Last week it was revealed that an
employee of Hildebrand Tewes Consulting, Inc. in Sioux Falls had
stolen $100,000 from the company. Hildebrand Tewes client list
includes former Senator Tom Daschle, Senator Robert Byrd, the South
Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families, the South Dakota Democratic
Party, and Senator Barack Obama's Political Action Committee "Hopefund."
Perhaps the
most disquieting thing about this story is that the identity of the
alleged embezzler wasn't broken by the newspaper in Sioux Falls;
bloggers and the Washington D.C. newspaper Roll Call had to
do that.
On July 19,
conservative blogger Steve Sibson from Mitchell, South Dakota
noted that liberal
blogger Chad Schuldt, who has worked on several Democratic
campaigns in recent years at Hildebrand-Tewes, had been
uncharacteristically silent for the past month. Sibson also noted
Hildebrand Tewes' company
website no longer listed Schuldt as an employee. Shortly after
posting this, Sibson received information that there had been some
"trouble" between Schuldt and his employer.
South Dakota
bloggers on both sides of the political aisle began asking and
digging and inquiring. The subject quickly became the hot topic of
the state blogosphere. Then on July 21, the Sioux Falls Argus
Leader posted a brief 137-word story online that said Hildebrand
Tewes had confirmed an employee had been fired after $100,000 was
found missing from employee payroll taxes that had not been sent to
the IRS as required. Yet, conspicuously, the alleged perpetrator was
not named.
More
blogosphere discussion continued until
Roll Callbroke the story on July 26 that Chad Schuldt was
the employee accused of stealing the money. Subsequently,
National Review Online, the
Bayou Buzz and the
Rapid City Journal picked up the story and ran with
it, with the RCJ providing the most in-depth and thorough
coverage with their July 28 article and an
op/ed today. Yet after all these news outlets have picked up the
story, more than a week later we still only have the original 137
words from the Argus Leader.
Maybe it's
just me, but I find it curious that the Argus Leader, which
Google Maps says is about six blocks or six-tenths of a mile from
Hildebrand Tewes, was unable to get more information on this story.
But somehow Roll Call could find out from over 1,000 miles
away in Washington, DC, as could the Rapid City Journal from
350 miles away? Couldn't the Argus have at least sent a cub
reporter sauntering over to Hildebrand Tewes on a lunch break or
something?
As the
Argus Leader marched on under radio silence, even some blogs
not known for their conservative leanings began to question the
newspaper's commitment to objective reporting.
Was the
Argus intentionally sitting on the information? Were they just
asleep at the wheel? At the risk of painting with a brush that's too
broad, and as contradictory as this statement will sound, a lot of
folks in the media do a very good job of insulating themselves from
what's going on around them. Some that have developed the elitist
worldview that the average reader doesn't know what matters and what
doesn't, often end up ignoring leads, angles and stories simply
because it isn't interesting to them.
Other times,
however, the case seems too strong to ignore that maybe sometimes
the media ignores a story specifically because it may be
interesting to too many people, or to the wrong people.
There's been
discussion going back at least to 2003 that some Argus Leader
staff
connections to the Democratic Party have led to "exceptionally
favorable" political coverage for Democrats. I don't know what
editorial decisions went into the 137 words of coverage the Argus
gave this story, but a reasonable person has to wonder what's going
on--and many already are wondering.
On the other
side of the political aisle, the Argus Leader doesn't seem to
cut much slack for Republicans. When someone wants a list of people
with whom Governor Mike Rounds went pheasant hunting, the Argus
is there with bells on. When someone demands a blanket list of state
employee salaries in a Republican administration, they're first in
line. The media has also relentlessly pursued the the anonymous
donation in support of the abortion ban made to Rep. Roger Hunt's
Promising Future Inc. last year. But when the story involves a
Democrat party operative...you just hear the crickets chirping.
The argument
by some that this was just a local Sioux Falls embezzlement story
just doesn't float. $100,000 may be small potatoes when you consider
what some campaigns cost these days, but can you name any other
situation where the theft of $100,000 would be considered
un-newsworthy, even too un-newsworthy for a small article that
quickly answered the basic Five W's of reporting (Who, What, When,
Where and Why)?
Further, when
you consider that Hildebrand-Tewes is a high-profile consulting
company that has worked for former Senator Tom Daschle in the past
and currently works for the South Dakota Democratic Party, Senator
Barak Obama of Illinois (who, incidentally, is running for president
of the United States in 2008) and Senator Robert Byrd of Virginia,
perhaps all the people who have made financial contributions to
these political entities, and the public in general, might be at
least a little bit interested?
Some might
recall, too, that it was the Argus Leader that recently came
unglued when a local businessman took a passing
potshot at the commonly observed bias (as the
laughter of the crowd indicates) of the newspaper. Not only does
the newspaper appear biased, and not only can't they take a joke, it
seems the paper is willing to take someone's comments drastically
out of context, leaving no semblance whatsoever to a "reasonable
facsimile" of what the person really said.
Journalism is
a noble profession, and a free media has a great responsibility in
any country. A healthy democratic society and its informed citizens
depend on journalists to be alert for events relevant to government
and public policy, and to investigate and present those matters
thoroughly and objectively. The accurate perceptions of the public,
and the subsequent ripple effect on public policy, depends on the
media's willingness and ability to do the job fairly, objectively
and thoroughly.
In the eyes of
the law, Schuldt remains innocent until proven guilty. However, the
state and national scope of the work Hildebrand-Tewes does makes
this story thoroughly newsworthy. It's a pity the people of South
Dakota couldn't rely on the hometown newspaper to deliver the story.
