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Dec

22

Plain Dealer plays it safe in Michael Connell article


As an Ohio paper of record, there is no excuse for the Plain Dealer to have excluded two very specific and known pieces of information related to the late Michael Connell’s work.  Here’s the article and here’s what it excludes:

1. It doesn’t mention any of the Ohio connections Connell had to former Secretary of State and GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell or the back end of the SOS’s 2004 presidential election vote compilation.

2. It also excludes any mention of the federal lawsuit regarding alleged voter fraud and rigging in which Connell had been subpoenaed.

The PD is an Ohio paper.  Hyperlocal request? Not even. How about a little more on just the Ohio connections? Instead, one quote from Alex Arshinkoff of the Summit County Republican Party, who is quoted as saying that he knew Connell by reputation only.

Don’t bother with the “that’s not news or doesn’t belong in a news story about this event” roll of the eyes. NewsNet5 included it barely a day after the incident occurred:

He was subpoenaed in September to testify in a federal lawsuit.

He also helped operate campaign Web sites for President Bush and former presidential nominee John McCain.

Connell was the CEO and founder of Cleveland-based New Media Communications, which built campaign Web sites for Bush and McCain, according to the company’s Web site. The site said the company also worked with the Ohio Republican Party and the Republican National Committee, among other political groups.

A group of voters filed the lawsuit that questioned his methods of running the election machines in Ohio in the 2004 presidential election.

Sigh. Those Plain Dealer editorial filters and its choices.  Already someone in the comments at the blog post of this story has submitted a correction to the type of plane reported in the PD’s story.  And the story is appearing on 12/22, the accident occurred the night of 12/19.

While I’m pleased that the paper filtered out the conspiracy theory concerns circulating about the accident – there is no need for a published print article on the concerns until site-related investigations are complete or other significant and corroborated information is available, to not include Connell’s connections to Ohio election activity and the Ohio Republican Party? No excuse – just editors being far too conservative in deciding what they think we need to know as news filtering.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 12:21 pm December 22nd, 2008 in Elections, Media, Ohio, Writing 

Comments

8 Responses to “Plain Dealer plays it safe in Michael Connell article”

  1. 1 Matt on December 22nd, 2008 3:38 pm

    Seek therapy for BDS. So classy!

  2. 2 John Ettorre on December 22nd, 2008 5:22 pm

    Pitiful, even disgraceful, coverage by the PD. Crain’s does a much better job:

    http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20081222/FREE/812229967/1022

    I remember interviewing him by phone and writing a little about him almost a decade ago. He had been an aide to then-Representative Martin Hoke, and seemed like a straight shooter who just happened to understand how the web would transform politics and campaigns before most others did.

  3. 3 John Ettorre on December 22nd, 2008 5:25 pm

    Sorry, I really meant to say “coverage.”

  4. 4 Jill Miller Zimon on December 22nd, 2008 5:27 pm

    Thanks, John for that link and comment. I know maybe sometimes I might be aggressively critiquing but this just seemed really really like a no-brainer – the guy is an Ohioan, the lawsuit is serious and the focus is Ohio elections, and he did work for or was connected to work with Blackwell and the ORP. I just don’t see how that isn’t mentioned in a PD story.

    Crain’s did do a much better job of canvasing what’s out there without getting all OCD about it – which is wise given the nature of how circumspect it all is at this point.

  5. 5 John Ettorre on December 22nd, 2008 5:35 pm

    My bar is reasonably high on such conspiracy theorizing, simply because so few of these kinds of things pan out when you take a hard look at them. But obviously you need to make some reference to the underlying stuff. And Crain’s, as often is the case, finds just the right balance, while still remaining properly skeptical. I like that they also included a link so that I could check it out myself. In other words, it treats its readers as adults, which the PD sometimes doesn’t.

  6. 6 james aka ADAP2K on December 22nd, 2008 5:55 pm

    CBS News: Michael Connell was told NOT TO FLY and that his plane may be SABOTAGED !

    http://adap2k.blogspot.com/2008/12/connell-crash-plane-dead-gop-it-guru.html

  7. 7 Jill Miller Zimon on December 23rd, 2008 11:30 am

    There’s no question that news outlets will continue to follow the litigation and investigations. Whether the PD steps up to the plate to cover it as well, seeing as how it has to do 1) with Ohio and 2) elections and 3) Ohioans, remains to be seen.

  8. 8 Jill Miller Zimon on December 23rd, 2008 11:33 am

    Rich, a week ago Monday I spent four hours crying at the most devastating funeral I’ve ever attended. And the deceased was not even a very close friend. I’m sure that there is sadness and concern as well as unanswered questions of all types within the Connell family. I know at the funeral I attended the children expressed a lot of anger and the Rabbi and others addressed a lot of questions about God’s role in all this. This is all universal when death touches us. I wish the family great strength.

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