BlogWood: MT Archives

More MacManus

Rob Lorei of WEDU’s “Tampa Bay Week” responds to the recent BlogWood post on Susan MacManus’ GOP ties:

...... And you are right- she has close ties to the GOP. Sometimes we don't ID a panelist's political affiliation because they are appearing in their capacity as a journalist or political science professor. We could "out" all of these guests (Dan Ruth, Adam Smith, Mary Jo Melone, Dr. MacManus, Darryl Paulson, etc.) But many journalists and professors have asked us not to identify their political affiliation. They'd rather not appear if we do. So the solution has been to recognize (for example) that Dr. MacManus leans conservative, Dan Ruth leans liberal. In selecting panelists we try to balance the "unidentified" right with the "unidentified" left. This is not a policy set in stone and there may be good reasons to revisit it.

......You might be interested to know that we get a lot of complaints from conservatives who say the TBW panel too often leans conservative. Just two weeks ago (June 4th) we received an e-mail from a viewer who claimed that Tedd Webb was the sole conservative voice against "four Democrats". I'd be happy to share the conservative viewer's complaints with you (both phone calls and e-mails). So far, we tend to receive more complaints from conservatives.

Ultimately it's a question of balance. If, over time, we have not provided a group of strong debaters from all sides then we have not done our job. Please let me know what you think of the balance in the next few shows.

Update - a PS:

I forgot to add that Joe Brown was not identified this week (or any other week) as a "Republican Editorial Writer". He's always identified simply as an editorial writer/columnist/member of the TT editorial board.

I admit I was a little fuzzy on who was identified as what. See my original post for my original vagueness.

Update 2:

I made a mistake in my original reply. I should have said "we get complaints from conservatives who say the panel too often leans liberal". (That's what I get for trying to dash my reply out so quickly).