Some of you have commented that I give Jaime Abeytia too much credit or that I focus too much on Bob Moore. There is a reason for that. It is my belief that public perception is being manipulated in order to benefit a specific public agenda; one that I believe is driving El Paso into bankruptcy. I have already shown you how the Texas Tribune was duped into running an erroneous report about an attorney running for office. I have shown you that the intent was to demonize Stephanie Townsend Allala for political purposes.
As you can see by this example, manipulating the public perception is dangerous.
As with the Texas Tribune, useful idiots working for political factions are the launch pads for political backscatter and whisper campaigns. If they remained relegated to obvious political rhetoric then it would not be a problem but when the paper of record is added to the conspiracy, it becomes dangerous to the community.
It has been my contention, for a number of years, and I believe that I have extensively documented it on my blog that Bob Moore manipulates the content of the El Paso Times in service to a specific political agenda. Instead of being the paper of record, the El Paso Times, masquerading as a newspaper, has become the voice for a public agenda that is detrimental to the community.
Tuesday’s MPO debacle and the exposure of Claudia Ordaz’ part on the fiasco is further proof of this. As soon as I understood how the public manipulation was happening I published my blog post, letting you know of what was happening and predicting what was going to happen.
On cue, the El Paso Times did not disappoint. Don’t take my word for it, let a comparison of the local paper to the KVIA report show you clearly Bob Moore’s duplicity.
Let’s review the report “Missed MPO funding opportunities total $40 million, city Rep. Claudia Ordaz says” by Diana Washington Valdez published on July 14, 2015. As I have stated numerous times before, the misuse of the newspaper is not normally a reflection of the reporter but rather of Bob Moore. I will explain.
In this case, the public manipulation begins with the misleading headline of “$40 million” tied to “Claudia Ordaz” insinuating that the city lost $40 million and that Claudia Ordaz discovered it. The “discovery” illusion was created by Jaime Abeytia in a blog and given respectability by Bob Moore in a subsequent editorial. In the case of the headline, it is not the reporter that creates the headline but some else that I believe is either influenced by Bob Moore or he himself creates the headline.
There are many misleading quotes but that is par for the course as a reporter’s duty is to report quotes given to them. However, what is important to note is that although there is mention of the meeting being “testy at times” but the fact that Claudia Ordaz was exposed for attempting to be appointed to the MPO was glossed over and important facts were omitted.
Again, I believe this is Bob Moore’s doing. The fact is that the paper of record omitted some important facts.
Let’s compare the paper with what KVIA reported.
KVIA’s report, “Loss of federal funding leads to tense accusations” by Maria Garcia on July 14, 2015 points out that the “nearly four-hour discussion over millions of dollars of lost transportation funding turned into a finger-pointing session.”
Garcia offered a report explaining both sides of the debate. Garcia added additional information about the city’s relationship with TXDOT, as per Cortney Niland’s perspective.
More importantly, Maria Garcia added important context to the issue by including information about the possible motives as to why this became an issue.
Garcia quoted Michiel Noe as stating, “Why are these numbers being manipulated to make the City look bad and at the same time all of this is going on, we’re getting all of this pressure to put Rep. Ordaz on the MPO.”
Maria Garcia also quoted Oscar Leeser as stating “I can tell you that I have received four different phone calls from either state or other entities asking me to remove certain members of the MPO to put you in it,” adding that Leeser had been asked by Ordaz to be added to the MPO.
KVIA’s Garcia concluded her report by adding the two most important details about the whole fiasco that the El Paso Times neglected to mention. Garcia reported that Cortney Niland, which was singled out in the discussion of the MPO, Michiel Noe and Emma Acosta as being members of the MPO. Maria Garcia then added that Vince Perez, “who is in a romantic relationship with Ordaz,” according to KVIA’s report, is the chairman of the MPO.
As you can clearly see, the dots connect as to why Ordaz is on a rampage on the MPO issue and it has nothing to do with lost money and everything to do with political control. In Tuesday’s blog post, I wrote that I expected Bob Moore to attempt to keep the manipulation of the public perception going through his newspaper. I believe that the omission of specific contextual facts is a result of this.
Herein lies additional proof of Bob Moore’s misuse of the local newspaper in the service of his masters.