("John Manyjars" uploaded this last night, but watch it quickly: Copies of this video have been vanishing all week. Pretty sure Wonkette published this iteration first sometime last night.)
Now, here's the thing: NEOMG hasn't publicly explained why the video was taken down. Kasich campaign pressure is one possibility I'll submit here, but even that doesn't hold much water. Look again at Kasich's behavior here and at other campaign events. He's a classically out-of-touch central Ohio politician with weird, dismissive mannerisms. There's nothing groundbreaking about this video. To his credit, Ed FitzGerald has been pointing this shit out since Day One. So why delete the video? There's certainly nothing here that should scare content leadership at NEOMG. But if they ended up endorsing this guy for the highest office in the state, then...
Really, it's not like this video helps the editorial board's argument. Whoever is asking the questions in this video lets Kasich skate on the rape gag rule question. Kasich concludes his non-answer with: "I’ve said everything there is to say about it.” And then the interview goes on! "I think he answered it okay," the interviewer says when pressed again by FitzGerald. It's stunning, if only because the NEOMG has proclaimed that it stands up for "government accountability." Here, the media company errs on the side of uhh the exact opposite.
The video, at the very least, would have better informed the public of what was going on behind closed doors.
Local attorney and blogger Jill Miller Zimon listed a number of reasons why the removal of this video matters. Here's one:
NEOMG has wanted us to look to them for our political candidate news and at their tools, to which they regularly direct us, for helping us make decisions. They have reminded us of this multiple times just in the last year. They place screen-level widgets on their webpages that let us access what they’ve selected to publish. Therefore, when they do things like highlight how they can help us learn about political candidates and then pull the very resources that help us, without explanation, that removal becomes the focus of scrutiny."We’ve been educated to see the media as a watchdog. But this episode makes us ask, whose watchdog is NEOMG?" Zimon asks.
Think Progress points out the disconnect between Kasich's non-answer and the American population's overall attitude toward abortion services. Media critic Jim Romenesko and his site's commenters point out how opaque NEOMG has been about the whole mess.
And The Opinion Show — which, if you've never watched, is a real doozy — totally glossed over this week's video controversy in an episode that dealt specifically with the endorsement process.
