Where the Publisher of the Laconia Daily Sun has to apologize for his reporter, Mike Kitch - Granite Grok

Where the Publisher of the Laconia Daily Sun has to apologize for his reporter, Mike Kitch

I do feel sorry for Ed Engler, publisher of the Laconia Daily Sun, up here in the Lakes Region; but he’s ultimately responsible for the quality and correctness of the reporting and writing of his reporters.  He knows this blog post is going up because I just got off the phone with him.

While Ed is going to check to make sure, it seems that, even with the lack of a byline, the article above was written by (OF COURSE!) Mike Kitch – the guy with whom I’ve had words, most famously when he called me cold-hearted.

He called me cold-hearted for not taxing Gilford residents even more and then sending that “excess” tax money to places like California and Illinois where voters elected wacko officials who can’t manage their own tax-fed budgets (“but there are still people who are hurting and need that money!!!” he said, still knowing that the same wondertwits that spent them into the abyss would be spending anything that Gilford would send – yeah, that’s the ticket!).

Words have meanings, and the presence or absence of even a single words can totally change the meaning of an entire post – or Media report.  Like “closely”, “sympathizer”, and aligned.  Throw in “TEA Party” and “Free State Project”, and that can totally change a report of a Primary win to a set up, for the NH Democrat Party, against a Primary Winner in the Republican race.  That would be the reporting on Jane Cormier’s win on Tuesday (image, on the left, from yesterday’s edition, page 10).  The words that are beyond “Basic Reporting 101” pale simply because Mike Kitch couldn’t even bother to pick up the phone and ask the simple question:

“Are you?”

That would be “…Cormier is closely aligned with both the TEA Party and the Free State Project.”  In with respect to both organizations, the answer is “nope!”.  How do I know that?  Gee, I’m just a lowly blogger, and even I know that a professional reporter needs to ask the basic question – which he didn’t.  How do I know that?  I called Jane (full disclosure – we endorsed her in the Primary – and if you go here, you can see the interview series we did with here.  Jane has also piped up here.

Back to Ed.  A total of 15 minutes was spent with him and he believes that Kitch wrote it (he will check).  He brought up the idea of “gee, is that a negative thing that Kitch wrote that”?  I was smiling at this end of the phone, thinking “I’m SO glad you brought that up!”.  Kitch is NOT an unbiased reporter (see above) – and is very much a left-of-center-guy and is very much like those at the national level (“er, I’m a centrist, and besides, I write objectively”).  I informed Ed that:

  • He didn’t even bother to call to check with the subject of his piece
  • He didn’t bother to check with anyone in the TEA Party movement OR Free State Project either (that as a TEA Party guy, I had NEVER seen or heard of Jane doing any TEA Party event or organizing).
  • In doing the ‘closely aligned’ bit, he’s aligned his baseless reporting with that of the NH Democrat Party who are demonizing EVERYONE (it seems) that opposes their Big Governent / Nanny State philosophy as either a TEA Party person or a Free Stater

And was that the purpose of those words??

Ed also “suggested”that it was perhaps just the absence of the word “sympathizer” on Kitch’s part – my retort was that as a self-labeled Conservative, Jane may hold similar views but it doesn’t mean that she’s a sympathizer – but Kitch would have known that IF HE HAD CALLED.

Like I did.  I called Jane to check on this story EVEN as I have talked with her at length in the recent past.  BTW Mike, I at least made the call – to your boss.  I also freely admit that I AM a Conservative (with small “l” libertarian leanings), honest to goodness TEA Partier – I AM biased – and admit it.

Ed has agreed that Jane will be getting an apology from the Laconia Daily Sun – let’s see when it appears and what page it appears on.

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