’t work before and aren’t working now.
35% of the people in the district hold a bachelor degree. Since you said people and not registered voters that 35% would include people under the age of 21 which would be significant in skewing the data, as they are old enough to obtain a degree yet. The media chose pictures of Joe not smiling and I can assure you there are hundreds of photos of Bean not smiling as well. The media is skewing the fact with images. they have a leaning one way or the other and are not unbiased anymore.
In regards to endorsements the weight they carry has been reduced greatly since there are other sources of information other than the newspapers. You know that thing Al Gore created something called internet what ever that is
oooh Aileen (for Dee and Alan), I agree on not repeating the past. when are you and your friend Linda Moore up for reelection?
and LAUGHING at Cal thinking it is very important to compare Melissa Bean’s education to Joe Walsh’s.
how important was it when you were comparing Barack Obama’s to Sarah Palin’s, or any of his other critics?
Anybody notice page 3 of Wednesday’s Daily Herald, Chicago’s third major (snicker) newspaper? Huge story of Kirk’s victory ove Alexi. They used a small thumbnail mug shot of Kirk and a ginormous picture of Giannoulias smiling and shaking hands at his concession. There is no fairness. And Alex G, all the education in the world cannot justify Obama’s poor record as president.
Sure, the papers are biased.
They are privately-owned businesses and so reflect the political beliefs of their owners.
Why should that surprise us?
Fox News is not so different from MSNBC, is it?
We watch and read and support those endeavors that favor our own beliefs.
I am reading this blog this morning, however, as an education in Illinois politics.
Love reading the slanted stories that I usually don’t agree with, and the fact that I can comment.
I also enjoy the fact that those commenting here are remaining polite and respectful with others who do not share their beliefs–unlike posters for the Northwest Herald.
Those people are frighteningly mean.
@Alex G–I could not agree more with your question about educational level. It’s just not that relevant…
Rather than worry about the media bias, which has been intuitively obvious for many years, isn’t in doubt around here, and isn’t likely to go away, the question is what voters are going to do about it.
The press is free to be as biased and irrelevant as they please, and there is nothing we can do about it other than to give voters an alternative.
The media have taken for granted that they are the “mass media”, reaching large target audiences with very little competition.
Their audience is shrinking, along with the ad revenues which sustain their operations.
While libs push for such things as a boycott of FoxNews or Glenn Beck advertisers, it’s still a free country and conservatives should be able to develop local communication channels to better inform voters within any area.
If the country is split roughly 50-50, that means that 50% of the local media market should be up for grabs, except that voter interests are not limited to politics.
Indeed, conservatives tend to have many other interests – particularly since they would largely like government to play less of a role in their lives, rather than more as the liberals do.
That’s why there is more political interest on the liberal side in the media. Conservatives need to get more engaged and support channels which better reflect their principles and values.
Still waiting for Cal to attack the Trib, and the NW Herald, and every other paper that endorsed Brady.
But wait – the NW Herald endorsed Brady? I thought abortion was a litmus test?
But hey, who cares about consistency?