Lots of newspapers and publications are sending out questionnaires for candidates to fill out. That comes with this time of year. I get it.
Every one of these newspapers would immediately point out the conflict of a legislator that were to include a copy of a piece of legislation they had introduced with a third house fund raising request.
What I don’t understand is how a newspaper looking for answers to questions that will help enlighten their editorial process can possible include a "political advertising rate sheet" with those questions.
This is just wrong for the same reason that it would be wrong to include a copy of the vote on AB XXX with a fund raising request to a group concerned with AB XXX.
September 2nd, 2010 at 12:00 am
This is almost accepted practice and really says a lot about how the news media in California functions. I don’t think in a lot of cases that voters realize how much property newspapers own or things like that.
But the example you gave pales in comparison to the San Jose Mercury News which a decade ago pitched the idea that their staff could run campaigns as consultants. Of course they argued that wouldn’t affect their coverage, but even then their sales pitch made thee argument that they knew more about the News Media so of course the campaign would get more coverage if they were hired. Luckily most people were too offended to hire them on and the idea went away in two years.
September 7th, 2010 at 12:00 am
Seriously? A news- or editorial-side questionnaire with a rate card? Which paper did that?
I just work for a no-account daily in the far northern terra incognita, and we’d never think of pulling such a stunt.