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Thursday, May 21, 2009
4:09 PM EDT
Patrick Gleason

Stay Classy Sacramento

The Sacramento Bee berates its readers for not signing off on higher taxes

It's stuff like this that helps people understand the decline of traditional news outlets:

The Sacramento Bee, in an editorial posted earlier today, thought it would by wise to employ the tone of smartass junior highschooler while berating their readers for rejecting a $16 billion tax hike in Tuesday's special election:

HEADLINE: "You did it! Uh, so what now?"
 
TEXT: Good morning, California voters. Do you feel better, now that you've gotten that out of your system?
 
You wanted to show the state's politicians just how mad you are at them. And you did. Boy, did you ever. ...
 
... you're sick and tired of all this political mumbo-jumbo. So you showed those politicians who's in charge. You. You're now officially in charge of a state that will be something like $25 billion in the hole for the fiscal year beginning July 1.
 
So, now that you've put those irksome politicians in their place, maybe it's time to think about this: Since you're in charge, exactly what do you intend to do about that pesky $25 billion hole in the budget?
 
Well after several hundred comments expressing outrage, the SacBee editorial board thought perhaps it would be best to back track (nevermind the fact that journalists have an ethical duty to stand by their published work). The editorial was taken off the SacBee website and replaced with the following:
 
Note to our readers: Many of the comments below refer to an article that was posted in error. That article was a draft prepared for internal discussion among members of The Bee's editorial board. Such discussions are a routine part of our work, and frequently lead to editorials that are considerably different from writers' first drafts.
 
That's what happened in this case. After discussion, we decided that our initial editorial about the special election should take a different tack. The result was the editorial that now appears on this page. This editorial is the only editorial about the special election that appeared in Wednesday's editions of The Bee.
 
David Holwerk, Editorial Page Editor, The Sacramento Bee
 
As has been mentioned here before, unlike the SacBee editorial board and their leftist ilk, conservatives and libertarians tend to be a rather pleasant and content bunch. And unlike the bitter liberal in chief Keith Olbermann, we don't spend everyday making lists of the worst people in the world. But if, hypothetically, we did, the entire Sacramento Bee editorial board would certainly make that last.
 
Way to insult your readers, Sacramento Bee. That should definitely help with subscriptions. You stay classy.
Posted by Patrick Gleason on Thursday, May 21, 2009 4:09 PM EDT

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