Mike Rowe, host of CNN’s “Somebody’s Gotta Do It,” accused Raw Story of publishing a misleading article about him and literally rewrote much of the reporter’s story, addressing what he said are misleading claims point by point.
It all began when Rowe weighed in on the controversy surrounding Ohio teen Shania Clifford being denied as post in a national masonry contest. Following accusations of sexism, it was discovered that the scores had merely been calculated incorrectly. Ultimately, it was determined that Clifford placed third after the scores were corrected, but she was allowed to keep the first place gold medal anyway because of how the entire situation was handled.
Rowe, an outspoken critic of “participation trophies,” urged Clifford to return the gold medal to make a point. Raw Story’s Tom Boggioni then came up with this headline:
TV’s Mike Rowe trashes Ohio girl’s ‘character’ after she’s stripped of first place in state contest
Rowe wasn’t thrilled about the “self-righteous indignation” within the story and decided to correct the record by presenting “the Raw Story” and then the “Real Story.”
Read his entire takedown below:
A little love on a Saturday, Off The Wall…
Kathy Mcferrin writes…
“Wow what a douchbag you have been with this whole Masonry competition thing. You came off very badly my stupid friend!”Tigernan Douglas Quinn says…
“I see you’ve stooped to scolding little girls about their character. That’s lovely.”Derek Hanna reveals…
“I never realized you were such an asshole. Very disappointing.”Howdy kids. How’s your weekend going? I’m going to take a wild guess and assume you’ve been pursuing the headlines over at The Raw Story. https://www.rawstory.com/…/tv-star-mike-rowe-trashes-ohio-…/ Am I right? I knew it!
Back in college, I had a professor named Dr. Vatz who taught a wonderful course called Rhetoric and Persuasion. I remember an exercise where we were instructed to take an article from the local paper, and without changing the underlying facts, rewrite it in such a way that left the reader with a completely different version of the truth. To this day, I think about that exercise whenever I come across an article whose sole purpose is to make people angry.
Happily for the writer in question – a guy named Tom Boggioni – The Raw Story does not appear to be terribly concerned with the facts. I suspect his future there is a bright one. However, since I have nothing better to do on this fine Saturday but defend myself from the slings and arrows of outrageous bloggers, I thought it might be fun to juxtapose “The Raw Story, as told by Tom Boggionia” with “The Real Story, as told by Mike Rowe.” Perhaps if Dr. Vatz sees this, he’ll let us know which version is the more fanciful…