Media, political spinning is just the kissin’ cousin of lying

ACHTUNG: This is not a “fair and balanced” story. It is an editorial by the editor.

Because I avoid watching Fox News as much as I can, I don’t know if blowhard Bill O’Reilly still likes to call his show, “The No-Spin Zone.”

This catchy phrase reminds me of the old Bonzo Dog Band joke about the man who takes his trousers into a place called “One-Hour Cleaners,” but learns it takes a lot longer because, “It’s just the name of the shop.” Yes, I’m suggesting that O’Reilly does a lot of spinning on behalf of right-wing Republicans.

Some examples were when anyone came on his show to oppose the war in Iraq, he would accuse them of disparaging the troops and raise serious questions about their loyalty to their country.

But spin, which is a kissin’ cousin of lying, runs rampant in the media. It’s done by members of the so-called “liberal media,” not to mention the GOP groupies at Fox, who love to tell us they are “fair and balanced,” another horrible example of peeing on your shoe while telling you it’s raining.

I plead guilty to spinning in this space, but at least I’m man enough to clearly label it as an editorial rather than a “fair and balanced” story.

Spinning is not quite the same as lying, because it uses a grain of truth and mixes it in with hooey in order to make it more palatable for us common everyday folks. It makes a statement that may be true, but neglects “the rest of the story,” as the late Paul Harvey was so fond of saying.

State Rep. Mary Whiteford (R-South Haven) now finishing her first year in Lansing as representative from the 80^th District, which includes most of Allegan County, was guilty earlier this week of spinning a yarn. She made a true statement that Michigan’s public schools this coming academic year will get a record $7,511 per pupil in state aid, obviously touting our feckless State Legislature as a friend of public education.

The rest of the story is that Gov. Rick Snyder and the GOP majority in the State House and State Senate did not give public schools as much money per pupil as when Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm left office in 2011 until last year. They gave public schools less until the 2015-16 academic year when they coughed up a whopping $75 more than in 2011.

Public schools in this state each received $7,316 per student in Granholm’s last year. They got the same in 2011, took a beating down to $6,846 in 2012, went back up slightly to $6,966 in 2013, to $7,026 in 2014 and $7,126 in 2015. Then came the “quantum leap” to $7,391 for the 2015-16 year.

None of the figures mentioned in the previous paragraph (except the last) matched that $7,316 in 2010 and 2011. So while Lansing is crowing about record support this year, it ignores the awful truth of cutbacks over the past five years. It also ignores approving contributions to private education in this year’s budget.

Even more dangerous spinning is done routinely on slick television advertisements on behalf of hydraulic fracturing, in which somebody who says and appears to be some kind of environmental scientist flatly declares fracking to have been safe for the past 65 years. It ain’t necessarily so.

Vertical fracking has been determined to be safe over the past 65 years. The bruhaha actually is over the much more dangerous and invasive horizontal fracking. Hopkins environmental activist Karen Fifelski called the misleading ad “disingenuous.”

I call it spinning, and the consequences of such a practice involves the erosion of the future safety of human beings on this planet.