The Seattle Times‘s David Postman, the paper’s “chief political reporter,” planted an IED — ably assisted by insurgent state Democratic party members — in his story about the campaign for chairman of the state Democratic Party:
Phil Talmadge — a former Supreme Court justice, state senator and 2004 primary candidate for governor — entered the race this week … […]
Talmadge dropped out of the governor’s race because of medical issues. He was a tough critic of [Gov. Christine] Gregoire’s. During his campaign, he shared opposition research on Gregoire with key allies of Gregoire’s opponent, Republican Dino Rossi.
Talmadge said he asked [Sen. Margarita Prentice, D-Renton] to check with Gregoire personally to make sure the governor approved [of his running for state chair]. “I wouldn’t be foolish enough to do this if the head of the party in effect was someone who couldn’t work with me,” he said. (Emphases mine.)
Talk about a hatchet job. Members of the state Dem lists I subscribe to are furious. Talmadge has been particularly popular with Deaniacs who like his progressive views, his deep understanding of state issues, and his sharp intellect.
“Phil Talmage has been contacted about the story,” writes an LD leader to an e-mail list I read. “He has stated that the claim is blatantly untrue.”
But is there truth to the unsourced allegation? Today, Howard Martin links to Washblog‘s report by Noemie Maxwell that digs into Postman’s report “without explanation or attribution”:
Now it appears that the opposition research that Talmadge “shared” flowed in one direction only — to Mr. Talmadge.
Talmadge admits meeting with Tom McCabe of the Building Industry Ass’n of Washington (BIAW), “the lobbying group for homebuilders, which has long battled Gregoire in court [when she was state attorney general].” Talmadge took the offered research on Gregoire.
Proper or not, sharing oppo research has gone on forever. But, even “chief” political reporters need to conduct due diligence on unattributed statements written as fact.
The Washington Post ‘s big story about the resignation of a FISA judge was colored by an unattributed characterization of the judge’s political leanings. On December 20, I wrote:
The WaPo article does say that he was considered a “liberal” judge (by who the article doesn’t say) apparently because he “has often ruled against the Bush administration’s assertions of broad powers in the terrorism fight, most notably in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.”
Oh, I get it. You’re a liberal judge if you vote on the side of the Bill of Rights. …
I wonder how many conservative bloggers’ faces lit up when they saw that magic word liberal in the WaPo story. (I haven’t checked, but will bet that Ms. Malkin or one of her minions didn’t miss it.)
“There are plenty of choices Mr. Postman could have made to express the true sense of what happened. Why this particular one which created a false impression?” argues Washblog‘s Maxwell.
Postman’s piece is rife with ugly gossip about the candidates, including charges of homophobia in the state party. … continued below …
But, [state party activist Mitchell] said in an e-mail interview, “I am more than curious about the sexuality question.”
[Greg Rodriguez, in a relationship with another man, whose last name he took, has withdrawn from the state race because of “whisper campaigns and blog traffic that raised questions about his decision to take his partner’s last name and whether he could lead the party as a gay man” and because he’s not really Hispanic.]
Mitchell said sexual orientation is an insignificant factor in most jobs, but not in selecting someone to lead the state Democratic party.
“The party needs, I believe, to appeal to that vast group of uncommitted and middle-of-the-road voters in order to make its future more attractive,” he said.
Given “the nascent conservatism one hears so much about, I simply do not feel that the party would benefit from Mr. Rodriguez’s stewardship,” Mitchell said. …
Oh just shut up, will you. Isn’t that just what we need: A Democratic party leader blabbing about his homophobic queasiness to the Seattle Times.
Postman makes MSNBC’s Rita Cosby look like a girl scout by comparison. (And Democratic activists didn’t help by talking too freely with Postman.) Seattle Dem activist Chad Lupkes wrote in an LTE, “David Postman’s article about the race for Washington State Democratic Party Chair made un-sourced claims about the candidates, and reveals why so many people in our state are against getting involved in political campaigns and our political parties.”
State Dems already have enough “political baggage.” After “three vote counts and a half-year battle in the courts, Gregoire won the nation’s closest gubernatorial contest by 133 votes out of 2.8 million cast,” reports the AP/Olympian (via Howie in Seattle) on December 12, 2005:
Gregoire’s poll numbers have yet to improve. “She has quite an anvil she’s dragging around,” said independent pollster Stuart Elway. Many conservatives haven’t forgiven her for the perceived “stolen” election and she pursued a partisan agenda while not easing her hard-edged, hard-charging image, he and other analysts said.
Pollster David Johnson, who runs the GOP firm Strategic Vision in Atlanta, said Gregoire has one of the lowest ratings in the country. …
So, we Washington state Democrats have quite enough on our plates already. Besides Gregoire’s sure-to-be-shaky ’08 reelection campaign — and probably against her 2004 opponent, Dino Rossi (who about half of the state’s voters stubbornly, angrily believe is their real governor) — we also have Maria Cantwell’s reelection campaign in ’06 and a couple congressional seats we’d love to steal from the Republicans.
We don’t need reportorial hatchet jobs. (And we don’t need state party activists grousing to the chief political reporter of the state’s largest newspaper. Come on, people.)
Update [2006-1-2 13:40:26 by susanhu]: Noemie adds this in a comment below her post at Washblog:
Unsubstantiated claims are extremely destructive and do not belong in journalism. Anyone can say anything about anyone. And people do — they say patently false things using the authority of their profession to give them credence. These false ideas stay with us and do damage — and they harm the profession of journalism. They erode the public trust. The comments on this post attest to the fact that ideas do not need evidence to have life. People are ready to give credence to what they are predisposed to believe. That’s natural. I do that too. But in this case, I think it’s unfair.
If Postman had evidence that Talmadge had done this, then he needed to put it in the article. The fact that he has written about this twice now with no substantiation — except for Talmadge’s own statement that contradicts his later reporting — means to me that he has no substantiation …