GENEVA, NY–Continuing his open support of the Obama administration, Finger Lakes Times reporter Craig Fox celebrated the President’s 100 days in office on Wednesday (April 29, 2009) by interviewing two college professors about how successful the President had been to date:
It’s been 100 days since President Barack Obama stepped out of a limousine on Pennsylvania Avenue on Inauguration Day.
And, in those 100 days, Obama has had plenty to deal with. An economic crisis, Iraq and Afghanistan … even Somali pirates.
Even so, Hobart and William Smith Colleges history professor Daniel Singal believes the Obama agenda is the most ambitious since Franklin D. Roosevelt put together his plan to get the nation out of the Great Depression in the late 1930s.
“There’s a lot more attempted and accomplished in the first three months of the Obama administration than in most others,” Singal said.
Obama has focused on trying to solve the country’s economic crisis — including passage of a $787 billion economic stimulus package — and has started working on a number of social issues that the country has tried to cope with during the past quarter century, Singal said, adding that he predicts the president will begin working on health care and education reform in his first year in office and then concentrate on such things as an alternative energy program during the next year.
John Piczak, a political science professor at Keuka College, agreed, noting that while it’s been 100 days Obama hasn’t had enough time to get his Legislative agenda through yet.
“The jury is still out on that,” Piczak said, noting that Obama knows how to work with political allies to get his goals accomplished. “He’s not shying away from a full agenda plate.”
Obama has also made government more transparent by releasing documents about questionable interrogation techniques used by the Bush administration and showed the world that foreign policy has changed under the Obama administration.
The article goes on, but you get the idea.
The Times might justify the unabashed Obama-love by saying it was just putting forth the opinions of two “experts”. However, not every statement in support of Obama was attributed to one of the professors, creating the impression that certain opinions in the article were fact, not belief.
Furthermore, at least one of the experts is an open supporter of President Obama. According to the Huffington Post, Professor Singal was an Obama contributor during the election. Fox, however, neglected to include that information in his article.
The Finger Lakes Times is published in Ontario County, New York. According to the New York State Board of Elections, there are over 28,000 registered republicans in the county.
Is it too much to ask that a newspaper consider interviewing at least one when publishing an article where experts evaluate a politician’s performance?
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