Matt Gunterman August 20th, 2007
I’m pasting today’s Political Notebook from the Courier-Journal’s Joseph Gerth below. It’s especially fun to read today, and he even offers a contest at the end: email him your ideas for doctored photographs of Ernie Fletcher.
Okay, very briefly, let me tell you how I see the world of politics, political journalism, and political blogging evolving in Kentucky.
First, professional political journalists now produce (and will continue to produce in the future) the vast majority of raw factual, objective materials that bloggers use. That’s the case because journalists are trained professionals, they get paid to do what they do full time, and they build up the networks needed to get the information they need to produce their craft.
Second, bloggers — on the left and the right — take the raw material that journalists produce and put it in a partisan context. Now, of course bloggers do upon occasion produce news of their own, but that’s the exception and not the rule. As an aside, I would never, ever, ever want to blog full time. I enjoy my day job too much, which is probably what these journalists would tell you about their experience with blogging, too. There is a real need among political junkies for our partisan context, however. We also spur dialog and provide a platform that allows for ideological issues and differences to be vetted.
In the end, with all this talk in the national media and traditional press about the inherent friction between bloggers and journalists, I think the biggest threat to political journalists, their profession, and trade is apathy among the public and a population that is so disconnected and uninformed from politics that it can’t digest and engage with it at the level of complexity that is needed in an increasingly complex American society.
In short: political bloggers number among political journalists most ardent readers, and political blogging has introduced me to the work of several journalists that I was previously very unaware of. Political blogging and political bloggers, as they both mature as a medium and community, might well serve to strengthen and broaden the impact of political journalism.
That having been said, I want to say that I’m a little bit disturbed by the behavior of Governor Ernie Fletcher (R) and his goons as of late. This altering of the image of Democratic candidate Steve Beshear takes the cake. Why?
As a transparently and viciously partisan and vicious blogger, I can and do say very ornery things about incompetent Republicans in Kentucky. That’s the luxury of being a blogger, especially one sitting a thousand miles away in the quiet seclusion of Yale’s Sterling Memorial Library, where the only thing distracting me at the moment is a beautiful creature standing a few feet away from me and looking at the New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia.
I doctor photographs, like this one and this one. I say things like, “Ernie Fletcher has a vagina up his asshole,” and, “Robbie Rudolph is a redneck idiot with no formal education,” and, “Stan Lee mixing his Christian fundamentalism with our politics makes him no better than a radical Islamicist.” I say these things because there’s a lot of truth to them and I say these things because I can. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to read my blog.
Yet, when our governor and his campaign start behaving like me, I think it betrays a great deal–that we already knew–about why the Fletcher administration is where it is. Ernie Fletcher and his goons never really understood the gravity and responsibility of the office and the unique opportunity they’ve been given. They still don’t understand it, and they never will understand it. But the people of Kentucky do understand it, and that’s why they’ll elect Steve Beshear this November.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Joseph Gerth | Political Notebook
Look before you leap
State Auditor Crit Luallen recently produced an audit mildly critical of the way state tourism funds have been spent, saying that Kentucky needs to develop a better strategic plan for spending new marketing money and determining if the money was spent wisely.
That upset at least one Republican blogger, Jessamine County Attorney Brian Goettl, of Conservativeedge.com, who asked in a headline: “What does LuAllen know about tourism?”
In the blog report, Goettl goes on to ask, “What does LuAllen know about tourism or marketing? What does her audit staff know about it? I would venture to say very little … LuAllen has no business making such pronouncements unless she can demonstrate her competence in the area or show that she relied on competent experts.”
Well. Luallen, a Democrat, points out that she served as tourism secretary under former Gov. Brereton Jones and continued to work on tourism projects as executive cabinet secretary under former Gov. Paul Patton.
During her time in those two roles, the state expanded or built convention centers in Louisville and Northern Kentucky, passed a $100 million bond issue to upgrade state parks and saw the private development of numerous attractions, including the Newport Aquarium, Louisville’s 4th Street Live and Kentucky Speedway, which she said were partly the result of changes she and the administrations she worked for sought in state law.
“The record is there,” she said. “I have a strong background in marketing, in economic development and in tourism and that was one reason we looked at this issue.”
Goettl said in an interview that he would like to review Luallen’s record as tourism secretary more closely before determining whether she and her office are qualified to make such recommendations.
The doctoring is in
Last week state Republican Chairman Steve Robertson said that doctoring photos is fair game in the governor’s race between Gov. Ernie Fletcher and his Democratic opponent, former Lt. Gov. Steve Beshear.
In its first salvo, the party unveiled brochures that have Beshear’s head Photoshopped onto a body wearing a white blazer, a white, open-collar shirt and a necklace, leaning against a roulette table and holding a glass of what looks to be white wine.
“Easy Money Steve” they call him because of his proposal to bring casino gambling, and $500 million annually in revenue, to Kentucky.
But we were a bit surprised by Democratic Party Chairman Jonathan Miller’s response condemning the practice. We figured the Democrats would view the Republican attack as tacit approval for such shenanigans if they chose to do the same.
If you were running Beshear’s campaign, how would you doctor a photo of Fletcher? And if you were running Fletcher’s campaign, how would you follow up the “Easy Money Steve” brochure?
E-mail me at jgerth@courier-journal.com, and we may run some of your responses in upcoming weeks.
Poll dancing
Last week we led with a couple of items about a poll by the Lexington public relations firm of Preston-Osborne, which drew questions on the Courier-Journal Web site from some readers who wondered if we had been “snookered.”
The poll, commissioned by The Lane Report, a Lexington business journal, dealt with issues ranging from the governor’s race to casino gaming and seemed to give Democratic gubernatorial nominee Steve Beshear an edge on several fronts.
The basic argument that we had been “snookered” is that Preston-Osborne was founded by Tommy Preston, a longtime friend of Beshear, and the firm also has a contract to do public relations work with the Kentucky Equine Education Project, which supports casinos.
The fact of the matter is that Preston sold his interest in the firm to Phil Osborne in 1997 and hasn’t been involved in the company since (although he and Osborne are friends and still talk regularly). As far as the KEEP connection, Osborne notes that if he fudged numbers for one client to benefit another, he wouldn’t be in business very long.
I don’t doubt he’s correct on that. But what ultimately led us to run the Lane Report results was the fact that the numbers were right in line with other polling data we’ve seen, which gives them some measure of reliability.
Outta here
I’ll be taking some much-needed vacation over the next two weeks. The column should return Sept. 10 but keep the cards and letters coming. I’ll be checking e-mails while I’m away.
- Ann Northup , Blogging , Crit Luallen , DitchMitchKY.com , Ernie Fletcher , Gubernatorial race '07 , KY Blogosphere , Kentucky Blogosphere , Kentucky GOP , Religious Fanaticism , Republican Fascism , Republican Party Decline , Stan Lee
