Showing posts with label Jason Williams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jason Williams. Show all posts

Saturday, December 14, 2019

If You Don't Want It On Microscoops, Don't Do It.

If I could blame Jason Williams on another generation I would, but I am fairly certain he is a Gen-Xer and my generation has it share of hacks, just like any other, but his latest column stretches into the territory normally reserved for NY Post Page Six gossip columnists.
POLITICS & JOURNALISM: It's been known in insider circles for weeks that Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters and WCPO anchor Tanya O'Rourke are dating. It seems that became more widely known this week, when Hamilton County GOP Chairman Alex Triantafilou posted a photo of him and his wife, Jennifer, standing alongside Deters and O'Rourke at a Christmas party. Why is this worth mentioning? Well, Deters and O’Rourke are high-profile figures in the community and you might see them around town together.
Williams is more than willing to help float this trial balloon in the air for Deters and the Republican Party. He's in their pocket and lives off their scraps scoops. What I judge this to be is an effort by the Deters Campaign to test the waters. They need to find out if there is going to be any flack for the divorced Catholic forming a high profile relationship. Williams is able to help serve that goal, while still being able to play the otherside, with his mouth watering for a new scandal that he can dive into.

This is just so tawdry. Williams is just begging for there to be controversy so he can defend Deters and O'Rourke.  The WCPO anchor will gain respect with Suburbanites with her affiliation with Deters, but any serious person who wants good journalism would not trust any story she is involved on. So any controversy that is made feeds into both Williams and Deters' playbook. Spin it on Talk radio, avoid questions, but attack, attack, attack.

Let's be honest, Joe Deters is fucking asshole. He is a huge problem for Hamilton County. He has been representing the Republican 'Establishment' he entire career and has let that influence who goes to trial and who does not.  He stands on the scales of justice and leans the way he wants, to help or hurt those he wants.  He is everything wrong with the Justice System in America and needs to be dumped to curb.

I don't care who he is sleeping with, however.  Local TV 'news' is bullshit anyway and if O'Rourke can keep clear of Deters or big Hamilton County Trial stories, nothing much will change. The bias on Crime stories is baked into TV news. The only risk is that WCPO producers will be dying for her to get more dirt on crime (the sexy ones) that they can sell to suburbanites.

Williams belongs on TV or radio.  He's a tabloid writer, who wants clicks and eye balls on him.  Truth isn't his focus (or concern), emotion is what he cares about.  Well, he cares about exploiting it in others. If he gets an offer to start a local version of Inside Edition, he should take it.

Also, as an educational side note to Jason Williams: people and specially musicians/composers can be icons too, not just buildings.

Friday, November 09, 2018

Making the Correct Choice When Dealing With the Enquirer's Jason Williams

If you wonder how a politician should treat the Enquirer's conservative columnist Jason Williams, just refer to this sentence from his latest column:
Pureval declined Politics Extra's interview request on Thursday.
You are not going to get a fair shake with Williams unless he likes you or you fit his bias. He is biased against nearly every Democrat, namely John Cranley, so the best action is to refuse to be interviewed by him.

I would suggest coming up with colorful ways to say no.  Think of a greeting card type response, a "Sorry for you biased column" card or something similar.  Sending him a bouquet of straw might be applicable.  Avoid sending dead fish in newspaper.

Friday, February 16, 2018

More Continued Bias Against the Streetcar at the Enquirer


Screenshot from Cincinnati.com/news/ on 02/16/2018
Yep, you may think this is a broken record. Surprisingly, however, the bias at the Enquirer I am pointing out is not directly sourced from the usual anti-Streetcar and anti-OTR Resident and Enquirer Columnist Jason Williams. No, this time it falls on the editors.

Shown on the left is the graphic that was the news page of the Enqurier's website and a similar version on the Front page this morning.  The column is about SORTA.  The column is about SORTA's finances.  The column does include in the last paragraph one reference to promotions of people with Streetcar.  The headline of the column actually reads the following:
Screenshot from Enquirer column: https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics-extra/2018/02/15/px-what-hell-going/340915002/
Yep, that is the headline of actual column, which doesn't include the Streetcar.  That headline might have been changed if you read the link name in the graphic caption, but without internal info from the Enquirer, I can only see what I can observe.  Blaming the writer for the headline has traditionally been wrong.  So, how does a column that is mostly about SORTA and it's Buses and it's Finances and a Sales Tax wind up leading with the Streetcar in the headline?  It's a classic bait and switch advertisement.  The Enquirer (along with the Republicans) has help create a controversy over the Streetcar.  A bird can't shit on a Streetcar window and not make headline news for days. Meanwhile SORTA has serious issues with its's Bus Service.  The Bus Service is the vast majority of SORT is responsible to provide the City and Southwest Ohio region.

This isn't about the Streetcar, but the Enquirer wants readers and has created a damned controversy so it does not give a shit about truth, it wants eyeballs of suburbanites who love to hate on the city and Conservatives in the city who love to hate on anything Downtown.

Bias in journalism sucks when reporters and columnist do it, but when editors tilt things like TRUTH, one must question everything that is published.  This also plays into a FOX News type of infotainment, pretending opinion journalists, like Jason Williams, is hard news with this type of biased headline and link to the column.  For all of the chest pumping by the media for being self declared seekers of TRUTH, there is the cold reality that far too often they take dump on the TRUTH for sake of increasing readership and advertising revenue.  Journalists around the city must be so proud.....

Saturday, December 30, 2017

Jason Williams' Playbook is Thin and Trite and Based on People in Power

With his year end kiss ass and trash column, the Enquirer's columnist Jason Williams lays out his jounalisticpolitical philosophy: kiss the ass of the people in power and Trash those who stand up to those in power (access is all that matters.)

If one reads his list of "cheers and jeers" for the year you will find it filled with ass kissing of those in power and trashing of their political foes.  The worst "cheer" was this bullshit about Mayor John Cranley:
Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley for staying out of the mud as his political enemies hurled ugly and unfounded racially charged comments at him in fliers, mailers and on social media during the campaign.
I know Jason is in the bag for Cranley and he prints the vast majority of stories Cranley wanted, but this just takes the cake. Jason knows Cranley's opponent in the Mayor's race Yvette Simpson was horribly attacked by people on social media, making up lies. Jason appeared to ignore that and instead pushed the Cranley propaganda making him the victim.  Sure, I guess he could be ignoring social media, but when he uses his column to lash back to his critics on social media, you know he's at least reading the Enquirer's local politics Facebook group.

What adds to Williams' journalistic malpractice is in his attack on FC Cincinnati's efforts to obtain public funding for infrastructure in support of a new soccer specific stadium he refused to say a word against John Cranley's major part in approving the funding. It is quite clear that Cranley was the primary public official who was organizing the effort to create a deal for the infrastructure and he finessed the deal when it hit a road block at the last minute.

Cranley was a key player of the secret cabal that Williams ripped earlier in the year when he  criticized the secrecy of FCC for keeping the government's plan to fund the infrastructure secret before the election.  He said nothing about the obvious: Cranley kept the story in secert, with Jeff Berding's help, to avoid a MASSIVE CONTROVERSY, before the election.  Right after the election, BOOM, we have an instant plan ready to go and the Conservative portion of council was ready to help out Republican Carl Linder.  This basic concept is ignored by columnist Jason Williams. 

Yes, I'm no longer calling Williams a sometimes reporter, sometimes columnist.  He just a columnist.  Any article that touches anything about politics or government that he writes has to be taken a a column.  There is no other was to approach it as a news consumer.  You can' trust him, you have to assume his bias.  His real problem as a columnist goes even further, he actually has no ideology.  He appears to be one of those who try to claim to not be either a Democrat or Republican.  That is a psychological dodge, everyone has political opinions.  Those who appear to pick and chose issues are more likely opportunists who would rather just be on the perceived winning side.

Bottom line, he's no Peter Bronson, no matter how he tries.  I couldn't stand Bronson's columns or political views, but they were identifiable and honestly what Bronson believed.  I don't think Williams believes anything, he's just trying to build up a persona.  His new found stints as a guest on 700WLW alone demonstrate he's not serious, just a wanna-be talking head, looking to move up.