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Monday, October 18, 2010

NY Times Still Silent On Maurice Hinchey Assault But Jumps All Over Reporter Scuffle With Joe Miller Security

As I posted over the weekend, The New York Times and other mainstream media outlets have maintained strict silence over the physical assault by Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY22) against a reporter asking Hinchey questions about Hinchey's possible conflict of interest in obtaining federal earmarks for a property partly owned by Hinchey.  That silence continues as of this writing.

According to the reporter, after the questioning, in which Hinchey told the reporter to "shut up," Hinchey pursued the reporter, repeatedly poked his finger into the reporter's chest while yelling, and grabbed the reporter by the throat before backing off.  The pushing part of the assault was witnessed by another reporter, although that other reporter did not see the throat grabbing part.  The newspaper for which the reporter worked, the Kingston (NY) Daily Freeman, is standing by the reporter.

YNN, which first reported on Hinchey's assault, was the network which videotaped Carl Paladino's confrontation with a reporter, in which Paladino threatened to "take out" the reporter if the reporter sent any more photographers after Paladino's 10-year old daughter.  Paladino's threat was ambiguous as to whether it was a threat of violence or some other type of retribution, but The NY Times was all over the story, as was the rest of the mainstream media.

But for Hinchey, there is stone cold mainstream media silence.

Yet this morning, The NY Times is reporting on an incident in which a reporter in Alaska was detained by Joe Miller's security guards after the reporter became violent when the guards would not let the reporter get close to Miller, News Editor Detained by Security Guards for Alaska Senate Candidate:
The campaign said Mr. Miller “attempted to calmly exit the facility” but that soon the private security guards, hired by the Miller campaign, “had to take action and intervened and detained the irrational blogger, whose anger overcame him.” The campaign said Mr. Hopfinger [the reporter] “physically assaulted” someone at the event at one point.

Mr. Hopfinger told the Daily News he had shoved another man because he felt threatened after being surrounded by supporters of Mr. Miller during the incident. The owner of the security company the guards work for told the newspaper that the other man involved was not hurt.
Welcome to the mainstream media:  When a violent reporter attacks someone in Republican Joe Miller's campaign, the story is spun as a negative for the Miller campaign, but when senior New York Democratic Congressman Maurice Hinchey physically assaults a reporter who was asking legitimate political questions, it is not considered news fit to print.

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Related Posts:
How Long Will MSM Ignore Assault By NY Congressman Maurice Hinchey On Reporter?
Congressman Maurice Hinchey Commits Assault and Battery On Reporter
Reporting From Ithaca: Is Maurice Hinchey Really In Trouble?

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3 comments:

  1. 1. Point taken about the MSM's blatant double standard. However, I am primarily interested in the report about Miller: his credentials impressed me at first sight as someone with a potentially significant future.

    2. Following up this post led me to google 'Joe Miller disciplined by the Fairbanks North Star Borough', which brought me, for example, to this.

    Maybe Miller is not the straight arrow he has presented himself as, or maybe the accusations against him are mountains fabricated from molehills. I'd like to know more; hopefully documentation will be forthcoming.

    3. Idealistic reform movements can be hijacked by opportunists. Many a "reformer's" bottom-line objection to the system is that he/she is not running it. In writing 'he', I'm recalling MA's Mike Dukakis; in writing 'she', I'm wondering about Sarah Palin.

    NB: I am not claiming that every reform politician is a cynical opportunist; I am claiming that not every reform politician is a reformer. A reform platform should not exempt a candidate from due-diligence scrutiny.

    ReplyDelete
  2. He was challenging Ruedrich, the party boss, that Sarah had helped force off the commission, the latter has made his support for Lisa quite plain,
    so it is a proxy fight

    ReplyDelete
  3. You're a law professor?!? And you equate a finger to the chest with false imprisonment? What are you smoking?

    ReplyDelete