The Long Sad Story

Investigative journalism involves shoe leather, uncomfortable confrontations and tenacity. Essentially, the practice is almost non-existant at our local paper of record, the News-Leader. Cory DeVera and Wes Johnson played at it in their Sunday article about the Billy Long kerfluffle. They fell short of the mark.

Randy Turner called  DeVera and Johnson out on their lack of actual reporting. On Turner's blog, DeVera whined in the comments something to the effect of "we did TOO look into that stuff you meanie!"

Really?

DeVera asserts they have a bunch of "pending" requests for documents. Yet the story still ran with no mention that there was outstanding information to come. A rookie move in my humble opinion.

The alleged Billy Long scandal, to be sure, is the kind of thing that makes and editors and news directors salivate. It's a glaring example of what an incestuous ball of dysfunction politics in Springpatch has become. It's a no brainer the News-Leader would want in on the salacious titillation.

Sadly, that's all the News-Leader had to offer. There was a dearth of actual facts in the article, merely things spoon fed to the reporters by the Eckersley and Long campaigns respectively. I'm sure a few phone calls were made but very little follow up investigation was involved.

Is Billy Long a biggot who likes to gamble and look at strippers? Frankly, I'd be shocked if he wasn't. I'm more interested in the fact that the Republican party is holding fundraisers at a restaurant that may or may not engaged in illegal activity. They may or may not even be involved in alleged illegal activity.

Rather than spending a lot of time and energy torpedoing Jennifer Case's story, maybe the News-Leader should have talked to a few more folks. They chose to talk to current employees and both campaigns. If you talk to current employees, of course they're going to say what the boss wants them too. Both campaigns are going to lie through their teeth in which ever way makes the opponent look bad. No former employees came forward? I call hogwash, I'm pretty sure if you went to some of the folks Jennifer Case talked about and offered to write their story without printing their names you would have learned quite a bit more.

In fact, DeVera hints at as much in her comments to Turner.

We have a rich history of anonymous sources in the news business. There's no shame in it. It's just part of the job.

Further still, is the matter of the amount of advertising Long does with the News-Leader. Times are tough, I'm sure the bean counters at the paper are quite reluctant to bite the hands that feed them ... except the problem is, it's kind of your job as a journalist. I once had an editor tell me if I wasn't pissing numerous people off each week, I simply wasn't doing my job.

While we're on the subject of money, Turner also points out how none of the traditional outlets have made mention of the campaign contributions Long has received from Halliburton and Exxon Mobil. It would seem Mr. "Fed Up" has already learned how to use the time old methods of getting elected to office. So he's been bought out by two major corporations so far. Isn't that part of the problem in Washington he's been complaining about to his support base? Curious, isn't it?

The simple fact of the matter is campaign promises are like Kleenex, flimsy and disposable. Politicians will say anything to get elected. Long is only different from the pols in Washington by virtue of the fact he's nearly incoherent when he speaks.

I'm sure there are those who are concerned about Long's character. If Jennifer Case's allegations are true, Long is certainly not the person he represented himself to be to his political base. And yes, of course, it's a story.

But there is so much more there. Jennifer Case may or may not be completely factual with her story. But in my experience, where there's smoke there's fire. Something probably did go down at Metropolitan Grill that wasn't exactly on the up and up.

The News-Leader's job is to ferret out that sort of information, develop these types of stories. Apparently, that's too much work. As long as the News-Leader is satisfied to only report what it is told, we'll never know the truth.