MediaWatch

I'm going to take a hiatus from writing Media Watch. The value of a blog depends on regularity, IMHO, and I no longer have the time to meet even the most elastic blog deadlines. However I do plan to continue commenting on current media issues, including the perennial -- and real -- matter of liberal bias, so I'm just moving my soapbox over to AMG's Public Square. See you there.

Robert Lenna, executive director of the Maine Municipal Bond Bank, demonstrated a poor sense of public relations to say the least when he told State Treasurer Bruce Poliquin that "I don't eat at Wendy's."

Wow, talk about executive hubris. Lots of real folks eat at Wendy's, or at Mickey D's, or at many other places that are apparently too ordinary for the haughty Robert Lennas of the world.

Republicans are rightfully upset about stories that have appeared recently in the MaineToday Media newspapers that sound more like unedited press releases from Maine Democratic operatives than news stories.

This article appeared over the weekend:

The Maine Public Broadcasting Network has its fans. Proof of that is the fact that about 2,000 of of them braved a howling snowstorm recently to see a personal appearance by a little known (in the U.S.) humorist and story teller named Stuart McLean.

McLean is the host of an hour-long radio program called The Vinyl Cafe, a popular feature on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. His only connection to Maine is his show which is aired by MPBN at 2 p.m. on Sundays.

Both sides in the ongoing uproar over restrictions on the sale of products containing the chemical additive bisphenol-A, better known as BPA, may have equally valid arguments -- but the media, as happens too often, appears to have taken sides.

A recent article in the Morning Sentinel purports to be a "brief history of BPA"

The fascinating saga of the Maine Green Energy Alliance has many of the elements that make a good political scandal story. It involves political shenanigans involving the former governor and more than a few well-known State House luminaries.

Republicans can breathe easy on this one because none of the perps are named LePage. And most are well-known Democrats. Perhaps that's why so much of the Maine media has picked up the story with all the caution they might exercise in handling an angry lobster.

The contagion is spreading.

A new website called "The Issa Files" has been launched by a group of California Democratic operatives in an attempt to discredit U.S.Rep. Darrell Issa, GOP chairman of the Oversight and Government reform Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives.

A different group has initiated a second attack site called "Issa Watch," which has the same objective. "Issa Files" and "Issa Watch." Do they have a familiar ring?

It appears the Portland Press Herald will not stop its continuing campaign to make a laughing stock of itself by inflating a minor political brouhaha to an issue of gargantuan proportions. The paper's now in a defense mode, featuring letters applauding its position.

As all PPH readers must know, the newspaper has been having a cow over something called "The Cutler Files," the internet effort last fall of a pair of political operatives -- Dennis Bailey and Thom Rhoads -- to assure the defeat of independent gubernatorial candidate Eliot Cutler.

How did Maine's media perform in the wake of the Tucson shootings. Not too bad -- with one awful exception: this Jan. 10 editorial in the Bangor Daily News. It includes these comments:

"When...Sarah Palin, posts a map on her website with crosshairs over certain congressional districts...civil discourse is degraded.

Enough already?

Probably not. Mostly likely we're going to continue hearing about an internet website called "The Cutler Files" for a couple more weeks. Or, at least, until Jan. 27. That's when the state's Ethics Commission says it will decide whether to fine the operators of the website $200 for inflicting their views on Mainers without proper identification.

Rarely has so much been said about so little.