Pop quiz. Guess which corporate front group funded by billionaire Dick DeVos is now providing legislative tracking to MLive.com?
That would be the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
Today MLive began a new weekly series where they will “publish descriptions of bills and corresponding votes from the Michigan House and Senate as compiled by MichiganVotes.org.” MLive says MichiganVotes.org is “a free, non-partisan website created by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, and provides descriptions of every bill and vote in the Michigan House and Senate.”
Sounds innocent enough, right?
Until you do some digging and realize that the editor of MichiganVotes.org is Jack McHugh, who once wrote in an email to Rep. Tom McMillin (R-Rochester Hills), “Our goal is (to) outlaw government collective bargaining in Michigan, which in practical terms means no more MEA.”
Here are some more of Jack McHugh’s greatest hits at the Mackinac Center:
Tea Party Activists Have Attitude
Nine things you can do to keep the Tea Party movement moving ahead
Top 5 Reasons to Repeal Obamacare
Medicaid Expansion Bad Bet for Michigan Taxpayers
The Mackinac Center has about as much credibility as an unbiased think tank as Dave Agema would have at a pride parade.
I give MLive a lot of credit for investing heavily in news departments across the state at a time when many media outlets are cutting back. But by providing free promotion to a biased and ideological special interest group like the Mackinac Center, they are undermining their own credibility and doing a disservice to their readers.
If you’d like to express your disappointment with MLive and encourage them to reconsider this decision, you can send an email to: customercare@mlive.com.
I emailed them this:
I’m surprised and pretty annoyed that MLive doesn’t see that it is compromising its journalistic ethics by partnering with a group as partisan as the Mackinac Center. Every one of your reporters and editors knows that the Center parades as a think tank so it can push the policies favored by the corporations that fund it.
Being afraid to report this as fact, because it will look too much like taking sides is one thing; partnering with the Center is another.
MLive is an objective observer? Who’d believe that now?
Politics is a biased journey, filled with corruptible, cold-hearted, greedy wannabes who could care less about the poor and needy, but will do handstands to appease the wealthy and the greedy. What a joke! There is no such thing as being unbiased about anything in our society today. Too much Republicanism has rubbed off on people to make a democracy work the way it should.
Please!!!! MLive is a right wing paper and “news” blog that only caters to the people that mimic it’s beliefs!!! Bought and paid for by Rich Dick DeVos and the Koch Brudders….When a paper carries MIchele Malkin…they are up to no good!!!!
Mlive ever have credibility?
Will think twice before going to MLive for my news after reading this — and that’s the site I generally refer to when needing an update. Can’t see how the news on this site can be trustworthy or considered unbiased after reading that they have coupled with the Mackinac Center in any way! Very very disappointed.
How can it be said that this will be “a free, non-partisan website created by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy,” Just the fact that the Mackinac Center for Public Policy is involved in any way, proves that there is NO WAY this will be even remotely non-partisan! With the high moral values that the Republicans in this state (and all over the country – for that matter) claim to have, you would think that honesty should be one of them! With this move, it is clear that is not so!
Can anyone recommend a better media site that covers the stuff that happens in Lansing? Not a blog or comment site, but media. I read things there that I sometimes don’t see in the Free Press or News.
News papers no longer have real reporters,investigative or otherwise. Bloggers provide media with info anymore. It is a sad state of affairs. I read Eclectablog to offset MLive.
My Lansing State Journal colleagues and I work hard to deliver news people need every day. I’m a real reporter, and so is everyone I work with.
How can it be said that this will be “a free, non-partisan website created by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy,” Just the fact that the Mackinac Center for Public Policy is involved in any way, proves that there is NO WAY this will be even remotely non-partisan! With the high moral values that the Republicans in this state (and all over the country – for that matter) claim to have, you would think that honesty would be one of them! With this move, it is clear that is not so!
I will no longer be reading Mlive because of its association with the Macinac Center.
Booth never did …
I am not surprised. Mlive gave voice and support to the Ann Arbor New, a newspaper that endorsed Bush twice; republican newsprint that tried to thrive in an 80% democrat community. No wonder they went bankrupt. Most Ann Arbor residents just stopped buying the paper because of its blatant right wing bias. Good riddance.
Mlive is a right wing mouthpiece…that’s why o don’t believe anything they print..
SICKENING!!
Both bay city times and flint journal subscriptions being cancelled tomorrow.
As I posted in Facebook – if MLive has an ounce of journalistic integrity, they would post the content delivered by this service in the appropriate place: the Op-Ed section.