Selective Bragging

I am sure that the practice of only taking parts of someone’s article that you like and publicizing it to your advantage is not new. In fact, everyone does it at some point or another. This time, it is an example of our new Congressman, Robert Hurt (R-05) doing this, and leaving out his own quote when it is reproduced on his official website.

Hurt loves offshore drilling, and has voted in the House for three bills that make up what is being called the “American Energy Initiative”. Various features would require the Federal government to lease tracts of ocean for exploration and drilling, speeding up leases of tracts in the Gulf of Mexico, and lifting President Obama’s moratorium on offshore drilling.

The problem, as I see it, is that if a citizen looked at the Congressman’s website, they would get one version of a Danville Register and Bee article on this subject, and may or may not know there is more to the story as it was originally posted.

So what was cut? An entire paragraph explaining (what I did above) about the “American Energy Initiative”, which is the entire basis for several claims made elsewhere in the article. Why this would be cut is a mystery to me, since it is the accomplishment Hurt is bragging about and the vehicle for the goals he has stated concerning offshore drilling.

Next up is a statement from our Governor, Bob McDonnell. It seems odd this would have been cut, since it is positive to the theme of Hurt’s claims about economic benefits of offshore drilling.

What comes next is some facts about how long it would take for these changes to bear results, two paragraphs in all, including objections from the Sierra Club and other environmental groups in the Commonwealth. Obviously, these edits are meant to put a nice face on the efforts of the current House of Representatives and their efforts to “drill now”.

The last cut is the following quote by the congressman:

“It is not going to give us immediate relief, but it is vitally important to the future so I was pleased that we were able to do that,” said Hurt.

It seems to me that the truth about how long it will take to make a difference in oil supplies or any supposed relief in gasoline prices, is buried in what is not quoted. To be fair, the story is linked from the Congressman’s website.

If it was a matter of not wanting to reproduce the article in it’s entirety, then the few paragraphs left out do not accomplish that goal. If it is a matter of room on the official website, then the article could be reproduced up to a paragraph and a link to the entire article could be placed.

The reason I bring all this up is that it is hard enough to know what is being done “for us” by our representatives. Why make it any harder? Of course, this is but one example, but I will be keeping my eyes out for this sort of quoted article in the future and making sure i get the real story.