Alphecca: Rural Trumps Urban Reporting

February 21, 2005

Rural Trumps Urban Reporting

I couldn't think of a good header, sorry. But here in rural America our small, local TV stations have their priorities correct. Many of you living in Red States know this already but even here in Vermont, when a bunch (almost 200) of our proud Vermont National Guard finally return home from their tour in Iraq, it's big news. After 13 months of duty, our local station is there to capture the joy of over a thousand family members greeting their (and our) brave soldiers:

All I have are the shots I took off the TV this morning. Sorry for the poor quality of the photos but there's nothing poor about the quality of this emotional meeting between the wonderful defenders of our nation and their proud families. This broadcast (and it's not the first by any means that the local station has done, both for heading out and returning soldiers) pre-empted national news -- in fact, it pre-empted The Today Show for it's first half-hour.

I'd like to know if the liberal area stations in NYC and LA and SF have done the same? Somehow I doubt it.

The leftist-liberal intelligensia of our big cities love to heap scorn on scenes such as these (witness their repulsive reaction to the Bud Superbowl commercial) but thank God I live someplace where normal people live and care about our defenders of freedom who have just spent over a year spreading that democracy to another region of this world.

I don't need to see Katie Couric and Matt Lauer meeting up with the Gadget Guru or some endless blather about Michael Jackson. I need -- want -- to see our local Vermont heros coming home (alas, not all of them, and not all alive) to the welcoming arms of their loved ones. And I love them too. God bless them.

This is the part about middle-America, that huge red-zone of -- nothing ordinary about them -- people who still care about our country and each other. Liberals will never get it because they're so consumed with hatred for the U.S. and democracy and civility and family that all they can do is sit in their coastal ivory towers and "goof-on-us" from afar. And it is "afar". God bless America and our soldiers and their families.

Incidentally, originally the returning soldiers were going to be bussed from Fort Dix to Vermont but the commander of the Vermont National Guard told them that since they flew them out of Vermont to serve, they could fly them back to return. The Army agreed and did. Heh.

Gosh, I just realized that I've put up a pile of posts over the last four days. I think I'll go have a nice lie-down...

Posted by Jeff Soyer at February 21, 2005 09:06 AM

Comments

Why is appreciating the return of our troops a conservative thing? I'm pretty liberal by most standards and I too am moved that so many have returned safely and so many of those families are relieved. On the radio, a decidely liberal dj has celebrated for the last week the troops' return to Ft. Dix and now VT.

Posted by: Dana at February 21, 2005 12:15 PM

Dear Jeff:

God bless America and our soldiers and their families and bloggers like you.

Posted by: Steven Malcolm Anderson at February 21, 2005 11:09 PM

Even though the 6:00PM presentation on WCAX last night was mostly positive I did note that the female anchor had to contort her opening remarks with all sorts of conditional phrases to be able to elevate the casualty count of this group of Guardsmen to a prominent status. It seemed to me that this was a bit over done. The statement could have been " this group sustained x casualties" without all sorts of contortions to make the proportions seem high or exagerated.

Posted by: Bruce R at February 22, 2005 07:03 AM

I wasn't referring to individuals but to the big broadcasters in coastal cities. I can't imagine them pre-empting national broadcasts to cover the departure or return of our troops.

Posted by: Jeff Soyer at February 22, 2005 07:03 AM

An error in my above comment, it was WPTZ. And, yes I doubt the NYC TV stations would ever broadcast stories about the departure or arrival of their sons and daughters.

Posted by: Bruce R at February 22, 2005 07:34 AM

SOME of the _LOCAL_ NYC stations DO cover when our troops leave and return - but the "O&Os" (the ones owned and operated by the networks) - nah

Watch Channel 5 (fox local), 9, 11 - the locals

Disclaimer:
I'm an IS geek for one of the networks.

Posted by: KG2V at February 22, 2005 07:56 AM

We lived in Middlebury for 15 years and in all that time I never met anybody who wasn't a leftwing nutcase. UVM was, if anything, worse. We left Vermont in 1990. Since Leaky Leahy is still senator, I didn't think things had changed much since then.

I caught that superbowl ad showing the soldiers walking through the airport and witnessed something very similar at the airport in Orlando. The soldiers were a pretty diverse group and not because the photo op was contrived. Each soldier walked straight and tall obviously pleased with their reception. Grown men and women with tears in their eyes as they thanked our soldiers.

Dare we hope things are changing? Note the pro-American rally in Mainz, Germany. Can't wait to see how that turns out.

Posted by: erp at February 22, 2005 08:46 AM

South Carolina stations do it too.

Local helicopter maintenance unit came back this weekend.

Would have been the lead story on all the local newscasts, except a Marine recruit drowned at Parris Island.

Posted by: Heartless Libertarian at February 22, 2005 08:57 AM

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February 21, 2005

Rural Trumps Urban Reporting

By Golly, you're reading an archived post. Click Here to head to the main page and read current stuff...

Check it out:

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Colony: Alchibah