La Socialista’s Screw Job

THINK THEIR WAY … OR ELSE

FITSNews – May 20, 2008 – He may wear ascots and not know when to stop talking, but that doesn’t change the fact that SC Hotline’s Jeffrey Sewell can swing the biggest bat in the S.C. political blogoshere when he wants to. This morning, Sewell took out his Louisville Slugger and made our state’s biggest newspaper his personal pinata, detailing how The State newspaper (a.k.a. La Socialista ) likes to use its agenda-driven reporting and sanctimoniously over-the-top editorials in an effort to collect advertising revenue from the entities it bashes:

… SC Hotline has discovered that while The State’s newsroom and editorial board were both busy bashing the payday lending industry, the newspaper’s marketing department was using these attacks to try and convince the industry to advertise in the paper in an effort to counter its “distorted” information.

This major lapse in journalistic integrity is reminiscent of the mob-style tactics used by gangsters in movies like Goodfellas‘ repeatedly bullying an industry and then turning around and asking them for money so that they can fix all the damage they have done.

Sewell’s not just speculating, either. He has a copy of an actual letter sent by La Socialista’s marketing department which directs the recipient’s attention to a particularly nasty article the newspaper wrote, but then offers “a couple of ways the State can assist” them in “communicating a very important message” that will “educate those whose understanding may be distorted.”

Geez. This sort of “journalistic blackmail” is almost as bad as the pay-to-play legislative shakedown on payday lending that La Socialista chose not to cover.

Look people, we here at FITSNews may have all the journalistic integrity of a pack of ravenous hyenas circling a wounded wildebeest, but unlike the “faux objective” big government liberals over at The State, we put “Unfair, Imbalanced” right on our business cards. That way there’s no confusion.

Oh, and when we cut somebody’s ass for doing something they shouldn’t with our tax dollars, we don’t turn around the next day and send them the article with a note saying they can fix everything by advertising with us.

La Socialista deserves every bit of the shit it’s going to get for this scam, which we hope people will remember the next time they start attacking the credibility of blogs and praising the virtue of the mainstream media.

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