Watching the recent blow-up from a sensational story ("Lose Your House, Lose Your Vote") by "MichiganMessenger.com" that has resulted in nationally-relevant litigation against the Michigan Republican Party by the Barack O'Bama campaign, I have mused. Part of the musing has to do with my personal experience - I was interviewed, but not quoted, for the story.
I also muse because of the contradictions in position taken by MichiganMessenger, which is a McDonald's-like franchise under the umbrella of the George Soros funded Center for Independent Media (Colorado Confidential was the first, and now included are Iowa Independent and similar franchises in Minnesota, New Mexico, and Washington state[ed. correction] DC). Here in Michigan, Byrum Fisk, the lobbying PR firm reknowned for the Reform Michigan Government Now/Takeover attempt, represents MM as a spokesperson.
What's the fuss? Eartha Jane Melzer wrote a piece last week where she quoted Macomb County Republican Chair James Carabelli as saying the Republican Party would use "foreclosure lists" to challenge voters on election day. Carabelli is now accusing Melzer of "fabricating" the quote, and MichiganMessenger "stands behind 100%" Melzer's quote (citing reporters notes) but just hours ago retracted another "paraphrase" attribution by Melzer in the same article. Obviously, that mis-phrased paraphrase casts doubt on the on the entire MM defense of the story, as a matter of accuracy. Republicans have rightly pointed out that MichiganMessenger is itself a philosophically-biased liberal publication (MM resists being called partisan, pointing to a few token articles criticizing Governor Granholm on a project, but its bias need not be Party-based if it is philosophical, which is an easy thing to document.
What's interesting is that MM wants to "have its cake and eat it too." It simultaneously claims to be an objective, "independent" publication, and yet admits its caters to a particular audience. When seeking attention for its writers, it tries to grab the mantle of objectivity - but when faced with criticism by readers, it lashes out, attacks the readers for being "biased", and admits it doesn't follow normal media "practices".
Taken under advisement First, this is NOT an MSM site. Simply because mainstream media has adopted particular practices does not mean that we will do the same thing.
In the same thread, MM's editor admits it has no regard for "fair coverage" (when asked why links to conservative and even another liberal candiate's website weren't provided in a story about one candidate), and slams me for not revealing (in a blog response area, of all places, where space is at a premium, and where the owners of the blog already knew my openly admitted biases) my "potential future" conflicts because I consult for "conservatives":
Advise others of your conflict You are a consultant for conservatives. You are paid to obtain the best coverage for your clients, current and future. Asking this site to provide links to conservatives is a conflict, not merely a personal request of a casual reader.
Jefferson Morley, a director of the network of CIM groups overseeing MM, on the other hand, told Frank Beckmann (link for audio) that MM and CIM were "non-partisan". In the highlight of the interview, Beckmann said, "that's like saying I'm not a conservative talk show host." Beckmann admits his bias, Morley runs from it (Morley tries to differentiate between "Republican" and "conservative" and "liberal" and "Democrat", but look at Apo-Joynt's attack on me for being "conservative"). If Morley was held to the standard his employee (Apo-Joynt) held me to ("consultant for conservatives,") he'd advise everyone of his "liberal" funding sources. Put another way, Morley has no problem with being "liberally biased" (as long as it isn't straight Democratic Party line), but his MM editor has a problem with me being "conservatively biased". There's a disconnect here within the CIM organization on its real mission.
My problem is not with Melzer, its with MichiganMessenger overall and Apo-Joynt. It's advocacy journalism. Nothing necessarily wrong with that - just admit it.
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Below is my response to the article on MichiganMessenger.com, where I describe some further details of my personal involvement in the story and my beliefs on where the middle-ground lies.
As an aside and to be clear, my past and future clients might be impacted by what I write here, and many of them happen to be conservatives or moderates (although one was liberal and several are businesses so ...).
----- The correction above, while it is welcome and should be accepted in some spirit of good will, forces one to doubt the other "legs" of this story. The carelessness of conflating Doug Preisse's statement with foreclosure challenges forces one to question how accurately Melzer quoted Carabelli. The sensational-ness of the headline calls for a high-burden of evidence to make this a valuable story - if that burden had been met, the story could have been valuable. As is, we're left with a he-said, she-said battle.
First, this whole "Republicans are trying to intimidate black or poor voters" is part of a 30-year old "script" we hear in every election. Does that mean the author, Ms. Melzer, is part of a "conspiracy"? No, absolutely not. She's investigating leads based on a script she's been conditioned to accept. Does it mean that Republicans are completely guiltless throughout time and space? No, certainly there have been "incidents" where overactive individual partisans thought they were helping the cause and probably became too zealous (I'd note that those incidents occur on the left too, with different types of "voter fraud," as the historically-infamous political machines of Chicago, LBJ, and even here in Detroit often prove). Here, we know part of Ms. Melzer's "script" came from the July 6 Columbus Dispatch, which she misquotes. That's a human error, as would be asking "leading questions" (Carabelli in his Beckman interview claims), so Carabelli's story that he didn't say it the way Melzer said he did is plausible. I have a hard time believing Melzer would "fabricate" the quote out of whole cloth a la Jayson Blair, but its not a hard step to take to believe that she'd ask a leading question, get an ambiguous answer, and take the notes down wrong in some way.
Ms. Melzer interviewed me twice on this subject while I was in Arizona (by phone) during the course of this story, trying to find out if I knew of some "foreclosure list". I told her I was unaware of such a list, although I wasn't in "the loop" for such things, I do deal with voter information regularly and that it struck me as unlikely, and frankly not very valuable if it was the plan, that Republicans would use foreclosure lists. Not valuable because such lists aren't accurate as to whether the voter is in the home, or even if not in the home legally entitled to vote (a recent foreclosure would not necessarily change the residence as Hebert points out). We agreed that "returned mail" would be more valuable and easier to list, although I don't know that the Party uses it since I don't the Republican Party. I spoke of Democrat list broker Mark Grebner, and some of the tricks he's (and accurate points) he's been involved with, and suggested that both sides were likely to use sophisticated mail lists for their purposes in challenges (indeed, Grebner actively sought to disenfranchise petition signers in 2006's Proposal 2, and Drolet's 2008 Dillon recall (on the basis of residency)). She asked if an inefficient tactic might be used just to delay voters and decrease turnout - I disagreed because deploying such a tactic is time and resource consuming to have any meaningful numerical effect, and that it was unlikely to be a good way to change an election outcome (traditional message is just plain more efficient), if it didn't in fact backfire. I told Melzer my experience with the relevant players lead me to disbelieve the foreclosure idea would be used as a tactic. In a second interview, she asked why Carabelli would lie and retract his quote - I told her at that early time (there was no lawsuit by the DNC and the story just broke) I didn't necessarily believe anyone was lying, that I couldn't speak for Carabelli, and that it was possible there was a mis-communication and that she should place herself in the shoes of her interviewee. This perspective was not quoted in the article, and while I understand that to be within reasonable editorial discretion particularly given the length of the article as is, it might have given the article some perspective.
Some stories are so good they penetrate through the "script". There's a "smoking gun," or chain of logic that is impenetrable. Here, you have one quote stretched to the conclusion with one of the supporting background quotes being retracted. This story doesn't have either, unless there is some future break that breaks the log-jam of "he-said, she said." Certainly, if proven true this story would be important, but the more sensational the truth, the higher the burden in proving it. If this story proved its case, I'd stand behind the author in a bi-partisan way, but I just don't see it. The truth is likely somewhere in between - I suspect Carabelli answered a question about foreclosures, and it was either leading and he wasn't precise or the answer misunderstood or notated. I doubt Melzer intended to fabricate a quote, but to make this one stick she's needs more.
