The South Dakota Moderate raises the question: why is the Argus Leader catching the most heat for the absence of reporting on the alleged theft of monies from Hildebrand Tewes.
It's a valid question, but I believe I know why (at least why I think so).
Many of the points SDM brings up are valid for consideration.
However, many news outlets name names without criminal charges actually being filed, the Dan Sutton affair being one of those. So while I understand the need and reason for restraint, it's not at all without precedent to name a suspect before the suspect has actually been charged. Especially when the victim is naming the alleged perpetrator.
Also I believe the Argus Leader, as the state's largest newspaper, has the primary obligation to go after the story.
The Argus Leader is also the hometown newspaper where this incident occurred.
The Argus Leader is also about six blocks or 6/10 of a mile from Hildebrand Tewes--yet Roll Call, over 1000 miles away, has given us more information in the last week than the Argus Leader has.
Another consideration: if no criminal charges have been filed, why not? If Hildebrand Tewes is naming names, I would expect charges to be filed. Or at least an investigation underway? If these are not happening, then the absence of those activities is a story the Argus should be investigating and reporting on, at the very least.
When you couple all these factors together with the multitude of past incidents of blatant bias on the part of the Argus, I think the charges of burying the story are very well founded. That may not be the case, but I think such a possibility would do more than just cross the mind of a reasonable person who weighed all the evidence.
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Saturday, July 28, 2007
Why the Argus Leader is Most Derelict in Hildygate
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5 comments:
Dan Sutton was an elected official. No one in the HildyGate issue is. It's not the same ballgame.
You're right that since Sutton was an elected official, it is different. But it isn't a completely different ballgame.
Hildebrand Tewes does work for a number of elected officials, which means two things: many people's money, contributed to these officials, ends up in Hildebrand Tewes' hands; and because of that, those contributors and the public in general have a valid interest in knowing about this, and deserve to know what's going on.
In a sense, the people who have contributed to the SD Democratic Party, Senator Obama, et al are investors, and some of the money they have invested in their candidates has been misappropriated. There's a public interest, for them and for the general public, in the media investigating and reporting on it.
It has become a different issue now as the Rapid City Journal has outed Chad and also revealed it was a gambling problem that contributed to Schuldt's theft.
Since the RCJ has named names if you will it should give the other media outlets motivation to do the same
Thanks for the tip, Bob. I've been on the go so much today I hadn't even finished reading the dead-tree edition. I just quickly scanned and finished it, but didn't see it, so I'm thinking this was posted sometime during the day. Only one Rapid Reply comment so far and it was at 3:51 PM.
Thanks again for the tip.
No problem Bob, I'm not normally one for conspiracy theories but one could sure see this story getting easily overlooked by most because it was posted in the mid afternoon on a Saturday and only on the online edition...
I doubt Wooster had a Saturday afternoon deadline and it could possibly get more coverage in tomorrow's dead tree edition so we'll see.
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