Iowa Independent Runs with Rumors

Dueling headlines, with rumors the snack of the day.

Here’s the headline the Off the Bus editor ran on Huffington Post:

Accusations That Clinton Campaign Has Fixed Upcoming Iowa Debate

Here’s Chase
Martyn’s headline on Iowa Independent, which is the same post cross-posted above:

Rumors and Accusations Cast Shadows on Brown and Black Presidential Forum

Chase and I have become colleagues over the last months. He is a regular guest
on my radio show, and I have respect for him, but this post crosses the line
and I told him so this morning on the phone. In fact, we talked about the Brown and Black dinner this week on my show. We had a very lively discussion on the
phone today about it as well.

I don’t care who wins Iowa. Let me first get that out.

However, when rumors were flying about Obama busing people in to the Jefferson
Jackson dinner, what did the Iowa Independent write? Not one word until the
dinner was over. They evidently couldn’t prove Obama’s campaign did anything
wrong.

Too bad the Clinton camp can’t get the same treatment, which is the very definition
of what journalism is all about.

Instead, Iowa Independent runs with rumors, even though the Clinton camp denies
emphatically stacking the Brown and Black forum this weekend. Is that up front?
No. It’s buried in Chase’s post. Is the headline Clinton camp denies stacking
Iowa forum used? No. Instead Iowa Independent decides to play National
Inquirer with the upcoming event, which the Off the Bus editors at Huffington
Post make worse.

There are many rumors that the Black and Brown event has been handled
badly. If anyone in charge is stacking it towards Clinton, prove it. Wayne
Ford and Mary Campos are getting slammed pretty hard by rumors and innuendo,
and so is Clinton’s Iowa camp. If they’ve done anything wrong they will then
have to take the heat, but where is the proof as it stands today?

Whether it’s Clinton’s Iowa team rumored to be doing it this weekend, or Obama’s
team stacking the Jefferson Jackson dinner with 18 year olds, it should be exposed
as what it is: playing politics. Interesting how no one bitched about Obama
stacking the JJ dinner, including Clinton. But the Vegas debate, held in a state
where Clinton is ahead by a mile, had everyone crying that too many Clintonites
were in the audience. Can you sense the double standard?

I also have to wonder why the Iowa Independent isn’t running a story on Obama’s
health care ad, which is flatly false? Why isn’t that a big story in Iowa? After
all, Mr. Obama is asserting he will cover all Americans when it’s been proven
that his plan does not.

Again, if the organizers of the Brown and Black event, or Clinton’s
Iowa people, are doing anything corrupt, prove it. I’ll trumpet the reporting,
blast it in a post and help expose the culprits. But as of today Iowa Independent has bupkis.

One last point that is important. Iowa Independent isn’t allowed to endorse
candidates because of their status. But just because they don’t do it in an
op-ed doesn’t mean they aren’t doing it through their posts.