Time to sing 'Kumbaya'

Posted at 9:32 AM on June 28, 2006 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)

The Strib can't win for losing. There's been a flap brewing in blogland for the last couple of days that's been a good lesson in how stories get inflamed, often by attempts to minimize them. MNPublius ran an entry that said Mark Kennedy had 'scrubbed' his congressional Web site of references to President Bush. The DFL issued a release. The GOP shot back with a release that it wasn't true. Charges went back and forth and finally the mere cacophony was too much for MSM to take and so the Strib ran the story.

It makes me chew on the old axiom about whether it really is a given that you always answer a negative in politics. (Was that a Carvilleism?)

Anyway, the two sides agree on one thing: the Strib is clearly in the pocket of the other.

First, from MNPublius:

Instead of figuring out the facts, they seemed to have just opted for Ron Carey's talking points (which, as Jon-David has shown below, are severely flawed). In fact, the article uses the very same adjective that Carey does to characterize our claims: "exaggerated." And I have to admit, the claim that all the references to Bush have been erased would have been very exaggerated, but then again, we never made that claim. Let me make that clear: we never claimed that all references to President Bush were removed from Representative Kennedy's website. Funny thing is, the first person who said that we did was, you guessed it, Ron Carey.

Meanwhile, over at Kennedy vs. the Machine, there was an equal amount of distaste for the Strib.

Now most people know that the Star Tribune hasn’t given a Republican a fair shake in, well, forever. And they always protect their own. Usually that means a fellow liberal, but in this case, with the daughter of legendary Strib writer Jim Klobuchar running for U.S. Senate, they are protecting family.

Equally hated by both sides, the Strib newsroom must be thinking, "good job."

Comments (5)

What, precisely, was untrue about Carey's press release? The heart of the press release said "Team Klobuchar now falsely accuses of him of 'scrubbing' his website.." That's an accurate description of MN Publius's original post. Is it untrue because MN Publius didn't actually use the word "scrub", but instead used the word "whitewashing"?

In the excerpt you included from MN Publius, they claim that Carey claimed they removed "all" references to Bush. I'm reading Carey's press release, and the word "all" does not appear anywhere in it. The Hotline used that word, not Carey.

So who is being untrue?

Posted by Jeff | June 28, 2006 11:07 AM

Well Jeff, you could say that "72 references" is untrue, since those 72 Google index hits actually refer to many fewer than 72 documents containing references to President Bush. You could also say it's misleading, because most of the content mentioning President Bush was written by other people and merely posted on Kennedy's website.

But none of that hits the core question here - is Mark Kennedy's staff creatively editing his website to make him appear more independent of the President than his record indicates?

Posted by MN Campaign Report | June 28, 2006 1:30 PM

Equally hated by both sides, the Strib newsroom must be thinking, "good job."

My position, which I've mentioned on both MnPublius and MDE is that IF the Strib think it's done a good job by:

-simply posting opposing opinions
-not doing any of their own investigations into the "truth or truthiness" of such claims

...they are mistaken and have lost their vision of what the mission of the press should be.

Posted by blankout7 | June 28, 2006 4:59 PM

Amen to blankout7.

if that quote about thinking they did a "good job" by upsetting people rather than reporting the facts, they have truly lost the idea of what it is to be a journalist.

And if that philosophy is shared with MPR, the sadder the story gets. So, are "Fact Checks" a thing of the past? Confirm or refute, but being happy in angering two sides is not a responsible journalistic goal.

Posted by Ag | June 29, 2006 11:18 AM

Sadly, Blankout7 and Ag are correct. That truly is the way "journalism" has gone. Once upon a time, journalists would take a hot tip and run with it. First, investigate its veracity, then get comments from both sides and then actually make an assessment as to whether the tip was true or not. All this based on the REPORTER'S investigation of said tip and NOT on what either side or their spinmeisters say.

But it's easier to write a he-said, she-said story and not worry about whether what either side says is true. Your hands are clean that way. No one can accuse you of being liberal when you find that the right-wing is full of BS, or vice versa. Play it nice and safe. Don't upset your sources or you'll never get their press releases again, or be called on at their press conferences.

It's particularly sad that "fact check" or "reality check" stories have to be labeled as such and given their own little corner in the new hole. EVERY political story, EVERY statement from a politician should get a reality check. Why just stories about political ads?

Posted by Karl | June 29, 2006 11:38 AM

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