Posted on 10/16/2006 8:08:55 AM PDT by baystaterebel
Marilyn W. Thompson, then editor of the Lexington Herald-Leader, faced a problem last year that is afflicting more and more newspaper editors across the country: She wanted to initiate a major reporting project but lacked sufficient resources to finance it.
Thompson, who wanted the paper to take a deep look at Mitch McConnell, Kentucky's senior senator, came up with an answer. She would seek support from the Center for Investigative Reporting, a California-based non-profit group that has financed or conducted groundbreaking work in television and print journalism.
The idea was approved by Thompson's bosses at Knight Ridder, which owned the Herald-Leader. The center approved a $37,500 grant, and reporter John Cheves went to work.
But this week, with Cheves winding up a six-month examination of McConnell, and the senator's staff raising questions about the unusual grant, the Herald-Leader's new owner, McClatchy Co., came to a different conclusion.
Howard Weaver, vice president for news, announced that McClatchy would reimburse the Center for Investigative Reporting for the grant.
"If we want one of our staff members to do a report for one of our papers, we should pay for it," Weaver said.
The Herald-Leader said the four-part series would be published as planned, beginning tomorrow.
The newspaper's report comes on the eve of an election that could make McConnell majority leader of the United States Senate.
(Excerpt) Read more at kentucky.com ...
Special interest groups paying newspapers to dig up dirt on the opposition.
Note that this probably is the first you have heard of this.
Get ready for a big HIT piece, folks. They're already attempting to cut ties to the "Center"...
...for any particular reason relating to recent events? votes? laws? speeches? Or just to see what kind of hit piece she could construct from dirt she could find, spin, or simply make plausible?
It certainly is. And the trend is a natural outgrowth of the Democrats' move to criminalize politics in general and conservatism in particular.
With their vanguard, the Mainstream Media, taking it in the chops of their P&L, they've simply found another, even more pernicious, way to fund attacks on conservatives.
It must be a lying hit piece, or McClatchy would hardly pay $37K in a ridiculous attempt to defuse criticism.
It won't fly. The article will still be a biased hit piece funded by a leftist political organization.
This is why the Republicans should have "nationalized" this election, at least to the extent of letting people know who San Fran Nan and Harry Reid are. I know the RNC types were probably afraid that the Democrats would campaign on Iraq and President Bush 24/7 if they did nationalize, but the Democrats "outflanked" them by running local ads equating the GOP candidate with the President, and (now) by enlisting the MSM to attack the GOP House and (potential) Senate Leadership.
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