WRAL's climate change
Published December 15, 2015
by Gary Pearce, Talking About Politics, December 14, 2015.
Greg Fishel says he took a while to change his mind on climate change. Then he got a quick lesson in politics.
Richard Stradling wrote in the N&O (“Climate change reversal puts brighter spotlight on weatherman Greg Fishel”):
Fishel’s change in thinking has showed him how divided Americans are on this subject and others. It started with friends who accused him of caving in on the issue but continued with comments online and at public speaking engagements. Some got personal….
There’s a tribalism surrounding climate change, Fishel says, where people choose sides based on their political party or ideology. If Al Gore thinks it’s true, it must be false.
Welcome to our world, Greg!
Because he’s been in our dens forever and has a lot of built-up good will, Fishel will survive. He’s also lucky because he works for a TV station whose boss, Jim Goodmon, has progressive – Republicans say “liberal” and “left wing” – views.
Which is a big climate change from the old WRAL.
A.J. Fletcher, Goodmon’s grandfather and founder of the station, set out in the 1950s to counter the liberal N&O. He hired Jesse Helms to run the newsroom and broadcast a five-minute nightly commentary.
You think politics today is rough? You should have heard Helms’s venomous screeds.
Helms and Fletcher would have run Fishel out of town on his Doppler.
Today, Republicans hate Goodmon and WRAL. They accuse the entire news team of bias. They even tried to enact a special “Jim Goodmon Tax” last session.
But Goodmon can laugh all the way to the bank. Many of the millions that Republicans raise for their campaigns will go to WRAL. Which can keep paying for high-quality pros like Fishel and his colleagues.
December 15, 2015 at 10:26 am
Richard L Bunce says:
Oh the hypocrisy of the media going on and on about the evils of the USSC Citizen's United decision when those advertising dollars are spent in the media... not to mention the not too long ago days when the local newspaper and local television/radio station(s) had a virtual monopoly on mass political viewpoint dissemination.
December 15, 2015 at 10:30 am
Richard L Bunce says:
... and most of those newspapers and tv/radio station(s) were and still are for profit corporations and the people in them were/are all too willing to sit behind their First Amendment press protections while advocating for other persons in other for profit corporations to lose their First Amendment speech protections.
