Quit your crying

Once you've read one post on Bob Orr's blog you've read them all. Ok, that might be a slight exaggeration, but there's no debating that his last four posts have all had at least some complaining about the media in them. He doesn't think they give his policy proposals enough attention.

I find that whining quite amusing, because I think he's getting the most favorable press coverage of all eight folks in the race.

Yesterday is a great example. He had a press conference to roll out his transportation proposal and Under the Dome wrote not one, not two, but three different blog posts about it. Then it took up a good chunk of today's print column. A lengthy story about it also went out on the wire and was picked up by many newspapers across the state.

Contrast that to the way the Democrats' policy proposals have been covered. Richard Moore has a great proposal that would reduce costs while helping improve health care. Bev Perdue rolled out a proposal a few weeks ago to help communities across North Carolina fight global warming. Did you ever read about those in the N&O, or just about anywhere for that matter? I sure didn't.

The filter for coverage of the Democrats' policy proposals seems to be that unless an initiative gets attacked within 24 hours of its being announced, it's not news worthy. That's quite a contrast to the coverage of Orr's proposals which were largely presented by the media without comment or critique from his opponents.

The media is critical of Moore and Perdue for the nastiness of their race, but it is certainly not helping the problem by ignoring policy proposals they make that don't become controversial.

They should do a better job of covering the Democrats in a substantive manner. And Bob Orr should quit crying about the media because compared to a lot of the candidates he's got it made.