Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Back story on yesterday's DE piece on Brad's weblink

I was going to write about this anyway, but I thought the story about Brad having a link to his campaign homepage from the Carbondale page was a good way to kick off a different entry. I think we can all agree, it was OK to have the link before he started his reelection bid and so the question became was it an oversight or did he purposely try to game the system?

Heard a story yesterday about how the DE's reporter created this story herself. Word is she asked the Mayor about this in person, he immediately called the city webmaster to have it removed, while the reporter was still in his office. I guess I will send email to Andrea and ask what happened.

I'll let you know what she says.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

It seems as though someone from the Simon camp is now writing for the DE under the pen name Andrea Zimmerman....or at least having quite an influence on her. So much for any type of fair and balanced reporting from the DE. If they had any credibility before it is going right down the drain now.

PeterG said...

I don't think there is any doubt that Andrea is highly biased, but that doesn't mean that she has done something wrong. DE reporters are just kids and have the problems that all kids have with objectivity.

I'm looking forward to what she has to say about this issue.

Anonymous said...

check out the march 23 DE. Zimmermann reported on Sheila's wanting to raise the bar age.

do some research before taking a shot at someone's credibility.

the only people giving us news about this election is the DE, peter gregory and dave more. so far it's all been fair.

Anonymous said...

It seems as though someone from the Simon camp is now writing for the DE under the pen name Andrea Zimmerman....or at least having quite an influence on her. So much for any type of fair and balanced reporting from the DE. If they had any credibility before it is going right down the drain now.

Yes, I'm sure that's the case, since she wrote about the Mayor's plan for increasing inspectors today. She must be a Simon plant.

Anonymous said...

A Simon supporter may have tipped of the reporter, but that doesn't mean the story wasn't legitimate. Brad apparently thought it was not right since he pulled the link right away. Even he knew that it was wrong.
Reporters hear from all kinds of people with all kinds of agendas on all kinds of things. Good reporters learn what's news and want isn't. Their reputation depends on developing that filter. If the reporter had NOT pursued this story, I would say she would have been biased on the part of Brad.

PeterG said...

It is a matter of intent, when you know, and what you do. This isn't a Presidential campaign, there are too many details and some are missed. Those of us in the internet business are always happy to have people report broken links and other silly mistakes, it is hard to get everything exactly right without help.

Innocent mistakes that don't matter, are really innocent mistakes that don't matter.

It isn't like he is taking credit for someone else's idea in the papers or anything.

Anonymous said...

I think you confuse bias with in-depth reporting. Now every newspaper story comes off a press release or through a predictable event such as a speech.

Good journalists do investigating on their own. Anybody remember Watergate? Dick Nixon would likely have gone untouched had it not been for two Washington Post reporters who questioned the “facts.”

In this case, a young journalist saw something askew and followed up on it. Even if the link wasn’t intentional, it was still wrong to have it on a government Web page. I know people on this blog love Mayor Cole, and I admit he’s the stronger candidate of the two. However, he’s not perfect.

Part of the duty of newspapers is to act as watchdogs. Andrea deserves kudos instead of claims of bias. She’s reported the race down the line. When Sheila was found to contradict herself about the bar age limit, the DE and Andrea reported that. When Cole did something out of line, again even it was unintentional, the coverage was fair and warranted.

PeterG said...

I think that everyone is biased, I think the reporter is too. I just don't know how she is biased (in order to write an entertaining blog, sometimes it is good to be coy with your language).

As I wrote originally, I was wondering if she broke the news to Brad and what happened. We have email contact, I expect to talk and ask those penetrating questions I'm famous for tomorrow (insert eye roll here).

Thanks for writing in, that was a smart comment.