Granite State gov laments media bias

by Megan Twitchell and Alison Kaiser

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu has tuned out TV news.

“I used to love watching the news,” said Sununu. “But it’s miserable now.”

The Granite State governor said television has become so negative that he no longer watches it, especially cable TV.

As the youngest governor in the country, Sununu, 43, stressed the importance of the younger generation’s role in reviving the credibility of the media. These days, Sununu said, it’s too easy to tell which ideology news stations lean toward.

While he agrees that bias is unavoidable, Sununu argued it ruins the credibility of reporting.

“How you approach the reporting determines your integrity,” Sununu said, adding some do a good job of being impartial.

Sununu praised New Hampshire’s easy accessibility to local politics for youth, and encouraged their role in the future of media. “New Hampshire is all about creating opportunity,” he said this week during a statehouse visit by Franklin Pierce University’s The Presidency and The Press summer program.

When asked about passage of New Hampshire’s Voter Residency Law, Sununu said it was all about leveling the playing field.

“The government isn’t here to guarantee anything but equal opportunity. People have to understand this is all about fairness,” he said.

The law makes residency a requirement to vote in New Hampshire, cutting out college students who may live in the state but are not residents.

Sununu emphasized that his signing of the bill was not an easy decision, but said it was in the best interest of the majority.

“I might not like this piece of it,” he said, “but at the end of the day it’s not about me. I have a responsibility to 1.3 million people.”

Megan Twitchell is a senior at Kingswood Regional High School in Wolfeboro, N.H., and Alison Kaiser is a senior at Pinkerton Academy in Derry, N.H.