Who let the dogs out? Sorry PPH, we're not taking the bait

If anyone wanted to see a concrete example of how the Portland Press Herald (owned by Democrat mega-contributor Donald Sussman, husband of U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine) skews a story to promote its zany, liberal agenda, just read their story today titled, "Inland Fisheries and Wildlife department takes new role as vocal foe of bear baiting ban."

The subhead declares, "Staffers speak out while in uniform on various media, in an unusual role for a state department, political observers say."

The tone of the story conveys we should have "raised eyebrows" about staff at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife supporting in social media and advertisements the notion that bear baiting and hunting with dogs should not be banned.

The story subhead implies it did just that to "political observers," which of course is a nebulous term in and of itself.

In the story they manage to find two such "political observers" who opine it is unusual to have a state department actively campaigning for or against a referendum.

However, one is from Harvard (ahem), and the other, who is from Maine, said, "It's unusual, but at the same time there would seem to be a legitimate reason for them to get involved with this."

However, of course, editors "forgot" to put the latter part of his statement in the subhead.

Now the "political observer" from our state got his comment lower in the story than the Harvard prof, who obviously backed the sentiment of story assignment editors looking for nothing more than another way to bust our governor's chops, and please their boss Sussman.

Beyond that, the whole premise of the story is flawed. I mean would you not want the state Center for Disease Control to speak out on a referendum that had implications to public health?

And of course, we wonder how many "political observers" they talked to who agreed that the IFW, who work with bears in their natural habitat for a profession, were left out of the story, because they gave the "wrong" answer.

Here's a link if you want to see how elegantly they "baited" their hook and tried to "lure" us in.