Trust, but verify

Posted by Paulette Simpson

Posted: October 12, 2009 - 7:10 pm

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On Friday, September 18 the Juneau Empire ran front page profiles of two women competing for a Juneau Assembly seat. The piece on candidate Ruth Danner was titled, “Danner’s assembly campaign about finding middle ground.” The story included the sentence, “Danner is a registered Independent who has contributed to both Democratic and Republican campaigns in Alaska.” The story was continued on page A6 with the large-font headline, “Danner: A registered Independent, she has contributed to Democrats, Republicans.” Presumably, that content-rich piece of information was provided to the reporter by the candidate.

It’s not hard to understand why a candidate in a supposedly “non-partisan” race would want to position herself as a moderate – and certainly the Empire's "middle ground" headline projected that image and helped define the candidate for voters.

Here’s the rub. According to the Alaska Public Offices Commission online database, Danner has only contributed to Democrats in Alaska. And according to the Federal Elections Commission database and opensecrets.org, she has contributed to no federal candidates of either political party.

The APOC database lists contributions dating to 1998 and the federal sites go back to 1994. Until 2003 in Alaska, one could donate under $100 to a candidate and avoid disclosure so it is possible that Ms. Danner once dropped cash in a basket at a Don Young or Bill Hudson fundraiser. But does donating a nominal amount to a couple Republicans at some point in history make someone moderate? In the '80s I contributed to campaigns for my Democrat friend Bruce Botelho. One lapse hardly qualifies me as liberal or him as conservative. At another level, Hillary Clinton was a Goldwater girl before, well, you know the story. But neither of us could quite pass the giggle test if we claimed to be "middle of the road," especially if we couldn't produce evidence to back up our claims. In 2002, Ms. Danner could have supported moderate, pro-choice Republican Cathy Munoz. Instead, the APOC site reports she donated $100 to Cathy’s opponent, the staunch Democrat Kim Elton.

That the Empire printed (and repeated) something as fact that they made no attempt to verify is problematic. In two e-mails and one in-person conversation, I brought these discrepancies to the attention of the managing editor, suggesting that if the newspaper could not fact-check its own story (which took me all of five minutes to do) perhaps the statement should not have been printed. At a minimum the paper could have noted that it did not verify the claim. It’s also strange that the Empire, having endorsed Danner’s opponent on its editorial pages – because they found her to be more qualified – would not seek to keep both candidates’ stories straight.

Ruth Danner won the October 6 election and the Empire reported the next day that, “Ruth Danner's middle-of-the-road stance and promise to listen apparently resonated with Juneau voters…” Elections, of course, are won and lost on the basis of many factors but the power of newspapers to influence public opinion and electoral behavior is considerable. While many thinking people have figured out that editorial columns aren't the best place to get facts, it is still reasonable to presume we can trust that front page for reliable, verifiable information. We’ll soon see how the “middle ground” claim plays out. Running and winning as a moderate before sprinting left or right, post election, is nothing new. But claiming moderation with nothing to substantiate it creates a larger demand and opportunity to actually demonstrate it.

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