4 May 2018 — 0833 mdt
Newspapers behaving badly — in New York, in Kalispell
This week, the conduct of two newspapers, one big, the other small, have not honored journalism.
- In the Big Apple, the Gray Lady, aka the New York Times, published a defense of national Democrats meddling in local elections without revealing that the oped’s author is a long-time member of the Democratic National Committee.
- In little Kalispell, the Daily InterLake, which lacks an iconic nickname, decided it was the place for a Chamber of Commerce ceremony presenting a Spirit of Enterprise award to Rep. Greg Gianforte, who pleaded guilty to assaulting reporter Ben Jacobs of The Guardian.
Insufficient disclosure at the Times
Yesterday, when it published Elaine Kamarck’s Actually, National Democrats Should Interfere in Primaries oped, the Times identified her as “…the author of ‘Primary Politics: Everything You Need to Know About How America Nominates Its Presidential Candidates,’” and as a senior fellow at the Brooking Institution, a moderate to liberal think tank with a respectable reputation.
But the Times failed to mention what Brookings’ biography of Kamarck did, that in addition to being an expert on nominating candidates, she’s a senior member of the Democratic establishment.
She has been a member of the Democratic National Committee and the DNC’s Rules Committee since 1997. She has participated actively in four presidential campaigns and in ten nominating conventions—including two Republican conventions.
In the 1980s, she was one of the founders of the New Democrat movement that helped elect Bill Clinton president. She served in the White House from 1993 to 1997, where she created and managed the Clinton Administration’s National Performance Review, also known as the “reinventing government initiative.”
Knowing that about her is important given statements like these:
Partisan leaders have essentially given away the most important power political parties have — to determine who can run and win under the party’s banner. This power now rests exclusively with those who vote in the primaries.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
[Party leaders] are different from the activists who often dominate the party primaries because they are more concerned with electability than with ideological purity. Party leaders have the job of winning nationally; Democrats are painfully aware that not all congressional districts are Berkeley, Calif.
I’m not entirely unsympathetic to some of Kamarck’s concerns, but it’s worth mentioning that nominating primaries are ascendent because decisions made by party leaders in smoke-filled rooms didn’t always work out that well.
Because her oped was a defense of the high handedness of the DNC and the Democratic Congressional Coordinating Committee, the Times should have identified her as a member of the Democratic leadership as well as an expert on nominating presidents.
A wretched venue for pinning a medal on a Congressman
who body-slammed a journalist for asking a question
The Daily InterLake, which is part of the Hagadone empire, an empire never mistaken as a bastion of liberalism, does a pretty good job of keeping political propaganda out of its news reports. The paper’s reporters and editors are professionals who pride themselves on their professionalism, and that approach shows in their work.
Yesterday, however, they’re embarrassed. Hagadone Digital, the empire’s marketeers, not the InterLake itself, sponsored the event for Gianforte. Here’s the Twitter thread, which I’ve preserved as a PDF, describing what’s happening:
Today the Daily Inter Lake is hosting Greg Gianforte at our office for a Chamber of Commerce event to present him with a Spirit of Enterprise award for voting consistently in favor of the US Chamber of Commerce stances in the US House.
— Peregrine B Frissell (@PeregrineFriss) May 3, 2018
Our reporters learned about it two days ago when we were told in an email not to park in our normal spots. We were told the event is sponsored not by the Daily Inter Lake but Hagadone Digital, a marketing arm of our corporate parent company.
— Peregrine B Frissell (@PeregrineFriss) May 3, 2018
Still, the agenda includes a tour of our newsroom and a banner hangs above the venue with our papers name on it. pic.twitter.com/Dn3rX5PFDb
— Peregrine B Frissell (@PeregrineFriss) May 3, 2018
We take great pride in our paper and consider it a privilege to cover the Flathead Valley, and would just like to make sure the same coverage is given this event and we expect the same transparency that we expect out of every political event in Montana.
— Peregrine B Frissell (@PeregrineFriss) May 3, 2018
We take great pride in our paper and consider it a privilege to cover the Flathead Valley, and would just like to make sure the same coverage is given this event and we expect the same transparency that we expect out of every political event in Montana.
— Peregrine B Frissell (@PeregrineFriss) May 3, 2018
It’s possible that Hagadone Digital’s decision to offer the InterLake’s headquarters as the venue for the chamber’s award ceremony was based on a sense of common cause with Gianforte’s background in information technology — it’s how he earned the millions that allowed him to pay for the good lawyers he needed after he manhandled Jacobs — but it’s also possible the event serves as a veiled endorsement of Gianforte’s bid for re-election. Indeed, both possibilities could be true. But it’s a tone deaf decision. Given Gianforte’s history of violence toward journalists, Hagadone Digital would have been wiser to have rented a room at the Hilton.