Politics is such a bruising business.
No one knows that better than Rep. Keith Ellison, the DFL-endorsed candidate in the Fifth Congressional District that includes Minneapolis.
Barely out of the endorsing convention, poised to deliver his views on the big issues — war, health care, the environment — Ellison instead has been sideswiped by allegations about his past zipping through the partisan blogosphere.
A fine for a late campaign finance report. Traffic violations ignored until his license was revoked. Questions about the extent of his relationship to the Nation of Islam, a group whose message of African-American self-sufficiency he admired until he learned of the hate-filled comments of its leaders about Jews. Ellison then distanced himself. “I never shared any anti-Semitic ideas. I’ve always rejected that,” he said.
A stampede of coverage about all that has made the start of the campaign trail exceedingly rocky for Ellison.
“I just feel like we have to get to the issues,” Ellison said. “Some of the right-wing blogs who virulently oppose my liberal ideas tried to smear me. The Star Tribune just picked it up and ran with it.”
That’s not how this played out at the Star Tribune, although the allegations did originate in blogs. Reporters get tips about potential news from lots of places, including blogs. Then they try to determine if the allegations are true. They’ve confronted Ellison with tough questions. Columnists alternately defended, explained and clobbered him. Supporters and detractors let fly with letters to the editor.
Campaign coverage is a preview of the pressures of public office. It shows voters which candidates can bob to the surface in a mucky sea of distracting news and partisan attacks to reveal their message — and which get submerged.
Dozens of readers contacted me to take issue with coverage of Ellison’s past.
“What does the Star Tribune have against Keith Ellison?” wrote Cathy Harrison, a business analyst from Circle Pines. “It seems every day another article or editorial is in your paper bashing him. This is not reporting, this is showing bias. Is it because he is black?”
I think the Star Tribune would have written those stories about any candidate, white or black, Muslim, Christian or Jew. As a voter (I don’t vote in the Fifth District) I want reporters asking tough questions and probing past associations before I have to vote. If they don’t, they’re not doing their job.
Among those calling to complain was Mayor R.T. Rybak, a longtime friend from when we were cub reporters at the Minneapolis Tribune in the 1980s. He said the Ellison he reads about in the Star Tribune doesn’t resemble the man he knows “who begins and ends every speech talking about peace.” The questions about Ellison’s past are legitimate to ask and investigate, he said, but “I want the whole picture.”
The best-laid plans for orderly political coverage are inevitably interrupted by campaign news. Reporters have no choice but to stop and cover it.
Rybak and many Ellison supporters say it’s time to get on with the issues. I think questions about his past may dog Ellison until election day. To be successful, he’ll have to find a way to repeatedly address those questions and still get his message across.
As for the issues coverage, I’ve got my doubts most Minnesotans are ready yet to shift from picnics and vacations to public policy. But Rybak feels time is short before the Sept. 12 primary in the solidly DFL Fifth District. “This is getting pretty darn late. We’re two months from a primary that may decide the whole election,” he said.
Dennis McGrath, assistant managing editor for local news, said the sudden spring announcement of longtime U.S. Rep. Martin Sabo that he wasn’t running set off a rush of candidates seeking the seat. In a race like that, “initial reporting oftens involves telling readers who candidates are and involves checking their backgrounds,” McGrath said. Deeper looks at their records and issues are coming, he said.
It’s the job of political journalists to probe hard. The coverage so far has been appropriately aggressive. Reporters examined driving records for all major candidates in the Fifth. Ellison wasn’t the only one with multiple violations.
Is that news? Yes, absolutely. Voters are electing someone to pass laws. Whether candidates obey the law is entirely relevant.
In the midst of all this, the Star Tribune also stumbled on the campaign trail. One allegation — that Ellison’s late campaign finance reports resulted in a rare fine — emerged when a source tipped metro columnist Katherine Kersten. She began work on a column, but when editors heard about it they decided it was a news story. Kersten was asked to turn over to reporters the documents she had pulled. For that initial work, editors credited her in the story’s tagline.
E-mail poured in from readers wondering how much influence a conservative columnist critical of Ellison in a column had on a news story.
McGrath said Kersten’s influence stopped when she handed over the research. Columnists have been credited in the past for tips and research. No one has questioned the story’s balance or accuracy.
That may have been the past practice, but I don’t think it works in these politically fractured times, when the metro columnists have become lightning rods for partisan anger. In that environment, editors should have had reporters redo the research, removing the need to credit a columnist. Otherwise credibility will be strained with the many readers who view coverage through red or blue glasses.
Campaign coverage needs to be tough and fair. The Star Tribune should leave no room for readers to doubt how it’s done on either count.
