Media selective with reporting

A reasonable person legitimately could wonder whether our news media has a clue.

The same news media that did not care when they learned now-Gov. Sarah Palin bruised, if not broke, the executive ethics act when she was running for lieutenant governor a few years back, now does not even bother to ask where she is or what she’s doing. They continue their hands-off treatment of their favorite governor.

A story in the Anchorage Daily News on Friday about her sacking her chef, Stefani Marnon — who has told friends, the newspaper says, that she will remain employed by the state — indicates Palin and her family plan to return to Juneau later this year. Huh?

“(Palin spokeswoman Meghan) Stapleton wouldn’t say exactly where Alaska’s first family is right now, citing security reasons. But the Palins will travel this summer, and spend time fishing, and plan to return to Juneau this fall,” the newspaper reported without a whimper.

CAN YOU IMAGINE if Congressman Don Young or Sen. Ted Stevens disappeared someplace and planned to return later this year? When Young took a few days for a hunting trip, the newspaper had apoplexy. And if it were former Gov. Frank Murkowski? It would have popped its cork.

Then, there is the trial of former Rep. Tom Anderson. The newspaper reported that Anchorage lobbyist Bill Bobrick, who has pleaded guilty in the corruption investigation that netted Anderson, told the government’s informant, Frank Prewitt, that “he was hired (by Prewitt’s boss, Cornell Cos.) after Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich told Cornell it needed a lobbyist to deal with the various city issues concerning the juvenile center.”
    
Bobrick, a close personal friend of the mayor, was at the time, the only lobbyist of note who worked the city. How very convenient.

Does the Daily News howl about the relationship landing Bobrick a job? Get serious. It’s Begich. Close your eyes and try to imagine the response if, instead of Begich being the name cited in the story, it were George Wuerch or Tom Fink.
 
You’ll also notice that the newspaper has not demanded Begich’s telephone records or his staff’s computer records to ensure there is no politicking going on during work hours, or on city-owned machines. After all, news stories it has carried indicate national political folks are calling Begich left and right. It would seem such a logical inquiry. The newspaper, after all, was not a bit bashful about demanding that sort of thing from Wuerch.

There are good reasons people are turning away from newspapers and commercial television. There is the Internet, of course, but too often the news media, especially in this state, have become agents of their favorite politicians in government. Their sense of outrage too often is partisan and predictable.

Too bad. For them. And for all of us.