Peter Bronson of the Cincinnati Enquirer wrote a column Sunday (HT The Daily Bellwether) that was a withering attack on the blandness, lack of local coverage, and political correctness of chain news.

Bronson, at least for the moment, works at The Enquirer, which is owned by mega-chain operator Gannett Co., Inc. Gannett publishes 85 local newspapers and USA Today.

Here’s Bronson on blandness:

I wonder if a steady diet of junk-food news causes high blood pressure, indigestion and poor circulation.

Bronson on local non-coverage:

Wherever the population density can support more than one freeway exit, the chains move in and sterilize any hint of local flavor. ….. Being dropped in the middle of a chain newspaper can be like being taken to a Waffle House blindfolded, then trying to figure out if you’re in Iowa or Idaho.

But the Enquirer columnist gets in his best licks criticizing newsroom political correctness, serving up three examples of what surely has driven many NewsBusters readers to distraction over their own local papers:

Immigration Reform Nachos: Authentic, imitation tortilla chips smothered in cheesy political correctness, served with a side of sympathy salsa on a bed of wilted lettuce logic.

Presidential Pardon Pasta: Linguini in a heavy whine sauce, with your choice of Bush is evil, Bush is wrong or Bush should be impeached. Sorry, Clinton Pardon Pasta, deep fried in hypocrisy, is no longer available.

Live Earth Cocktail: Purple Kool-Aid served on ice from melting polar caps in a recyclable mug shaped like Superhero Al Gore’s personal jet. Get yours now before the world ends.

That there is indeed a striking uniformity of opinion in chain-owned newsrooms over at least the first and third items is almost beyond dispute. Stories about crimes committed by illegals almost never get around to telling us that the criminals involved are indeed illegals, or how they managed to stay here for months or years. The “sympathy salsa” gets taken off the shelf just about any time an illegal faces deportation. Reports on environmental issues lean heavily towards the assumption that global warming is occurring (Really? Note that the report is in an English newspaper), is a big problem, and that anyone who doesn’t buy in can’t be taken seriously.

It doesn’t help that in certain areas, most notably business coverage, even at the state level, the chain locals, and most other locals, are at the mercy of relentlessly biased outlets like the Associated Press, Bloomberg, and Reuters.

The tragedy is that while the top-tier blogs and talk radio are filling in many of the cavernous gaps in national coverage, local and state news, which is often at least as biased, both in what is reported and in the choice of what isn’t, is subject to less overall and certainly less influential scrutiny. Perhaps this will change as more downsized/early-retired Old Media refugees join the blogosphere (Daily Bellwether blogmeister Bill Sloat is one such person) and other forms of alternative media, they will see how bad it is from the outside looking in, and fill in the gaps. Someone surely needs to.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

From Rasmussen, on TV news:

By a 39% to 20% margin, American adults believe that the three major broadcast networks deliver news with a bias in favor of liberals. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 25% believe that ABC, CBS, and NBC deliver the news without any bias.

The 20% who say they don’t see liberal media bias have to be liberals who know it’s there, but won’t acknowledge it.

With trends like this one, it may not be too long before respondent say, “Network TV news? What’s that?”

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From here, the view Vista isn’t too pretty.

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From a week ago, courtesy of the Associated Press — spying program goes from “domestic” to “international” in five paragraphs (HT Taranto at Best of the Web):

Court Rejects ACLU Domestic Spying Suit

CINCINNATI (AP) - A divided federal appeals court rejected a lawsuit Friday challenging President Bush’s domestic spying program without ruling on the issue of whether warrantless wiretapping is legal.

….. (para 6) President Bush authorized warrantless monitoring of international telephone calls and e-mails to or from the United States when one party is believed to be a terrorist or to have terrorist ties. The government has kept details confidential, saying the case involved state secrets whose disclosure would threaten national security.

Taranto raises a valid point:

Such misreporting–and the AP is far from the only offender–is scurrilous. Moreover, it is potentially threatening to civil liberties. Remember the boy who cried wolf? If a future administration does engage in warrantless domestic wiretapping, how will the AP let us know? Who will believe it is the real thing?

Perhaps AP has placed the phrase “Hillary Clinton’s law-enforcement campaign to protect America from the far right” on hold for just such an occasion.

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Now that Al Gore has cozied up to R-Rated and worse musical acts too numerous to mention (full list here; it’s not too difficult to find objectionable “artists” in the list), Reason’s Nick Gillespie (with more background here, including book excerpt, and here) reminds us of something that is way too easily forgotten, and shouldn’t be — Gore’s wife Tipper, with his blessing, was once on a crusade against suggestive lyrics in pop music. She even wrote a book, Raising PG Kids in an X-Rated Society.

What Gillespie missed is Tipper’s stunning “problem solved, never mind” stance on her prior work during the 2000 presidential campaign (about halfway through link):

Q: Back in the ’80s, you crusaded for voluntary restraints in music lyrics, for which you were roundly attacked by the entertainment industry.

A: The whole point was public education about the fact that lyrics have become very explicit. I mean, I didn’t know it. My kids tuned me in. That was happening with parents all across the country. We were surprised and shocked. So public education. We asked the record companies to voluntarily put a label on that says “explicit lyrics/parental advisory.” They’ve been voluntarily doing that since the late ’80s. That’s all we ever wanted.

It solves the problem. It’s respectful of the 1st Amendment rights. It doesn’t affect content. But it tells people that there is explicit content before they buy it. . . . We have consumer information on almost all the products that we buy. And certainly when we are making choices for children of different ages it’s nice to have that kind of guidance in the marketplace.

I don’t recall reading that Live Earth viewers got any kind of “explicit lyrics” or “expected expletives” warnings before or during the event. If there were, apparently a lot of BBC viewers missed them.

From Morganton, NC:

Kindhearted employer offers organ to ailing woman with deadly disease

When doctors told Lisa White she needed a kidney transplant to stay alive, she never expected her boss to sign up as a donor.

Chris Jernigan, the director of Southmountain Children and Family Services in Nebo, said he had watched White, his friend and colleague of more than 11 years, struggle to come into work.

The decision to donate a kidney to his office assistant was easy, he said. The surgery went well, and White was back at work Wednesday.

“I care very much about every employee and want to do everything I can to make it a better work place and to make their lives better,” Jernigan, of Morganton, said Wednesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “This was just one more thing that I was able to do to help out a good friend and an employee.”

Go here for the rest of the story.