Media frustration and Democratic denial

By Michael Fraase

Thursday, 02 November 2000 10:40PM CST

Section: Politics

Billionaires for Bush (or Gore)Well whaddaya know? The Saint Paul Pioneer Press finally picked up the vote-swap story. It’s only one of the most important political stories of the year, and it only took them a week to stumble upon it. Actually, it’s doubtful they would have stumbled upon it at all if the California and Minnesota Secretaries of State hadn’t declared the effort illegal.

Predictably, the story in the Pioneer Press carried a typically mainstream spin. (The Pioneer Press, a Knight-Ridder paper, must not be able to afford a decent content management system for its website, so that link will probably be dead in a day or so.) Rick Stafford, chairman of Gore’s campaign in Minnesota, was quoted in the piece as saying, “If (the Nader traders) can’t compromise a little bit…. they shouldn’t be playing games and trading their votes with other people in other states.”

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We get what we deserve

By Michael Fraase

Sunday, 29 October 2000 09:41PM CST

Section: Politics

You know we’re in for it this election year when the local paper quotes someone as having decided to vote for a candidate because the opponent’s television ad voice-over is whiny. “The nasal quality of the lady he had doing them is what finally got to me. ‘Now come on, Mark Dayton….’ That whiny, nasal thing. That’s what did it, what put me over the edge.” That’s the exact quote from today’s Saint Paul Pioneer Press.

It’s not just that this is “news” (and maybe a good argument in another era for a voter-intelligence test). It’s that this was the front page, below-the-fold, lead. If Gore hadn’t been in town pan-handling for votes and spare change and if the Minnesota pro basketball team hadn’t gotten caught cheating this would have likely been the paper’s headline. Right next to the alleged rapes in one of the city’s high schools. What’s especially sad is that the Dayton-Grams race is one of the few—locally or nationally—that offers even the appearance of a choice. (Dayton brags about being on Nixon’s enemy list and Grams figures Dayton is a subversive and should be ashamed.)

It’s sad, but what’s truly disgusting is that the same paper (and every other mainstream media outlet in the region) has managed to miss what looks to me to be two enormously important stories.

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