Neill McNeill's Blog

Not often does the Piedmont-Triad host four of the world's most famous people over the span of two days. But such is the case this week.

Senator Barack Obama is scheduled to hold a town meeting at Greenboro's War Memorial Auditorium tomorrow (March 26) afternoon. Senator Hillary Clinton's campaign, after first announcing she'd attend only an invitation-only event in Winston-Salem Thursday (March 27) evening, decided to go "all-public" with a town-hall meeting of her own at the Forsyth Tech Bolton Street Satellite Campus.

From a coverage standpoint, these visits are difficult for us. But probably not in the way you think. We've had some serious discussions in our newsroom and in our editorial meetings this week about ways to keep our coverage from appearing to favor one candidate over the other. (Needless to say in the beginning, it was a BIG concern with news Obama was planning a public event with media coverage and Clinton was planning an "exclusive" event in which media coverage was questionable.)

We're working hard to make sure our coverage is balanced not only in content but also in the way we promote coverage of these events (both on the air and the internet) and where we place these stories in newscasts. We're also working to put video and sound of all the major candidates in all the major races on our website.  I hope you'll notice this, and let us know what you think of the job we're doing.

Many often blast broadcast journalists for being "biased." I've been accused over the years of being both a far-left liberal and a far-right conservative. Many often criticize the FOX Network of leaning too far to the right and CNN for leaning in the opposite direction.

I can truthfully tell you our newsroom is a diverse group politically. We have staunch conservatives. We have far-left liberals. We have people who ride the fence. Needless to say, the conversations get interesting sometimes. And to say each of us in our newsroom is not "biased" is untrue. We just work really hard to keep those biases from showing up on the air.

What's also interesting about tomorrow is the visits most probably will remember will be George Clooney's and Renee Zellweger's to promote their new movie "Leatherheads." Yes, we'll cover that story as well---as fair and balanced as we possibly can! Riiight!