WOOD you believe this?

Bob Dylan said “You don’t need a weatherman to tell you which way the wind blows.” Let’s update that for WOOD-TV Channel 8's gang of meteorologists: “You don’t need a rocket scientist to understand the wind in this room blows far to the right.”

The latest evidence of the political hard-right spin from the seemingly harmless weather forecasters surfaced last weekend with a Grand Rapids Press report that Ms. Terri DeBoer, the morning weather woman, was hostess for a fund-raising party for Republican gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos. Big deal, you might say. Ms. DeBoer, just like anybody else, has a right to support the candidate of her choice. Yet we’re told the media is biased to the left. Not so in the Channel 8 (and 41 WOTV which is owned by WOOD-TV) weather section of the newsroom (or in other parts of the building). Unfortunately for viewers, DeBoer's support of the GOP is only one instance of a right wing media with an iron grip on West Michigan that pretends to reflect the community while ignoring any signs to the contrary.

Bill Steffen, one of Ms. DeBoer’s esteemed colleagues, has been going around to elementary classrooms to talk to the kiddies as a celebrity and promoter of 24-Hours News Eight, often bringing "the Weather Bug"- a Volkswagen Beetle painted up with product placement for the local TV channel which makes the parade rounds in West Michigan communities. When the moustachioed meteorologist stops in at private Christian schools he doesn’t hesitate to tell the impressionable young folks that evolution is a bunch of hooey and the Bible’s story of the creation is the literal truth. Steffan even has explained the existence of fire-breathing dinosaurs with one passage from the Bible that described a “dragon” or monster, proving that human beings in biblical times co-existed with the huge reptiles. Steffen also has given several night-time lecture presentations about the myths of evolution as opposed to the truths in the Bible in explaining where we came from and how. If Steffan's "science" is any indication, now we know why the weatherman always gets it so wrong.

A milder “sin” was committed by the affable and mild-mannered Craig James one evening when he talked about prospects of rain for the Promise Keepers’ march the following day. Why would he care? Is he as concerned about the precipitation when Michigan Pride, the state's major gay equality group, has an event planned? He's probably too busy praying for a deluge of around 40 days and 40 nights.

We shouldn’t be surprised when noting the right wing fundamentalist bias in the Grand Rapids media. The Grand Rapids Press is probably an even worse offender. Was anyone surprised at the GRP’s endorsement last Sunday of DeVos over Granholm, an “editorial” complete with just about all of Dick’s talking points in his flailing campaign to blame the governor for everything that’s gone wrong in the last four years rather than throw even a little bit of the blame to a derelict, dishonest and do-nothing Republican legislature that did all it could to keep the Governor from succeeding or looking good in order to elect one of their party's main benefactors to the job? Ever since Dick Posthumus was embarassed by the former Attorney General the plan has been in motion by the West Michigan Mafia- Get Granholm Gone.

It should be noted emphatically that GRP Editor Mike Lloyd is a close friend of Dick and Betsy DeVos. In fact, when Lloyd’s wife was killed in a traffic accident not long ago, guess who gave a moving eulogy for the deceased at her funeral? That’s right. Dick and Mike are more than just casual friends or acquaintances, they’re best buddies. And friends don’t let friends get defeated by Democrats when their Republican power brokers and it comes time to support them for something as important as running for governor and making Grand Rapids the unofficial capital of Michigan- or at least entrenching it as the power base for the state GOP's right wing flank.

A good example of the Press' over-the-top bias was shown when documentary film-maker, and well-known subject of right wing vitriol, Michael Moore came to Fulton Street Church and the Grand Rapids Press' account of the event focused nearly exclusively on then-state GOP chair Betsy DeVos' personal views on Mr. Moore's personal hygiene. The Press has also run countless articles on the DeVos campaign- putting very minor stories front and center in the paper in an effort to boost Mike Lloyd's personal friend- the beady-eyed billionaire with his sights on the Governor's mansion.

Channel 8 and the Grand Rapids Press are doing a fine tag team job in the service of the DeVos for Governor campaign. So look out kid because the right wing spin is blowing so hard out of the Grand Rapids media outlets that it threatens to turn into Hurricane Betsy- a Category 5 storm which would blow away environmental regulations, reproductive freedom and privacy, educational equality and opportunity and anything else that stands in the way of the DeVos family and their rich cohorts capturing the levers of government and using it to line their pockets at your expense.