WMUR Archives - Page 6 of 6

So, why did WMUR have its parent, the Hearst Corp., have a First Amendment Fellow send me a letter?

September 26, 2018April 13, 2013 Skip

Dear Ms. Dietrick,

I am in receipt of your email and, as of yesterday, your snail mail letter. In order to show good faith in this matter, I have a question for you. From your hard copy letter (I took the liberty of scanning it in as the quality of the PDF attachment to your email was of such low quality, I scarcely took it seriously; given the size of the Hearst Corporation, it must simply have been an off day for the poor IT tech you called in for rectification), I would ask that you would turn your attention to this snippet:

I am but a simple man (you may ask my critics for confirmation of this fact) so I wish to address one thing from your letter at a time. If you would, Ms. Dietrick, please forward to me one or more examples of the flyers you have singled out for infringement for my inspection. I have no problem in reworking them so as to remove any WMUR logo (presented here for illustration only to ensure we are both communicating and being precise concerning the artwork of your letter) that may be present; I only wish to careful and accurate:

Ovide Lamontagne – strong words from the nicest guy in politics for the Jeanne Shaheen Machine (Nasty??)

September 26, 2018April 4, 2013 Skip

Ovide Lamontagne was on WMUR’s Close Up this past Sunday (and yes, I DVR it and yes, I forgot that I had transcribed this, so putting it up now. Josh McElveen, trying to wheedle out of Ovide whether or not he’s going to run for a specific office this time around. Here, he tries to … Read more

WMUR demonstrates bias in Journalism – covers sparse National Day to Demand Action anti-gun rally, ignores .223 Day of Resistance pro-gun rally

September 26, 2018March 28, 2013 Skip

Sparsely attended indeed for a day where the “kick the Second Amendment lovers” folks decided to have a “National Day to Demand Action”. WMUR decided to cover it, with a quick spot at 5pm by reporter, Jennifer Gannon, sweeping her hand towards the middle of the Portsmouth’s Market Square announcing the soon-to-start rally – showing a completely empty area. Don’t worry, she adds, they will be coming! They sure did!

At 6pm, it was one of WMUR lead-off stories, with anchor Jennifer Vaughn doing the throw-over to Gannon for this rally sponsored by Project for Safer Communities NH. Given that WMUR was covering this, it just HAD to be a big deal, right? Well, as Gannon started her patter, I started to frame-by-frame to count noses. Again, lots of people for this NATIONAL day of protest for one set of folks to take away Constitutional rights from another?

Er, not so much.

“Gun Control” – that’s just so HARSH. WMUR approves of Obama Administration’s Politically Correct term: “safety”

September 26, 2018January 11, 2013 Skip

During lunch I wanted to find out what the weather was going to be so I switched on WMUR and listened to Melinda Davenport read the update on the Presidential Gun Task Force:

Well, the gun debate continues to heat up. VP Joe Biden kicked off his gun violence task force yesterday by meeting with gun violence survivors and safety groups. Today he sat down with the other side of this controversial topic as he he meets with the NRA. The task force will make recommendations for gun policy changes at the end of the month.

Note that? Nice to see the constant slide of the Left in changing their chameleon skins – and the Media’s complicity in helping out. Back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, they called themselves “Progressives*. They so wore out their welcome with that word, they decided to alter ego themselves and merely change their names “Hey, we’re Liberals – we’re NEW and DIFFERENT”. Yeah, so different, they had to start back using their old name “Progressive”. Same people, different names, same regressive philosophy. Truthfulness in advertising? No – language perversion in the cause of collectivism winning out over Liberty & Freedom.

Hardly. They have one LARGE fundamental problem – if they called themselves, and their policies, exactly what their heartfelt policies would result in, nobody would go for them. Their real monniker should be “Hiders” – especially amongst the Political Class Progressives who couldn’t be elected dog catcher, in many cases, if their true ends were known with ALL of the ramifications.

“What we can do is to make the environment here so unwelcoming…”

September 26, 2018January 9, 2013 Steve MacDonald

WMUR has a story about a radio poll gone wild. The Girard at Large program held an on-line poll seeking votes for Manchester New Hampshire person of the year; it attracted more than 44,000 responses complete with comments they thought were a bit over the top.

…on social media, the unofficial race turned ugly, with one author saying, “The only reason the cop is being nominated is because he was shot, not killed, while on the clock.”

Another writer used the word “pig” to reference another Manchester police officer who was killed in the line of duty. It was not the sort of dialogue Girard said he was expecting.

Wow. Edgy! And of course, no, not really, and the reporter must have sensed that. Why else would they call New Hampshire Democrat House Rep. Cynthia Chase for her thoughts on the story?

Andrew Manuse on WMUR

September 26, 2018June 22, 2012 Steve MacDonald

Andrew is the Executive Secretary of the RLCNH, the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire, and he sat down for a few minutes with WMUR’s James Pindell to talk about not running for office again, and the current state of the Republican Party in New Hampshire.

That WMUR mention last night? Enthusiasm Drop-down?

September 26, 2018June 12, 2012 Skip

“I can tell you that there is an enthusiasm drop-down compared to last time around. Now, what will happen as we get close to the race, who knows?”

In trying to get caught back up from the weekend in Providence, I failed to see this email when it first came in (reformatted here):

Skip —

Was hoping to run into you at tonight’s Guinta kick-off. Just looking for some perspective on the Congressman from the GOP/Liberty side of things. If you can give me a call tonight for a phone interview before 10pm, I’d greatly appreciate it. Sorry for the short notice! I’m at XXX-XXXX. Thanks!

Adam Sexton
Reporter, WMUR-TV

To be honest, I knew that Frank’s office was opening, but given that I was away the entire weekend, I just couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to let TMEW know: “Oh, btw, I’ll be in Manchester tonite”. There’s times when a man has to know his [wife’s] limits, but more realistically, it was that enthusiasm gap – I just could not pump myself up to overcome the inertia to just stay home. Adam has proven himself to me to be a fair reporter so I called him up and chatted for a little while and then he recorded a couple of sound bites. Yes, the one that went over air was indicative of my current outlook. A lot of TEA Party type folks got behind him in the last cycle – and so did GraniteGrok. Expectations were high when he took office – me, the other Groksters, and a lot of those Liberty and Freedom activists that worked their butts off to the point that Frank beat Carol Shea-Porter in her hometown.

We activists promised that even if he voted “wrong” according to the Dems and the Republican Leadership, we’d have his back. Promised.

GrokTV Special Interview: NH Prez Debate – the Moderators deliberately tried baiting the Republicans

August 3, 2019June 14, 2011 Skip

Speaking of journalists…..

I also did an interview with Jerry Delemus of the Granite State Patriot Liberty PAC and Diane Bitter (Republican activist and co-founder of the Seacoast Freedom Network). The full interview is on the bottom, but Jerry, during the interview, raised my eyebrows a bit.

Conservatives often believe that journalists are often biased away from them and and for liberal issues. After looking at the questions asked, I beleive that most Conservatives would have had a different ordering and emphasis. Add to that, “Conflict TV is good TV”, goes the saying.

Well, Jerry and Diane, during the interview, told the tale that Josh McElveen of WMUR and John King of CNN had actively conspired to create conflict (where there may not have been any to begin with) and were congratulating themselves for almost pulling it off:

Pulling it off? I had brought up the subject, with Amy, that the MSM is actively trying to influence the Republican race, to nudge the electorate towards one or more (more moderate) Rs.

Well, it seems quite obvious that these two chuckleheads have proved my point as in “let’s make the Republicans look petty, argumentative, and start a food fight”. Thus, instead of merely reporting the news, they were actively trying to make the news, to start the skewing of public opinion.

You’d think that CNN might have figured out that people don’t like this at all (given their loss of audience over the last few years, especially compared to Fox). WMUR is a bit protected from this, being the only commercial TV station in the State. With this brand of shennanigans, it is clear that the media is not the objective folks they try to portray.

Good going, Josh and John! You’re trying hard for that skew of 15 points, aren’t you boys?

No Pardon, Just early release

September 26, 2018February 3, 2011 Steve MacDonald

The New Hampshire Executive Council voted to cut the sentence of Ward Bird short, but did not go so far as to issue a pardon.

Little Footprints In The Digital Snow

September 26, 2018December 22, 2010 Steve MacDonald

Some of the establishment ‘insiders’ in the New Hampshire political news firmament are clinging to their status as the connected resource for information, defending their political crack house like some kind of punditry-pusher for the news junkies in the Granite state.

One of their weapons is the exclusive. They need them to feel relevant.

Case in point, James Pindell, who unknown to most, had posted the news of Jack Kimball’s announcement to seek the state GOP chairmanship as a WMUR/Political Scoop exclusive. But he did it after it had been posted by GraniteGrok, on GarniteGrok.com, the Grok’s facebook page, each of the Groksters facebook pages, at NH Insider.com, at the NHRVC web page, at my Live Free or Die WordPress page, and on several email lists like those of the NHRVC and RLCNH.

After a conversation with one of the Grok’s contributors, the word "exclusive" was reportedly removed from the Political Scoop post, but the act of trying to claim exclusivity still remains, embedded in the original web address to the article as posted.

http://politicalscoop.wmur.com/exclusive-kimball-to-run-for-nhgop-chair

[Emphasis mine]

It’s just like little foot prints in the digital snow, staggering away from the scene of a crime.

Bird Ruffles Feathers–Gets three to six

August 29, 2022November 19, 2010 Steve MacDonald

The problem seems to be that Bird had confronted a woman who had accidentally wandered onto his property in search of directions, and he was in no mood for small talk. He brandished his sidearm when she did not leave at his request for which he was charged and convicted of criminal threatening.