I have written many pieces documenting the bias of the El Paso Times on political matters. I have argued many times that it is Bob Moore who directly influences how the El Paso Times covers political issues. It is my belief that Bob Moore acts on behalf of a certain political factions; in this case Veronica Escobar. I believe he acts as her personal public relations specialist by controlling what the public is allowed to know in order to protect her political future. As I have written previously, I believe he does this by influencing how a headline reads, what stories are kept from the publication and by encouraging, or directing reporters to focus on one individual over the other. The latest example is a letter that the physicians of the El Paso Children’s Hospital wanted published in the paper.
Last Sunday, in an extremely rare Sunday posting, I posted a letter that numerous, over fifty physicians, had asked the El Paso Times to publish. As you know, the finances of the El Paso Children’s Hospital are not only very important to the community dialog but it is an ongoing urgent matter that is in the public realm. It involves taxpayer monies.
Currently there are three major factions in the debate. They are Veronica Escobar together with the University Medical Center (UMC), the taxpayers of the community and the people that work at El Paso Children’s Hospital as well as its board. We have heard from the board and from Escobar and cohorts. Until Sunday, we hadn’t heard from arguably the single largest most influential group of the whole financial debacle, the doctors that provide services.
From what has been shared with me, various doctors wrote a letter to the El Paso Times from their perspective. According to the information shared with me, the newspaper had given the doctors a timeline to submit their letter. The doctors met the timeline. Although the doctors were promised that a slot had been made available to them for Sunday, the largest readership day of the week, Bob Moore’s paper did not publish the letter. Instead, it published a column by Constantine Papas that was supportive of Veronica Escobar’s demand that the children’s hospital submit to UMC’s control.
We know the perspective of the doctors is extremely important to the debate. We also know that this is a fluid and very timely issue. Yet, with a letter in hand and the topic being extremely important the El Paso Times did not print it. Why?
I believe it has everything to do with the fact that the letter does not fit the narrative that Veronica Escobar is pushing. Thus, the letter diminishes her various arguments and it is my contention that Bob Moore knows this and therefore decided that the letter needed to be kept away from the public dialog.
In essence, I believe that Bob Moore is manipulating the public’s perception in order to help Veronica Escobar. This is the only explanation that makes sense on why the doctors’ letter was conveniently not published. It also adds further proof to my ongoing examples of Bob Moore’s lack of journalist ethics.
