Frank Girardot: Fox News cracking the ACORN case with phone calls

Fox News' Glenn Beck has spent the better part of the week urging viewers to call their local newspaper and demand to see coverage of the ACORN scandal.

[Sara G]

Frank,

The best work I've seen addressing this issue is from Bernie Goldbert in his book Bias. If you haven't read it, You may find it enlightening.

[Monte loa]

Mr. Girardot.

It is not that we believe you get told what to write or that there is any conspiracy. Those are straw men. The problem is that with your liberal outlook, you do not even realize a story when there is one. This happens all the time in our local paper. The story writers or even representatives of the paper, when they write and article, almost always slant things toward the liberal side. I think that they do not even know they are doing it and would deny it if someone suggested that it was the case.

We have hoped some paper or other group would have investigated ACORN long ago. The corruption in the ACORN organization was pretty obvious. Mainly, I think it is a matter of judgement. Many of the things that conservatives are unhappy about, you do not either see them or do not consider that anything out of the ordinary has happened. In other words you do not recognize the problem. You do not even consider anything to be amiss.

[ann]

Watch it, Frank. Perhaps your paper did cover it and since I live in the Midwest, I am not a subscriber but there was a blackout of this story by every major news outlet except FOX. We aren't minions but are very informed consumers of the news that sees a bias that drops our jaws daily. Just substitute Halliburton for ACORN and do you think Charlie Gibson would have no idea what you were talking about?

[Tom Chambers]

I don't subscribe but I read you paper online. But that's no excuse for ignoring this story. You're seriously behind the times.

[question]

If you are correct why do you think this occured?(below):

After after 7 days with NO coverage on the videos by CNN,AOL,NYT,NBC,CBS,ABC (except Tapper), LA Times, etc, SUDDENLY, ALL WITHIN 30 MINUTES OF EACH OTHER THEY EACH posted their 1st stories last night between 7 and 7:30pm. That seems more than a bit odd...

Recall, too, that Charlie Gipson was CLUELESS on TUESDAY (9/15)- 6 days after the rest of us knew about it (Thursday, 9/10)

It is as if after Jon Stewart did his piece the above mentioned outlets finally relented.

[Hostile Knowledge]

"Here's the bottom line: News is news. There is no liberal media conspiracy."

That's where I stopped reading this article. Savage is right: Liberalism is a mental disorder.

[Jaye]

The Scranton(PA)Times didnt cover the 912 March on DC at all. They are ignoring the ACORN story as well.

[Jean White]

Why did a couple of kids have to break this story? And all you can do is complain about the phone calls and say you did belatedly cover it. Lets see what you can do with SEIU, Acorn is cracked open. And find out what's behind Obama promising these organizations a place in the White House for policy making!

[common sense student]

All these folks with right-wing biases complaining about "liberal" media.

Even if the media were liberal (it's not, most outlets are owned by rigidly conservative corporate barons), the media would be no worse than these partisan conservative shills making all the ACORN noise.

If being "far liberal" is bad, than so is being "ultra conservative."

I guess when you pin yourself to the extreme right wing, everything, including the center of the political spectrum, looks leftist to you.

Interesting that you rarely hear truly moderate, clear-thinking people moan about "liberal bias." It's probably because they recognize no such thing exists.

[Silly Rabbit]

Mr. Girardot....

Here's how we conservatives smell a liberal; when you cast aside logic, reason and facts and then set out to destroy the enemy by making fun of his clothes.

I remember when YOU wore high-waters to school in 5th grade, who are you to talk?

You must be a racist.

[no conspiracy here]

Frank is right..."there is no liberal media conspiracy", at least not at the Tribune. The lack of real reporting isn't due to a liberal conspiracy, instead it can be traced to less than competent reporters.

These aren't the best or brightest plucked from our top educational institutions....heck the paper has been diluted to hiring mediocre recent grads who can't even write properly....let alone actually conduct a real investigative report.

So don't chalk it up to a liberal conspiracy, instead blame it on simple incompetence.

[Tdub]

No, not a liberal conspiracy but there is definately a liberal bent. Over 85% of news people are self avowed liberal and it shows. Maybe your small paper covered these stories but the major players in newspaper and television did not. Nice try Frank but we're not buying it (no pun intened, lol).

[2 things]

1. If you are not liberal media protecting the leftists why didn't you splash the story across the front page - this is a national corrupt organization which has received millions of tax-payers dollars and stand to receive 8.5 billion in stimulus dollars.

2. You said 'news is news'. This is not news? Millions of tax-payer dollars already given to the corrupt, and billions more to come, and you stick that in a little corner of your paper or not mention them at all?

You're irrelevant!

Jjournalists who don't do journalism are like cars that don't move. TOTALLY USELESS.

[Pensacola Greg]

Nice analysis and commentary . . . especially the dis on Glenn's clothes. Your hair style sucks. So there.

[Just Saying]

Franky, c'mon, really are we to take this latest story seriously. No liberal media conspiracy? See the problem with the media, you included is that you will consider this (your) "vanilla" article coverage thus counting it as "covering" the ACORN scandal.

What was this story truly about? Was it Acorn because if it was, you never mentioned they are currently being investigated in 14 states, failed to mention their connection to S.E.I.U, how about former ACORN leader Raske who embezzled one million dollars and was never charged yet he left Acorn and now leads S.E.I.U and his brother took over at ACORN, or over one million "registred" voters that were found to be obtained fraudulenty through ACORN, or the fact that the democratic controlled congress continues to investigate "steriods" in baseball but they think that a "non-profit" organization (acorn) who has received 53 million dollars in tax payer money and poised to receive upto 8.5 BILLION through the new Obama stimulas package doesn't need to be investigated given the above facts!!!
How about the radical black panthers (furnished by acorn) that stood outside the polling place with "billy clubs" in hand intimidating persons from entering the polling stations, yet congress didn't think that was worth looking into...only a violation of our consitutional rights!!

In this "vanilla" and poor excuse of journalism, you cite Acorn 10x, Glenn Beck 5x, Fox news 3x, and the word "scandal" 1x and your mother 1x so I ask, what was this story really about because it seems your just upset because the truth is being told absent any real journalism from you or your corrupt cronies.

[Travis]

Nothing behind the curtain about liberal bias, move along. "WHATEVER"

[Travis]

Hey Frank, even John Stewart is urinated at the lack of media coverage about the ACORN scandal.

Very funny video by Stewart:

http://theblogprof.blogspot.com/2009/09/video...

[Doug in Detroit]

Frank, it's grand that you aren't ordered around by the evil leftist government..but it's pretty sad that your little editorial is so factually FUBAR'ed..you write as if the San Bernadino ACORN floozy was the only worker to "not bat an eye" at the suggestion of underage prostitution, when in reality she's one of FIVE (or is it seven now?) workers who displayed this reaction..and you casually mention the Census bureau and Senate vote issues as if they were unrelated, when the truth is that they were direct reactions to the "undercover hooker" series of video clips. Crummy writing, sir.

[Loraine DeMuynck]

I vehemetly disagree with you about the liberal media conspiracy. The TV and radio media is very liberal and does not report ALL the facts. I give Glenn Beck and the conservative talk/tv
show a big thanks for speaking up for us. And by the way, what does Glenn Beck's clothes selection have to do with anything?????

[Tyra]

If you type "acorn" in the search sgvtribune search box at the top of this page, you find 1 news article dated 9-15 and 2 opionion pieces dated 9-16.

If it's true that there is no liberal media bias then we won't see the full weight of media investigation come down on the two young people that produced the video evidence against ACORN.