Scott Goss is Bad at Journalism
Democrats are hoping the midterms prove to be such an overwhelming referendum on the president that it produces a “blue wave” that filters down ballots and threatens Republicans running for state seats.
But the intro is just window dressing. The real point comes later when Goss adopts a Philip K. Dick style alternative reality frame to discuss how Hansen and Paradee are vulnerable and what the Senate will be like when Lavelle becomes the leader.
Republicans also are targeting the 10th District in southwestern New Castle County that incumbent Stephanie Hansen of Middletown was able to win in a 2016 special election with the backing of the full Democratic establishment. Hansen is largely on her own this time around and facing a challenge from Republican doctor Christine Metzing of Mount Pleasant.
The most likely person who would lead a Republican-controlled Senate is current Minority Whip Greg Lavelle of Sharpley, who long has been a thorn in the side of Democrats.
The whole thing is strange as fuck.
“Greg.Lavelle’s honorable and dignified concession statement reveals why Senate District 4 voters erred in electing Sturgeon.”
Scott Goss’ election recap story writes itself.
Goss suffers from the Reaganite point of view that Republicans are naturally entitled to power.
The CV tells the story: He’s worked at every small-town outpost in Delaware journalism and he lives downstate. Plus he’s a Smyrna native, and as my friend Don Challenger, Smyrna-born and raised, once told me, “A lot of smart people come out of Smyrna, and the smarter they are, the faster they get out.” Goss lives in Milford, so I’d argue he’s never left.
I thought I should point out that you are really coming across as kind of a dick, though I’m sure you meant it.
So it’s considered bad in journalism to work one’s way up from a small paper to a bigger one?
Did you consider that perhaps he’s living in Milford to be closer to family, or for other personal reasons?
It’s considered bad in journalism to spend years at free giveaway papers and to, without any accompanying credentials, be assigned to cover politics. It’s a profession that has lost 2/3rds of its practitioners in the past 20 years, but instead of finding someone with the previous experience to cover a specialized field they went with the cheapest alternative already on hand?
But you knew that already, as I suspect you have a background in the field yourself.
Did you consider that perhaps he’s living in Milford because he’s a downstate hick, and that being surrounded by such gives him a skewed perspective on politics in a state where 60% of the population doesn’t live near him or have the same attenuated sense of reality that comes from living in Hooterville?
But then, you live in Hooterville, too, so I’d expect you to defend your fellow hayseeds.
All I said was the CV told the story. You supplied the negative connotations, as downstaters always do. Smug inferiority is the mark of downstate Delaware.
Or maybe it’s because he covers politics in Dover and his wife covers Sussex County so it’s a good and convenient middle place for them to live.
Attacking people for their place of residence is really a dick move.
Yeah, I’m really worried that a bunch of stump-jumpers think I’m a dick. You especially.
I don’t really give a fuck why he lives there. He does, and it’s bound to mislead him about the state he covers. I don’t think he knows shit about New Castle County which is where 90% of the paper’s population lives.
But do go on about how nobody should criticize things of your determination. It’s part of your pompous-ass profile.
So basically, if you want to honestly cover politics in Delaware, you have to live in New Castle? Come on.
The DSN’s Matt Biddle wrote a good article on the same topic, so no. You just have to not suck at journalism.
No, when I edited the Dover bureau everyone there lived downstate.
I love the way nobody can defend what they wrote. All they can do is attack me for pointing out a strong potential reason this guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Reductio ad absurdum is a logical fallacy. Look it up.
Goss’ body of work this cycle indicates that he allowing someone (Burris or Lavelle) to dictate stories to him. So, lazy in addition to not very smart.
Hey, Rethuglican caucuses need ‘public information officers’ too. He’s a natural.
Goss’s Mike Ramone apologetic also smells like it was dictated by Ramone, hitting every irrelevant talking point in defense of Ramone’s ethical lapses.
“The biggest question is whether they (Democrats) will hand control of the state Senate to Republicans for the first time in nearly 50 years,”
That’s the biggest question? Really?
It is if you’re trying to gin up a story in state elections with no important offices at stake.
The only people asking that question are R’s trying to influence an alleged reporter’s thinking. (As if that’s gonna have any impact whatsoever.) Does ANYBODY think that Stephanie Hansen has a competitive race? Does ANYBODY think that the most endangered Senate incumbent isn’t Greg Lavelle?
Only Scott Goss thinks that. Not even the people feeding him this pablum think that.
Greetings from the hicks in the sticks! Wilmington centered types need to come down here from time to time, downstate is changing rapidly, and politically it’s for the better. South of the canal is not so “south” anymore as the area is rapidly being flooded with both out of staters fleeing high tax states in retirement and people from New Castle Co. moving out of the cities and suburbs to what they consider “the country”. And for the most part their not Republicans.
That’s not the point. The point, among others, is that this reporter appears to know nothing about the races north of the canal, even though about 5 in every 7 Delaware voters live there.
If you have no clue as to what’s going on in about 75% of the contests statewide, you probably shouldn’t be the statewide politics reporter, even for a ‘free weekly’. Although…at least with a free weekly, you get what you don’t pay for.
If that’s your critique, aim it at the editors who have eliminated staff. Even as recently as a few years ago, the N-J’s local reporters were assigned to cover individual races and write profiles – the people who covered those areas were writing about the elections there. Now we get an online questionnaire and a statewide roundup.
By your and Alby’s line of thinking, no one can accurately and effectively report on an area if they don’t live there. Please apply that same standard to the political reporters from the national outlets who parachute in to a locality and then head back to DC or NYC after an election.
Sure, if you apply the logical fallacy of reductio ad absurdum. We’re talking about a specific person in a specific place who has already demonstrated his lack of knowledge. Again, your dislike of it matters precisely not at all.
Everyone has aimed that critique at the News Journal. I don’t know whether your nose is out of joint because I’m insulting downstate — bamboozer, I’ve been there a lot more than I’ve ever wanted to be over the decades, and the locals are the same species of cooterhound they’ve always been — or because you know Scott Goss, but either way, I don’t really give a fuck whether you like it or not.
Motherfucker is a hack. If you’ve got something to rebut that, you’re free to produce it anytime.
I thought this worth posting. It is as follows:
The Republican Party has many good people and good ideas. But none of them matter while it houses & feeds fantasies, conspiracies and paranoia tinged with racism, bigotry and anti-Semitism.
The Republicans are squarely the Party of Joseph McCarthy and until that cancer is excised, it should not be entrusted with power.
Fareed Zakaria
GPS
11/04/18
Sorry I forgot to post the link. The last line is where my post is in his statement = https://fareedzakaria.com/columns/2018/11/1/the-gop-has-become-the-party-of-fake-news-and-paranoid-fantasies
Thank you.
Journalism isn’t suppose to report the questions and opinions to those questions.
It’s supposed to get facts and report the answer those questions.
Goss was fucking terrible this campaign season. If you’re an anonymous apologist you’re a fucking joke to me.
For the record I couldn’t care less where the guy lives. I also don’t care if an anonymous person may call me “a dick.”
Goss was fucking horrendous. I buy the paper. The actual paper. I critique in whatever fucking way I choose.
(Also, gear it set up. El Som, I’ll be in touch.)
The News Journal has not reported facts for a long time. They’re well known for simply repeating what they’re told. That’s where people like Starkey train to be political spokesperson’s.
AQC is basically correct. With the exception of (for me) Lex Wilson, Karl Baker (both of whom I know personally, full disclosure) and Christina Jedra (who I met once but don’t know) it’s below modest expectations.
Have you all been following Lex’s coverage on the Vaughn uprising trial? Very good in my opinion. Lots of context. Paints a full picture.
Wilson is supposedly the NCC beat reporter but he pays mere lip service to those offices at best. Shame.
Lex was reassigned from NCCo to Crime/Courts about a year ago. Just for the record.
That is not what he told me fairly recently. He was still on NCC plus courts assignments. He still writes NCC coverage occasionally. There was no one on the county beat if he was taken off of it then.
There’s no one on a lot of beats.
Friend with connections to Simpler’s office says he’s planning to put about a half-dozen new positions in his next budget request, and one would be for a director of communications. Scott Goss, anyone?
Fortunately, I suspect that’s one budget request the Joint Finance Committee won’t have to consider.
Deputy Treasurer Spadola?
For a ceremonial position? Christ, if I wanted that kind of corruption I’d elect a Democrat.