In light of Adam’s post below on the L.A. Times, here is some news that casts into doubt the objectivity of another major California newspaper, the San Jose Mercury News…
When I got an e-mail yesterday from the San Jose Mercury News entitled, "Governor, It’s Time To Set A Date" — I opened it right up. That is and of itself if notable because I get over a thousand e-mails on any given day, and many, many mass-emails go unopened. But it is unusual to get e-mail from the Merc, and even more intriguing because it sounded to me like this large, reputable newspaper was laying out a challenge to Arnold Schwarzenegger!
Right under the large, reassuring logo of the Mercury News (I lived in the San Jose Area for a couple of years so logo adorned by front doorstep on a daily basis) was this HUGE logo of the Phil Angelides for the Governor campaign, and then a sarcastic letter that basically attacks the Governor for only participating in one debate. Of course, you have to get to the bottom of the letter before you see that it is not from the Publisher of the Mercury News, but rather from Cathy Calfo, Angelides’ campaign manager!
Don’t take my word for it, I have attached the e-mail that I received to the bottom of this post for you to check out yourself.
Then you go back up and you see that in tiny-tiny font, sandwiched in-between the large MERCURY NEWS masthead and the extra large ANGELIDES FOR GOVERNOR logo, are the words "This is a paid advertisement." The print it so tiny in proportion that you wonder why they even bothered. And, of course, using my example above, there was nothing in the title or the e-mail to indicate it was an advertisement. They could have started with "ADV: Governor…" (ADV is a common indicator of an advertisement) or even have the e-mail come from "Mercury News Paid Ad" — but neither option was taken.
I was quickly reminded by many FlashReport readers (this was forwarded to me by about 30 different people in the space of 20 minutes) that this is the second offense by the Mercury News, who sent out a similar e-mail apparently from the California Nurses Association on behalf of their socialized political campaigning measure (Prop. 89). I don’t remember this personally, but many FR readers do!
So why did this happen twice, let alone once? Does the management at this newspaper support Angelides? Did the paper endorse him? I reached out to FR friend Kate Folmar, an ace political reporter with the Merc, who quickly directed me up the food-chain to a manager, Dan, who called me back. He told me that this advertisement came from the McClatchy parent company, who has owned the Merc since they purchased it from Knight-Ridder. He told me that the e-mail was definitely in violation of the Mercury News’ own policy about not putting political advocacy under their masthead. He said that they were looking into what happened, but that the e-mail took the San Jose Mercury News folks by surprise.
To this I would say that this excuse may have worked the first time this happened, but now twice?
My challenge to the San Jose Mercury News is to do its own investigation of what occurred here, and then publish a print-story about how this happened, and maybe making it clear to readers of this trusted source that their endorsement and support for a candidate cannot be bought — which is frankly the impression you get from the e-mails that they send — both their e-mail a few months back on behalf of a ballot measure, and now, yesterday’s e-mail "on company letterhead" supporting Phil Angelides and attacking the Governor.
The results of this investigation, and an apology, should also be sent out to the same e-mail universe that received the Merc’s e-mail on behalf of Phil Angelides’ campaign.
The sad part is that this kind of activity doesn’t help the hard working political reporters from the Merc, whom I respect a great deal. You have to wonder what kind of pressure this puts on them to write the story that the owners/publishers/editors want to read — which would apparently be one that beats up on Schwarzenegger..