It happened twice in one day in the pages of the Lexington Herald-Leader this week.
First, a reporter named Daniel Desrochers penned a hit piece about Gov. Matt Bevin's use of state-owned aircraft for travel. Six paragraphs into the story, this appears:
"Bevin's use of the state plane -- and his refusal to disclose where he's going and why -- has become an issue as he campaigns for a second term as governor."
Nonsense. No one was making this an issue until the press brought it up. Members of the public were talking about the economy, abortion, education, and pensions. They weren't discussing Bevin's use of the state plane.
Nothing in the story even comes close to implying that Bevin is improperly using state aircraft. The story points out that non-official travel has been reimbursed by a number of parties, including the Republican Party, Republican Governors Association, and the governor himself.
If the press really wants to know where the governor is going, there are plenty of ways to find out before rushing a story into print. Did Desrochers file open records requests for all flight records? If so, that detail was overlooked. Those records should be available upon request. If the request is denied, then appeal. Attorney General Andy Beshear would be more than happy to rule against his November opponent.
The story cites court precedent that the governor's schedule is not a public record. Why hasn't the Herald-Leader filed suit to overturn that prior ruling and seek to make the schedule available? The decision cited was from the Court of Appeals, meaning that the original parties didn't see fit to appeal up the ladder to the Kentucky Supreme Court.
Of course, that would not serve the paper's purpose, which is to make a Republican governor look bad. And the final two paragraphs of the story illustrate that. They mention delays in getting records from the Kentucky State Police. No mention is made of filing official challenges to those delays. And then the governor's communications director, obviously aware of what was going on, said:
"The communications office has been working with you for over a year now to answer your questions and provide detailed records showing that all flights have been properly reimbursed and to explain to you how this process works. It's clear to us that you are more interested in trying to prove that we have somehow failed to follow this process rather than writing a fair story. This is the last request for information that we will be responding to related to this topic."
In true Herald-Leader fashion, the paper used its own story as the basis for a negative opinion piece. The paper hasn't published editorials in quite some time, but opinion columnist Linda Blackford weighed in, using only Desrochers' story as a basis for her anti-Bevin screed.
The second piece of journalistic malpractice came from not what was reported, but what was not reported, in a story about a lawsuit challenging the eligibility of attorney general candidate Daniel Cameron.
Greg Stumbo and his cronies have long been complaining about Cameron's relative youth and whispering that because of that, he's not qualified to be attorney general. (At least he's never fathered a child out of wedlock, failed to pay child support, and then countersued the mother of the child when she finally did go to court to get the arrearage; and he never abused his office for partisan purposes to take down a political opponent as he did during his prior term as attorney general. I would think those are much more disqualifying factors, but that's just me).
On Tuesday, John Cheves, another Herald-Leader reporter with a demonstrated bias against conservatives, wrote a story about a lawsuit filed by someone named Joseph Leon Jackson Sr. of Louisville, that seeks to have Cameron removed from the November ballot. It alleges that he has not practiced law for the required eight years that's necessary to be eligible to be attorney general. Nevermind that there is court precedent in Kentucky that it's only required to have been admitted to the bar for eight years prior, and not necessarily to have met some arbitrary definition of "practicing law."
The story identifies Jackson only as a retired union worker and someone described by his lawyer as a "concerned citizen."
Why did the story not delve deeper into Jackson's motives and connections? Is he a registered Democrat? Is he politically active? To whom has he contributed? Does he have some sort of link to Stumbo, the Beshear family, Amy McGrath (Cameron is a protege of Mitch McConnell, after all), or any other partisan opponents to Republicans? Isn't that important? One would certainly think so.
Of course, the same publication that didn't find it relevant to report on the conflicts of interest by the members of that Stumbo-led grand jury that investigated Gov. Ernie Fletcher's administration couldn't be bothered to dig a little and answer the questions that any person with common sense might have.
In a week where "journalistic malpractice" has been a commonly used phrase because of the way the New York Times' latest attack on Brett Kavanaugh crashed and burned once the truth came out, it's important to note that it's alive and well in the Bluegrass State as well. It's vital to realize that anything you read about Bevin or any of the other Republican candidates for statewide office is being presented to you through a biased filter.
