After reading Scott Hammers’ reporting of local reaction to the first Obama-Romney debate on Oct. 3, either Hammers and his editor have forgotten everything they learned in journalism school about objective reporting, or the two of them are simply reflecting an obvious partisan position.

The whole world, including ranking Democrats and the traditionally liberal media, gave the first debate to Romney. Yet, Hammers maintains that Bend audiences at two venues said Obama “held his own” against the former Massachusetts governor. Who says so? Well, in his lead sentence he found a house party “stocked with Democrats,” plus a bunch of folks at the Tin Pan Theatre and the Summit Saloon, not exactly Republican haunts. Hammer claims he couldn’t find any Republicans to interview, due in large part to a local Republican Party member demurring to his request for Republicans to interview.

That’s interesting considering there are roughly 5,000 more registered Republican voters than Democrats in Deschutes County as of March 2012 (The Bulletin, 4/23/12). Surely, Hammer could have found Republicans some way, some how, somewhere. On the street, for heaven’s sake!

As a journalism grad of the University of Oregon, I’m astounded that Hammer failed to heed one of journalism’s basic creeds: objective reporting. His editor should have chucked this piece of bias back and admonished him to “get me both sides.”

Holly Hutchins

Bend