Congratulations and thanks for a first class blog. When I started my own blog and begain visiting local blogs, BlogFreeSpringfield was the first one I bookmarked and have since been a regular reader. Your post about JL made some significant points in your usual good style.

As a long-ago grad of Sangamon State University’s Public Affairs Reporting Program (Able Charlie Wheeler at the helm today, but Bill Miller had just taken over from Paul Simon when I was accepted), I recall a major issue was the need for objectivity in news reporting. It’s hard to convince (say) a crunchy peanut butter lover that you don’t hate crunchy peanut butter if you go for weeks without reporting about crunchy peanut butter. So it goes with the rest of the world. Your most important point in the Leach post is how the reporter often becomes the entertainer when in the “entertainment mode.” To Jim’s credit, he stayed with the point with JBT; he wore his news hat with distinction. And if the smooth peanut butter people think he was rough on her, they are uninformed. I believe Jim wears his “news hat” well, even when “entertaining.” His shouting down people, instead of keeping a cool head, is what ruins his morning talk show. That’s why I no longer listen to him in the morning. A thug is a thug, regardless of the color of his coat. As a news reporter, he’s still aces in my book.

Back in the old days, major cities had a Republican newspaer and a Democrat newspaper. The State Journal (delivered before breakfast) was the Republican paper if I remember right, and the State Register carried the other side. New York and Chicago newspapers were famous for reporting to “their people” their side of the news. Now it’s harder. I believe the SJ-R does a credible job of serving the public interest most of the time by reporting on news first and politics second. WMAY does the same. But where the SJ-R can offer more than hard news, WMAY seems almost exclusively news-driven. Thanks to Molson and Lee, I’m still a WMAY listener. The fact that for Jim Leach, there is a 3 pm “other side” makes the station an asset to our community. There is a place for crunchy and smooth, and all you have to do is time your day right and tune in for the news texture that appeals to your taste. Yummmmmm!

I don’t agree with the fact that the SJ-R endorses candidates. Its job is to report the news as impartially as possible, and to have endorsed a particular candidate I think blows the whole veneer of impartiality clean off.

You get a B, by the way. Let me have another beer, and you might get an A.

And Dave H, dig on your coining the word “Griffinite.” Leach must not have been made with the GHSH-G Syndicate.

The problem I do experience with Leach is that when an opposing caller calls in, more times than not, Leach becomes easily agitated and rather than going through the points step by step comparing and contrasting ideas in a calm manner, he usually resorts to huffing and puffing, personal attacks and then hangs up on the person, which I think discredits him greatly. This is the problem that I experience most with liberals in general. Anyway I continue to listen if anything, to bolster my own position.

Makes you wonder how a Griffinite became such a secular progressive. Must have been all the tormenting by the kool crowd!

BTW Topinka is a poor candidate with too many ties to Ryan. She is automatically a loser. Conservatives would have better been served by a guy like Brady.