McClatchy employees Armando Acuna and Mark Seidel took to the Bee Sunday to defend Bobby Calvan and trash the bloggers who exposed Bobby Calvan's mistreatment of a US soldier.
Uncle Jimbo from Black Five asks, "Is the Sacramento Bee really this clueless?" Short answer: yes. Michelle Malkin: "Editors defend Jerk of the Year Nominee." A commenter at Michelle Malkin's site isn't impressed with Bee editor Armando Acuna. Glenn Reynolds' take: Bobby Calvan gives his bosses the chance to make fools of themselves.
Let me sum up McClatchy's problem: They hire mediocre reporters with attitudes, reporters who see the dark lining in every silver cloud, correspondents who are paranoid and think Americans don't understand suffering. McClatchy's Baghdad bureau chief gave gave an embarassing speech about how hard her job is and how often she thinks of giving up. McClatchy's reporters have written article after article on Blackwater, Abu Greib, and Haditha. As a result McClatchy's crediblity is dropping. In 2006 their owners made one of the worst decisions in media history (invested in Knight Ridder's print media instead of internet media). McClatchy's share price is hovering around $16 a share; 2 years ago it was over $60 a share.
In all this McClatchy never seems to get around to telling readers the accomplishments of the troops.
Acuna's take on all this? It's the readers' fault.
UPDATE 8:41: Ace has a correction for Acuna, who claimed Calvan's incident was just 2 guys having a "urination contest."
No, no it wasn’t. It was Calvan attempting to enter the Green Zone with insufficient ID and by his own admission trying to “bully” his way in. All while belittling a soldier for having the temerity not to know what Knight Ridder was!
