Jake Wagman Responds

Jake Wagman emailed this response to my post suggesting that he used tea party research without attribution:

Thanks for your link to my story last week on Ann Wagner's contributions from Enterprise.

I did my own thorough research on this story -- which included going through every single one of the individuals on Wagner's report, and determining if they had any ties to Enterprise.

I'm aware that one or more partisan blogs also published their own research on the same subject.

I think that's fine.

After the October campaign finance report came out, it was pretty clear Wagner got a big boost from Enterprise.

As a reporter in 2012, a key part of my job is determining which stories should be turned around right away (online, daily story) or which one's deserve more research.

I decided that -- even if some blogs had covered the topic -- it was worth it to my readers to invest more in the topic. That included time spent talking to the Wagner campaign, Enterprise, and an outside expert, among others.

It also took a good chunk of time to determine, on my own, which of Wagner's donors had ties to Enterprise.

I think reasonable people can disagree about the news interplay between blogs and newspapers. That's a healthy debate. I like how it turned out in this situation: The blogs did their analysis, and we did ours, which took some more time, but I think turned out well.

Feel free to quote in whole or in part from this email, or contact me with any additional questions.

Cheers, JAKE

His response is OK as far as it goes, and I have no doubt that he did his own research in checking the facts and coming up with his own number for the Wagner donations. I'm glad he spent time adding detail and writing a longer story. However, I still think that if tea party blogs have been discussing this issue for weeks, focusing on many of the same details, and even getting a story published in the Daily Caller, he should reference that in his story, especially since he says he was aware of the blogs. It's pretty clear where this story originated and was developed, and it wouldn't have taken anything away from his own work to acknowledge the fact that the story had previously been discussed.

Jake Wagman Used Tea Party Research Without Attribution

Jake Wagman wrote an article last week documenting how Ann Wagner's congressional campaign is heavily dependent upon donations from Enterprise (where her husband was a lobbyist) and Enterprise-affiliated companies. The story is newsworthy and does include some original reporting such as a reference to an email sent out by Enterprise Holdings President Pamela Nicholson, but a big chunk of the article was directly based on information researched by tea party activists and already reported at tea party blogs.

For example, though the numbers differ slightly, Wagman reported in his January 2nd article that $255,000 of the money Wagner had collected came from donors associated with Enterprise. On December 30, a tea party blog reported that Wagner had raised $249, 750 from Enterprise. Other details, such as Ray Wagner's role as a lobbyist as well as donations from managers around the country and founder Jack Taylor have also been reported by tea party blogs prior to Wagman's story. Likewise for donations from the Podesta Group, Fleishman-Hillard, and Ogilvy. Both 24th State and Reboot Congress have made it very clear that the footwork on this research was done by St. Louis Tea Party members.

I can see two possible scenarios for what happened. The worst would be if Wagman directly used the research from these blogs without bothering to reference them. The other possibility is that someone from Martin's campaign passed on the research from the blogs and Wagman vetted it and then ran the story as if it was his own. Even in this case, I would think a good journalist would do a basic Google search to see if others had written about it before.

More Riveting "Journalism" From Jake Wagman

Jake Wagman is out with another crucial "journalism" piece carefully designed to ensure that the voting public is fully informed about the political process, this one arguably even more important than that time he wrote a gossip column* about Carnahan's staffer selling her house. His post yesterday is about how, now that the World Series is over (which seems like a long time ago to me), Missouri politicians are betting on high school football games. No, I don't mean actual gambling, because that would qualify as real news; we are talking about the kind of stuff where they say "if your team wins, I'll have to wear their jersey" designed solely for the purpose of getting the attention of third string reporters who normally write stories about water-skiing squirrels. And hey, if you can get the Post-Dispatch to write about it as well, that's gravy!

I'm looking forward to some long-form investigative pieces from Wagman in the future, including:

• Careful analysis of the landscaping decisions of Missouri Senators.
• Can Albert Pujols' contract negotiations offer any clues about how to deal with the budget crises?
• Which Cardinals middle infielders are most likely to run for office?

Remember, this is the guy in charge of reporting on statewide elections, like the contest for Governor and Senator McCaskill's reelection campaign.

For more on Wagman's, shall we charitably say, "mixed bag" of reporting, see here.

*Note: I actually don't mind gossip columns, as long as they appear under the heading "gossip," and not "politics."

Wagman Blames Occupy For Hacking That Took Place A Month Before Occupy Movement

Update: Wagman's post has now been corrected, though without noting that it was corrected, as is standard practice.

Someone hacked Mayor Slay's website yesterday and claimed to do so in support of Occupy St. Louis (which seems pretty ridiculous considering that Occupy St. Louis is currently negotiating with Slay's office). This was clearly a counterproductive move, and as far as I can tell was done with absolutely no consultation of the people who are involved in the Occupation.

However, leave it to Post-Dispatch reporter Jake Wagman to invent new facts that make the story better right-wing link bait. Wagman claimed in the post that Anonymous's hacking of the Oakland BART system was "linked" to the Occupy movement:

The poster claimed affiliation with the hacking network Anonymous, which has taken credit for infiltrating the computer network for the transit system in Oakland, a move also linked with the Occupy movement.

But, as Trianglman on Twitter points out, the hacking of BART took place on August 14, a full month before the Occupy movement even started. Nothing in the article Wagman linked to in order to support his claim mentioned anything about Occupy, which makes sense given that Occupy didn't exist then.

By the way, in my opinion David Hunn has being doing a great job covering the Occupy STL movement, and in general has been much less of a uncritical mouthpiece for the Slay administration than Wagman was when he covered City Hall. It's not clear why Wagman took the day off from his usual job of butchering stories about statewide politics to write about this story.

This Week in Wagman

Post Dispatch reporter Jake Wagman has been on a roll lately, even by his already generally low standards. First he started out writing a cheap shot piece claiming that tickets to an Obama event in St. Louis were "reduced" and suggesting that organizers were "slashing prices". Wagman wrote:

Maybe President Barack Obama isn't the draw he once was in the Gateway City.

But the tickets were actually part of a promotion made available to young professionals. Wagman would have known that if he bothered to act like a reporter and check. But he didn't. And now his inaccurate story has now become part of Wingnut Gospel. (by the way, who begins a news story with the word "maybe?")

And, as I already mentioned, Wagman also wrote a dumb story about one of Russ Carnahan's staffers selling her house, writing,

...any development, however small and potentially unrelated, will be subject to political scrutiny.

I guess he was testing the limits of that theory by writing something absurdly small and completely unrelated, and of course did so without bothering to actually speak with the people in the story.

Wagman skipped the first debate between Ed Martin and Ann Wagner, leaving it to pros like Jo Mannies at the Beacon and the local Patches. (coincidentally, there was a Cardinals game that night)

Then Wagman wrote about Obama's visit. He noted a couple protesters but couldn't be bothered to find out anything about them. This is especially remarkable considering that the protesters wrote a letter to the Post-Dispatch that was published that morning! But it wasn't on the Sports Page so Wagman missed it.

And finally, today he wrote about a letter that Congressional Candidate Ed Martin's mom sent to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Yes, a real life story about Martin's mom sending a letter complaining that Christie should have endorsed Martin because Martin is from New Jersey. It seems like a legitimate article for a gossip column, but this really isn't the kind of content a political reporter at a city newspaper should be writing about. And as Fired Up Missouri points out, in the article Wagman hilariously calls his BFF Ed Martin, the former Chief of Staff for Governor Matt Blunt, an "anti-establishment" candidate.

Now, I don't suppose we should expect Post-Dispatch Political Editor Christopher Ave to do anything about this. In general, the Post-Dispatch's reporting crew does amazing work: Virginia Young, Jason Hancock, David Hunn, and Joel Courier (just to name a few that I'm familiar with) all clearly work hard at their jobs and produce great material. And even Wagman occasionally does some solid work. But why put something as important as statewide races solely in the hands of a guy who generally seems to have no interest in getting to the bottom of stories and fact-checking? It's a drag on the reputation of the paper. Or, to put it in Wagman's terms, why keep starting a guy who only hustles to first base a couple times a season?

Jake Wagman To Begin Transcribing the History of the Universe

Jake Wagman, reporting on the fact that Russ Carnahan's Chief of Staff is selling her house:

That means any development, however small and potentially unrelated, will be subject to political scrutiny...

Peter Kinder's Problems In a Nutshell

Here's the short version of the excellent investigative reporting on Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder by Jake Wagman:

The Lt. Governor is only supposed to spend taxpayer money on activities that are essential for performing his official duties:

According to Missouri regulations, the state government will foot the bill for travel only if "limited to those expenses authorized and essential for transacting official business of the state."

But the "official duties" of the Lt. Governor are pretty limited:

The governor, the state's chief executive, also has broad responsibilities under the state constitution. The lieutenant governor's role is more prescribed. In addition to serving as senior citizens' advocate, he is the tie-breaking vote in the state Senate, heads the line of succession to replace the governor and sits on several economic development boards.

Kinder used taxpayer money to stay at hotels when he was in town for things like tea party rallies (where he was introduced as "our next Governor") and baseball games:

Kinder has billed the state three times to attend events organized by Tea Party groups, which have criticized government spending. On April 15, when he spoke at Tea Party events in St. Louis and St. Charles counties, Kinder charged taxpayers $118 to stay at the Chase and $28 for dinner at Oceano in Clayton.

When the Cardinals were in the World Series in 2006, Kinder billed taxpayers to stay at the Chase so he could attend an invitation-only party thrown by Major League Baseball at the City Museum.

On the night before the 2009 Cardinals opener, invoices from Kinder's office show he billed taxpayers to stay the night at the Chase. While his expense report lists no events for the day, according to Ethics Commission filings, an Anheuser-Busch lobbyist gave Kinder a $150 ticket to the game.

Later in 2009, Kinder spent three nights at the Chase - costing taxpayers $357 - the week that baseball's All-Star Game was held in St. Louis.

In fact, Kinder provided no reasons whatsoever for many of his taxpayer-funded stays:

More than two dozen times since 2006, Kinder billed taxpayers for hotel stays when no official events appeared on expense reimbursement forms or invoices. Kinder's office says his "schedule often excludes appointments and meetings that are made while he is traveling" or that he schedules himself.

Kinder also refused comment for the story:

Kinder, a Republican who is widely expected to run for governor next year, declined to be interviewed for this story. "I'm not talking to you," Kinder told a reporter before hanging up the phone

Kinder says he didn't do anything wrong. But if that's true, then why did he decide to rent an apartment in St. Louis using campaign funds, rather than taxpayer funds, only after the story broke? As Sean asks, why didn't Kinder do this a long time ago? And, of course, all of this is made much worse by the fact that Kinder has frequently criticized the travel of Governor Nixon and continuously accuses Democrats of wasting taxpayers' money.

Props To The Post-Dispatch

I've been pretty critical of St. Louis Post-Dispatch political reporting recently, but I'm happy to say that there have been several recent events that suggest that they may be bringing better balance and accuracy into their stories. First, I recently complained that the Post's website included an article about a puny 200 person tea party rally in Washington D.C., though they had previously ignored a 4,300 person union rally in St. Louis. After a Twitter exchange with an employee I posted the following update:

The Post-Dispatch Weatherbird suggests that AP articles automatically feed into the site:

It would be a little strange to me if there was no selection process whatsoever for which articles appear on their national news section, but perhaps this is accurate. However, this clearly would not be a good excuse for them deciding to run the story in the print edition tomorrow.

Well, it looks like the print edition got it right. In fact, it included the following passage in the story about the budget (h/t Hotflash at Show Me Progress):

Congressional leaders are inching closer to a deal on how much to cut federal spending for the next six months.

They seem to be pretty much ignoring the spending-cut absolutists of the Tea Party, the grass-roots movement that's losing influence despite having helped elect dozens of Republicans last November.

Tea Party activists had hoped to send a loud message Thursday to Republican lawmakers, telling them at a long-scheduled Capitol Hill rally either to stick to tough budget-slashing principles or face the movement's wrath.

Instead, only a few hundred people showed up.

I'm not sure I agree with this analysis since it seems to me that the House Republicans are paying far too much attention to the tea party given how much their "movement" has dissipated, but I appreciate the Post-Dispatch at least using an article that acknowledged the fact that the rally was overhyped and largely a failure.

I also recently criticized Post-Dispatch reporting generally, and Jake Wagman's reporting specifically, about the fact that they were stretching out the Claire McCaskill plane flap over a long period of time with numerous articles containing a dubiously small amount of additional substance. I would argue that no similar scrutiny or perseverance has been applied to examining the records of Ed Martin or Roy Blunt. However, today Jake Wagman published an impressive investigative piece on Peter Kinder billing taxpayers for what seems to be political or personal expenses, and Wagman did a fantastic job of collecting and organizing the information. Of course, in order to completely refute my previous criticisms and show me to be a frothing-at-the-mouth unhinged liberal blogger with an overzealous desire to criticize honest reporters, Wagman would have to continue to report on all of the twists and turns of the upcoming discussion of Kinder's records as he did with Senator McCaskill, and also to apply similar diligence to the records of Roy Blunt and Ed Martin, but he at least appears to be off to a good start.

Of course, none of this is to say that we don't need to continue building a progressive media voice in St. Louis via ForwardSTL. ForwardSTL was never intended as a replacement of the traditional media; it ideally will be a supplement to the traditional media that will ensure that a certain demographic of news and opinion consumers get the content they desire. Unlike the St. Louis Tea Party and Ed Martin, I don't want to see the Post-Dispatch go out of business, and I recognize the fact that they provide the region with crucial information. However, I do think we need to be diligent in keeping them honest, and that will include both criticizing them when they do their jobs poorly, and praising them when they get it right. Jake Wagman did a fantastic job on the Kinder story, and I hope this good work continues during some remarkable and important political times.

Wagman: McCaskill Voting To Protect Middle Class Is "Cultivating An Image"

Ed Martin is running for something, and that inevitably means that his buddy Jake Wagman at the Post-Dispatch will be publishing a string of nonstop attacks on Martin's opponents. This past week, Wagman has been stretching out the McCaskill-paying-her-taxes-late story with a eye for trivial details that was never applied to, for example, Roy Blunt. Today's hit piece was questioning whether Claire McCaskill's wealth would be a liability for her.

Here's the most absurd part:

That type of financial wherewithal is a stark contrast to the image McCaskill has cultivated in nearly three decades of politics in Missouri — where she has traveled the state in an RV and stumped with her mother — and in Washington, where she has fought to increase the minimum wage and railed against Wall Street bonuses.

Actually, voting for the minimum wage and railing against Wall Street bonuses are not "cultivating an image." They are standing up for members of the non-leisure class.

But this is exactly what's wrong with our modern media, and with Jake Wagman in particular. The media is supposed to inform the citizens about issues that matter. Of course, what really matters are the policies under discussion and the effects those policies would have on people's lives. But this is precisely what the modern media does not want to discuss, for a number of reasons. First of all, it's hard work to understand policy, and some reporters are stretched thin and others are busy watching the Cardinals. Second, describing policy opens them up to charges of "bias" from people who have an interest in distorting reality. Thus, today's media adopts the cowardly position of "Democrats say this, Republicans say that," on all policy issues, and then does "investigative reporting" on relatively trivial issues like whether McCaskill has money. When I say "relatively trivial," of course I realize that having a lot of money can affect someone's judgment; however, it's not nearly as important as the actual political positions a person takes. Senator McCaskill's track record has consistently been one of standing up for the middle-class (at least, relative to the current D.C environment).

So here we are, with a mainstream media that inevitably focuses on the trivial while leaving readers uninformed about the actual issues. And this plays right into the Republican Party's hands since, after all, an informed public would never tolerate Republican's nonstop pandering to corporate giants who screw consumers, screw taxpayers, and don't even live up to their own stated ideology of "loving free markets."

Post-Dispatch Reports on Protest Without Saying *Why* There Was a Protest

Almost one week after completely ignoring a 4,300 person pro-union rally in Kiener Plaza and then offering a lame excuse, the Post-Dispatch today reported on Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE) protesting at a "100 Most Influential St. Louisans" event." The only problem? They didn't even bother to explain why MORE was protesting. Jake Wagman titled his post "Polite Protesters Interrupt Nixon at SLU" and only provided this as an explanation:

An appearance by Gov. Jay Nixon at St. Louis University was briefly interrupted Friday morning by a group protesting foreclosures and bank bailouts.

How exactly are readers supposed to know anything about the group's motivations based on that description?

For those would who like to know the actual statement of the group, Damien Johnson grabbed some video of the actual speech:


What they were asking for is that foreclosures be stopped until a just system be put in place, in contrast to the shameful actions currently being practiced by Bank of America and other bad banks.

Again, compare this to their coverage of the tea party. Would the Post-Dispatch ever even dream of covering a tea party event without passing on the tea party explanation of what the event was about? Why is it so hard for the Post-Dispatch to give fair coverage to anyone who opposes the abuse of power by corporate America?

Ed Martin's Financial Disclosure Flub: Part of a Pattern

Sean at FiredUp Missouri linked to a story in the Hill that caught Ed Martin falsely reporting having nearly $200,000 in the bank in his FEC report. Jake Wagman at the Post-Dispatch of course simply regurgitated Martin's claim that it was a "computer error," but Sean has presented some good reasons for thinking that even Ed Martin's amended comments are suspicious, especially considering that he now claims he had no activity in Q4 according to PoliticMo.

Of course, this isn't exactly new territory for Martin. During his failed bid for Congress, he filed his financial disclosure forms 300 days late because he was "really busy." Sure is interesting how much difficulty Ed Martin has with basic things like reporting his finances, and how it's always someone else's fault.

More On McCaskill & the Democratic National Convention flap

The New York Times vs. Claire McCaskill (photos from the Wall Street Journal and Official Congressional Bio Guide)

Just to follow up on Adam's post and my post yesterday. Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) gave an interview yesterday where she harshly denounced a New York Times report that claimed she privately worked against St. Louis's bid for the Democratic National Convention. Jake Wagman at the Post Dispatch has a compilation of numerous St. Louis officials who back up McCaskill's contention that she never privately advocated against St. Louis, including Mayor Slay and his chief of staff. However there are a couple of points on this controversy which continue to concern me:

Republicans have been making noise about McCaskill's comments since Tuesday. They've been emailing various journalist with statistics on the economic benefits a party convention would have brought to St. Louis, while juxtaposing this information with the report that McCaskill privately urged party leaders not to choose St. Louis in order to insinuate, that she put her own political career above the economic health of the city. This activity certainly gives me pause because that's what I argued in my earlier post and I do not share the agenda of the RNC.

Wagman's article states that, "It is possible that McCaskill supported hosting the convention, while at the same time wondering how it would effect her -- the two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive." However its worth noting that Wagman cites a February 1st article by Jeff Zeleny at the New York Times which reports:

Ms. McCaskill, one of the president’s closest friends in the Senate, publicly supported having St. Louis host the convention, but she raised several concerns to the White House, according to party officials familiar with the selection process. She questioned whether her re-election would be complicated if the convention were held in St. Louis

This language differs greatly from an earlier blog post Zeleny wrote which I cited in my first post:

Ms. McCaskill, one of the president’s closest friends in the Senate, took her concerns directly to the White House, according to party leaders familiar with the selection process. She argued that her re-election could be complicated if the convention was held in St. Louis, because the Democratic gathering will almost certainly attract protesters and compete for fund-raising.

In this earlier post McCaskill certainly doesn't seem to be "wondering" as Wagman states but rather "arguing" in a attempt to persuade Obama administration officials that a convention in St. Louis could hurt her politically and should be held elsewhere. She cites specific reasons, including a lack a fund-raising dollars from Democratic donors and protesters presumably from the Tea Party which were pervasive during Ed Martin's failed congressional campaign. These are logical arguments that any candidate in McCaskill's position would have made. True, the same could be said for "moderate" Democrats in North Carolina, but Obama polls significantly better there than in Missouri. These details from Zeleny's blogpost make it more believable McCaskill would privately argue against a St. Louis bid even in the face of her denials.

McCaskill and others also point out that the New York Times relied on anonymous officals, in an attempt to discredit the story. While this is a fair point, anonymous sources have become a fixture of journalism in Washington. As Adam points out Judith Miller among other New York Times journalists used anonymous sources to falsely make claims about Iraqi WMDs. However Zeleny has not faced any charges of journalistic malfeasance and is generally respected with plenty of access to "senior party" officials.

Earlier on Wednesday Zeleny stated he "stood by his story." Furthermore according to Chris King at the St. Louis American, Zeleny's editor also backs up the story. Adam makes the fair point, that Zeleny might have misinterpreted his source however Zeleny has repeatedly stood by his article when questioned about it. So either Zeleny, his source, or McCaskill are being dishonest.

Its hard to justify why a White House official would falsely claim McCaskill argued against the convention particularly since this official gave specific arguments she made against hosting it in St. Louis. There would be little motivation for anyone in White House to harm McCaskill politically, since she's almost universally regarded as a "close friend" of the Obama Administration. The anonymous official might have thought that a disclosure would not make waves outside of the beltway therefore not think before speaking to Zeleny.

As for McCaskill she issued a vigorous denial which will play itself out. Perhaps few in the press will follow up on this story and it will die. However if the New York Times's account is accurate it shed's light on McCaskill and the respect she holds for Missourians. What ever the case I hope more facts come out to better understand the situation.

The Paper of Record Vs. The St. Louis Paper of Record

Following up on Kevin's post, I think Jake Wagman did a nice job of following up on the New York Times anonymous claims, digging in and getting some info, and presenting the relevant facts that people need to make up their own mind. More of this, please.

New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleny had previously cited an unnamed "top party official" to suggest that McCaskill actually campaigned against the DNC being held in St. Louis:

Ms. McCaskill, one of the president’s closest friends in the Senate, took her concerns directly to the White House, according to party leaders familiar with the selection process. She argued that her re-election could be complicated if the convention was held in St. Louis, because the Democratic gathering will almost certainly attract protesters and compete for fund-raising.

Of course, the New York Times does not have a great track record with anonymous sources, considering that it was the paper most responsible for the belief that Iraq had secret stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction based entirely on anonymous (and extremely questionable) sources. But Wagman takes it a step further than speculation and gets quotes from a couple of the people most involved in fighting for the convention in St. Louis, Mayor Slay and St. Louis City Dems head Brian Wahby. From Wagman's article:

"Absolutely ludicrous," said Brian Wahby, co-chair of the convention host committee. "We had no bigger champion than Claire McCaskill."

While distancing herself from Obama may help her re-election chances in Missouri -- where the president's approval ratings are below the national average -- the enthusiasm generated by a St. Louis convention would have certainly made up for, if not eclipsed, any potential liability.

Political psychology aside, Democrats say that nobody wanted a St. Louis convention more than McCaskill, who lives in Kirkwood.

Mayor Francis Slay tweeted that he had no doubts about her "unwavering support." The party's national spokesman called her a "one person Chamber of Commerce."

Now I don't know Wahby or Slay very well, but my sense is that they have a pretty strong notion of loyalty: I seriously doubt they would be this supportive of McCaskill if she had sabotaged the DNC bid. As Wagman points out, it's actually not mutually exclusive that McCaskill might have been aware of some political costs but nevertheless have been a strong champion for the convention. My guess is that either the reporter or the anonymous "top party official" might have heard some of the concerns expressed either by McCaskill or someone else, and interpreted those concerns a little too strongly. The reporter should have spoken to more people on the St. Louis committee to get a better sense of McCaskill's efforts.

Also worth noting, Chris King at the St. Louis American is doing an excellent job following up with the New York Times and is documenting it on Twitter.

This round goes to the St. Louis paper(s) of record.

Wagman Doesn't Bother With Getting Quotes

Jake Wagman regurgitated a story yesterday suggesting that Senator McCaskill wants to get rid of the individual mandate component of health care reform. The story had been reported by The Hill and by WillyK at Show Me Progress the day before. Despite possessing the title of "reporter," Wagman apparently did not bother to actually get a quote from the McCaskill campaign about the statement.

On the other hand, Jo Mannies at the Beacon did get a quote about McCaskill's position on mandates, and it was pretty interesting:

McCaskill press secretary Maria Speiser said Thursday that the senator's MSNBC comments, in their entirety, "are not significantly different from what she has said in the past."...

Overall, said Speiser, "Claire believes the bottom line is that the mandate is unpopular, and if there are other ways to stop insurance companies from discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions, it’s worth considering."

Mannies also presented the full quotation from McCaskill that sparked the recent controversy:

I think they don't like the mandate and by a wide margin they voted that way (a reference to Proposition C, which passed handily in Missouri on Aug. 3). I do think we have to look at it to see if there's a different way to make sure to get more people in the pool. What the most popular part of the bill (is, barring) pre-existing conditions, allowing people who have had the nerve to be sick before, allowing them to get insurance, that's the most popular part. That really is what drove the desire for a mandate because you've got to get everybody in the pool. Can you imagine if you could go get car insurance after you had a wreck? Who is going to buy insurance until after they're sick. Maybe there's other ways to get people in a pool other than a mandate -– I hope -– and we need to look at that.

Seems like a pretty interesting facts that add flavor and context to the story, no?

Ed Martin's Lapdog Media

We don't take kindly to outsiders in these parts. Or, at least, some ridiculous members of our local media don't.

Check out this amazing video, originally uploaded on June 20:


The relevant line from Ed Martin:

I just got forwarded to me this vicious memo that Congressman Carnahan's campaign manager sent out. And a member of the press here in town sent me a message and said "I love it when these East Coast Liberals come to town and run these campaigns and think we're going to fall for it."

Yup, that's right, a member of the local press complained to Ed Martin about outsider East Coast Liberals having the audacity to come to St. Louis to work on Congressional campaigns. Message from St. Louis to the rest of the world: "get back whereya came from ya durn hippies!"

Now, as has been well documented, Jake Wagman was far and away the biggest lapdog to Ed Martin during the campaign, repeatedly sharing false and misleading information about Carnahan that could easily have been fact-checked while refusing to ask Ed Martin difficult questions, a pattern of shameless pandering that continues to this day. But would Wagman really say something as lame as "East Coast Liberals?" It's hard to imagine. But, ironically enough, if it was someone else who used the term, that person actually covered the race far more fairly than Wagman, since Wagman far-and-away provided the most-biased coverage of the race.

Anyway, it's a good video clip to remember the next time some clown complains about the "liberal media."

Wagman "Has To Try To Be That Bad"

Jake Wagman continues to embarrass the actual journalists at the Post-Dispatch. A day after Wagman's new-low-for-journalism-at-the-Post-Dispatch blog post (which, I am told, made it into today's print edition under the guidance of tea party-coached Political Editor Christopher Ave), I received an email pointing to his latest and observing that Wagman "had to be trying to be this bad." And, as I looked at his most recent article about Carnahan, I couldn't help but agree. Yesterday, as featured on ForwardSTL and the Beacon, Russ Carnhan wrote an op-ed to The Hill saying that we need to shift our focus in Afghanistan from war to peace:

It’s time to get smarter about how we approach this phase of our operation, to think creatively about how we integrate security, diplomacy and development.

We have fought the war against the Taliban and the extremists. Now we must fight for peace – a lasting peace that is every bit as vital to our global and domestic security.

Let us end this war in Afghanistan.

Yet, if you were one of the poor souls who exclusively relies on the Post-Dispatch for their news, you wouldn't know anything about this. All you would know is that Russ Carnahan lauded U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke, who recently passed away, in part of his column. In Wagman's entire post about the op-ed, he never even mentions the central point of a post titled, "End This War." It is a truly remarkable achievement in bad journalism and, as my emailer pointed out, must have taken some effort.

Compare this post to that of an actual journalist, Jo Mannies, in her post titled Carnahan calls for more attention on peace in Afghanistan:

Shortly before giving up his House oversight post over Afghanistan, U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan is laying out his view that the United States needs to shift its focus from war to peace.

"It’s time to get smarter about how we approach this phase of our operation, to think creatively about how we integrate security, diplomacy and development," Carnahan, D-St. Louis, said in an op-ed piece published Thursday on the Washington-based publication The Hill's "Congress Blog."

"We have fought the war against the Taliban and the extremists. Now we must fight for peace -– a lasting peace that is every bit as vital to our global and domestic security. Let us end this war in Afghanistan."

So, just to review, at a time where discussions of changing the course in Afghanistan are a relatively taboo subject in Congress, Carnahan went out on a limb to make a pretty courageous statement about the need to change our focus. Yet, a day after turning a mindless Ed Martin tweet about a Craigslist advertisement into a story for the Post-Dispatch, Jake Wagman amazingly manages to either miss or deliberately avoid the entire point of the column. Ed Martin could not ask for a better lapdog.

I guess that somehow, even at a time of crises for newspapers, the Post-Dispatch is complacent about their political coverage of St. Louis. But this will be a huge mistake in the long run. Just like a small stream of water can carve through rock over time, as enough people compare the garbage Wagman puts out on a daily basis with researched and meaningful pieces at other outlets like the Star, the Beacon or a number of blogs, they will slowly but surely begin to realize that relying on the Post-Dispatch for news about anything on Wagman's beat is a giant mistake. As long as they continue to allow Wagman to drop the ball on their political coverage, the Post-Dispatch will be hemorrhaging credibility. And credibility is all that a journalistic institution has.

From Ed Martin's Fingers to Jake Wagman's Mouth: The Utter Collapse of Post-Dispatch Credibility

About a month ago, I wrote that Jake Wagman was a lazy and biased reporter who blatantly pandered to serial-liar Ed Martin and, I might add, backed up my claims with evidence. Well, it's hard to think of better evidence for these claims than the crap-sandwich Wagman served up for Post-Dispatch readers today. All it took was a x < 140 characters belch from Ed Martin:
, and Wagman was off to the races with his latest great story idea. Of course, I'm sure Wagman wouldn't just write about such nonsense just from seeing Martin tweet. Ed probably had to call him up and make him feel special in order for Wagman to flush the standards of decent journalism down the toilet, just like he did many times during the elections.

But it is truly amazing that Wagman gets paid to do things like turning a tweet into a 6 paragraph blog post about a Craigslist advertisement, squeezed in between making casual observations about football. Who knows? Maybe the cold-hearted owners of Lee Enterprises like the world much better when reporters focus on meaningless nonsense rather than actually investigating the use and abuse of power.

I will note that there are good journalists at the Post-Dispatch who still try to hold the paper to the high standards of journalism practiced in the golden days. Unfortunately, the reporter assigned to cover some of the most important political topics of our time is not one of them.

Post-Dispatch Reporter Dismisses Substantive Criticism As "Sticks and Stones"

I've written a couple posts recently that were very critical of Post-Dispatch reporter Jake Wagman, and particularly his biased coverage of the Russ Carnahan/ Ed Martin race. I think I provided good evidence for my assertions, but as someone who tries to be open-minded, I realize that people might have reasons for disagreeing with me. However, in my posts, I did provide substantive criticisms, by which I mean specific claims that can be argued for or against. For example, I said that

Jake Wagman improperly left out crucial information in his latest article about the election in a way that fed into Ed Martin's insinuations that the election was somehow stolen or cheated.

Wagman trumped up stories about election problems in Ed Martin's 4,500 vote loss while completely ignoring well-documented voting problems in a race that Barbara Fraser lost by less than 180 votes. This suggests an inconsistent application of whatever criteria he uses to decide that a story is "newsworthy."

Wagman wrote a piece that was basically a press release for Ed Martin attacking Carnahan on the wind farm without getting a single quote from the Carnahan campaign or the Democratic Party.

In that same story, Wagman failed to do any research other than the press release, and so left out information that vindicated the Carnahans.

You can agree or disagree with these claims, but they are substantive claims. I provided evidence for those claims, and it should in principle be possible for people who disagree to provide evidence against these claims, such as saying, "the Post-Dispatch has a policy of always doing X, which is why Wagman did what he did," or "Wagman has X, Y, Z responsibilities that prevent him from getting quotes on every story." Those would be the types of reasons people could provide in a responsible, adult debate.

However, I submit that for anyone interested in honest and open debate, it is not cool to respond to substantive criticisms with vague dismissals that don't even attempt to address the substance. If I had just called Wagman a name, then it would make sense to respond with a vague dismissal. But I backed up my claims, so any legitimate response would similarly at least attempt to also make substantive claims and to back them up with evidence. So, with that in mind, consider this tweet yesterday from St. Louis Post-Dispatch Reporter Jeremy Kohler:
No substance. No supporting evidence. Nothing. Just a knee-jerk "circling the wagons" response that pretends that there was nothing worth responding to. So naturally, I invited him to expand on his critique:

So far, Kohler has not responded, and has instead moved on to other conversations.

Personally, I would like to think that a reporter at the Post-Dispatch who has time to make defensive remarks on Twitter would be interested in getting to the truth and as such seriously considering criticisms that relate to how journalism should be conducted. But we shall see.

Exhibit B of Wagman's Biased and Lazy Reporting

Yesterday, I wrote about the terrible reporting of Jake Wagman that fed into Ed Martin's ridiculous insinuations of "voter fraud" in Congressman Carnahan's decisive 4,500 vote win over Martin. Wagman left out important information, and, as a point of comparison, has been completely ignoring students who were apparently illegally purged from voter rolls and denied provisional ballots in an election that was decided by less than 180 votes. All of this was worse, I wrote, given the context of Wagman's other terrible reporting on the Russ Carnahan/Ed Martin race.

Today, I present a further example of that context. As noted, the St. Louis Tea Party that idolizes Andrew Breitbart and James O'Keefe has had nothing but glowing praise for Wagman's reporting on the Carnahan/Martin race for the past two months. Check out this tweet from Dana Loesch in September:
Yup, Dana Loesch said it was a "solid piece." That should be your first warning.

If you read the story, you can see why Loesch was so excited about it. The post basically amounts to nothing more than an Ed Martin press release, suggesting that the "perception of coziness" from Tom Carnahan being awarded $107 million of federal funding would be an "unwelcome liability" for the Carnahans. Wagman quoted BFF Ed Martin in the story, along with Lloyd Smith, the executive director of the Missouri GOP. He did not quote any Democrats in his hit piece.

And to further see just how absolutely terrible Wagman's reporting was, compare it to his colleague Bill Lambrecht, who actually took the time to figure out the details of the funding. Here's my previous summary of Lambrecht's article:

In order for Ed Martin's claims to be true, Russ Carnahan would have had to have some influence over the process of awarding the funds. However, as is clearly reported in the article, neither Russ Carnahan nor Robin Carnahan had any roll in deciding how the funds were used:

Russ Carnahan was among 244 House Democrats who voted for the legislation. But officials from the Energy and Treasury departments, who jointly administer the program, said that neither Russ nor Robin Carnahan played a role in the awards.

But hold on because it actually gets better. Not only did Russ Carnahan not play a role in the awarding of the funds, he couldn't possibly have played a role, because the funding was awarded automatically to projects that met the basic criteria:

The upfront payments to Lost Creek, a $300-million-plus project, and various other projects aren't awarded competitively but on the basis of meeting various criteria. For instance, companies were required to submit accredited designs and start building by the end of this year. Energy Department officials described the process as automatic; the Treasury Department is required to issue the payments to those who qualify within 60 days of application.

"Treasury has no discretionary authority in this," said Treasury spokeswoman Sandra Salstrom.

In other words, any projects that met certain criteria were funded, including another $85 million dollar project in Missouri last year and a $170 million dollar project in Illinois.

So not only was there no influence from Russ or Robin, there was no possible role influence could play! Martin's claims of "funneling" were completely fabricated. Tom Carnahan says as much in the article:

In an interview, Carnahan, 41, the youngest son of former Gov. Mel Carnahan and former U.S. Sen. Jean Carnahan, said he is untroubled by criticism of the payment. He said that neither his family's political clout nor any lobbying could have played a role in the process.

"Not only was there not any contact or anything like that, it was not necessary," he said, referring to the eligibility requirements.

Tom Carnahan also said that his company has invested a lot of money in rural Missouri:

Carnahan asserted that his 5-year-old company has been responsible for $600 million investments in Missouri "that have made gigantic contributions to the economy in rural Missouri. I'm very proud of that. We need to be doing more to support renewable energy, not less."

And lest you think that this tax credit was the result of some sneaky language put in by Russ to help out his brother, the article reports that the payments were actually composed of two tax credits: one that has been around since the 70s and one that was first approved in 1992. Prior to the stimulus, the credits were reauthorized in 2008, and even Roy Blunt voted for them:

In fact, Robin Carnahan's opponent in the Senate race, U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt, was a key backer of the financial bailout bill in 2008, one of several measures that reauthorized the tax credit.

Finally, Martin and tea partiers have been complaining that the award was in the form of cash rather than tax credits, and this was also explained in the article:

Critics of the Lost Creek funding have seized on the design of the payment. Rather than giving the credits after companies file tax returns, the stimulus legislation provides for upfront payments equivalent to 30 percent of the cost of the project. It was done that way, the Treasury Department has said, so "the near term goal of creating and retaining jobs is achieved, as well as the long-term benefit of expanding the use of clean and renewable energy."

So given that Ed Martin has been repeatedly making accusations about undue influence in a process that Carnahan could not possibly have influenced, what exactly is Martin's explanation for his repeated acusations of corruption?

"I'm not saying there's anything illegal; it may not be corruption with a capital 'C' with people taking bribes. But it doesn't smell right," said Martin, who raised the issue while debating Russ Carnahan over the weekend.

It doesn't smell right. That's Ed Martin's pathetic explanation for months of smears about a process that Carnahan couldn't influence.

Now, I suppose you could try to defend Wagman by pointing out that he got quotes from the Carnahans the following day, but that largely misses the point. If you put out misleading information one day, then put out true information the following day, there's going to be a percentage of people who only saw the first information. So putting out one-sided smear pieces is damaging to the journalistic ideal of an informed public. Furthermore, when you see what a great job Lambrecht did actually getting the details of the case, it makes you wonder why they hell Wagman just prints smears from a press release without doing any investigation whatsoever. Really, it's just not responsible journalism, however you spin it. Which is exactly why Dana Loesch loved it.

Jake Wagman Fails As a Reporter

During the elections, I was mildly critical of Jake Wagman's puppy love of Ed Martin and unprofessional vendetta against Congressman Russ Carnahan. But after seeing his pattern of lazily reprinting Ed Martin press releases continue even after the election, it's now obvious that Wagman can no longer be considered a trustworthy source of information. Wagman's bias combined with the fact that he really just does not work very hard at his job creates a putrid mix: people who rely on him for news will for all practical purposes be less informed than those who ignore the Post-Dispatch entirely, because they'll be getting their information through a filter that's too blinded to get both sides and too lazy to check facts. I saw Wagman on election night and he told me that he doesn't take any criticism personally because it's just part of the business. He's right. It's not personal. He's just a bad reporter.

The latest example of Wagman's desperate plea for approval from "cool kid" Ed Martin is his "report" (read: paraphrasing what Ed Martin told him on the phone) about the security firm hired by the St. Louis City Board of Elections. The story is that a security firm hired by the Democratic chairman of the board was not voted on by the rest of the board, and that other members had complained about the decision. Now, this certainly seems like a reasonable news story and there's nothing wrong with passing this info on to the public (although it's an interesting choice considering just how much important information floats by Wagman as he's "busy" tweeting about the Cardinals and writing his 1 or 2 blog posts a day). But what's particularly defective about the story is the information that Wagman leaves out, which naturally plays into Ed Martin's story of a "cheated election." Wagman starts off his article with a false dichotomy:

When Republican congressional hopeful Ed Martin complained that the St. Louis Board of Elections hired a security firm that had worked for his opponent, it was easy to dismiss his concern as sour grapes by a candidate who lost a close election.

But e-mails obtained by the Post-Dispatch show that the chairman of the Election Board, a Democrat, hired the firm despite the objections of other board members, including a warning about the perception of a conflict of interest.

Actually, Ed Martin knew on Wednesday, November 3rd, that there were not enough disputed votes to change the election results, but he nevertheless refused to concede until the following Monday. So whether or not there was a dispute about hiring someone at the Election Board, it clearly was "sour grapes" for Ed Martin to wait a full week to concede, while sending out his tea party followers to scream "Voter Fraud!" and "Stolen election!" and generally to try to create the impression that something was untoward about the election (BTW, Wagman was also too lazy to note that the exact same people screaming outside of the Board of Elections were the Ed Martin supporters at his press conference). But more importantly, the fact is that two people in plain clothes "hanging out in the lobby" (which is all that's alleged) obviously had nothing to do with the outcome of an election that Carnahan won by 4,500 votes. Yet nowhere in Jake Wagman's article does he mention that this had no bearing on the election results, which is what Ed Martin was implying from the beginning.

Furthermore, compare Wagman's breathless "reporting" on Ed Martin's pet story with an election where one might actually have reason to question the results. Democratic State Senate candidate Barbara Fraser lost by less than 180 votes, while Washington University students in that district were apparently illegally purged from voter rolls and denied provisional ballots. The St. Louis Beacon reported on this. The local public radio reported on this. But Jake Wagman was too busy tweeting about the Cardinals. Or maybe Barbara Fraser just didn't seem "cool" enough for him. Either way, the fact remains that while Wagman pushed Ed Martin's bogus "voter fraud" story in an election that was decided by 4,500 votes, he completely ignored an election decided by 180 votes with numerous reports of disenfranchised voters.

Now, I suspect Wagman is the type of reporter who'd rather repeat the beltway tripe that "if you're getting criticism from both sides you must be doing a good job" than actually honestly consider any criticism. In fact, he'd probably use my criticism to try to pretend how objective he is. But if he does subscribe to that view, then what does it say about him that the St. Louis Tea Party (which says that the NAACP is "racist," that NPR needs to be defunded, that Fox News, Andrew Breitbart, and James O'Keefe are "objective journalists," etc.) has had nothing but glowing praise for Wagman for the past two months of election coverage? Consider:





Honestly, if you go two months of election coverage getting nonstop praise from a tea party that bases its whole philosophy on the Andrew Breitbart/ James O'Keefe model, you might want to reconsider your standing as a journalist. And there are so many other examples of Wagman's bias in this past election. He refused to ask Ed Martin certain questions, even when Charlie Brennan noted that Martin was being evasive. He didn't get quotes from the Carnahan campaign and from Democratic officials on many occasions. He would refuse contact from Democratic officials on multiple occasions. He wouldn't bother to get quotes from relevant parties during smear pieces on Carnahan. He refused to ask how the tea party was funded. He refused to ask what role St. Louisan John Burns played in James O'Keefe's plan to sexually humiliate a CNN reporter. He was too lazy to point out the St. Louis Tea Party's support of Roy Blunt, reported by his own colleague Tony Messenger, or to point out that their "criticism" of Blunt lasted approximately 2 days, exactly as much time as it took to get written up in the Post-Dispatch. And on...and on....and on.

Now, just to be clear, it's not quite as simple as saying that Wagman has a "Right-wing bias." In fact, Wagman has Democratic politicians he sucks up to just as much as Martin. His main criteria seems to be trying to impress the members of the good old boys club. But this sucking up to power comes at the expense of good journalism, and prevents him from doing the kind of honest reporting that is needed for a well-functioning democracy.

I realize that it's not a great idea to be so critical of a reporter at the only major daily newspaper in town. However, sometimes it's better to get things out in the open that many people are willing to say only in private. The reality is that Jake Wagman does not do a adequate job covering politics. St. Louis deserves better.