Political Double-Standards?

I have never been a fan of unions - I have seen too many abuses (growing up in Chicago) by unions in their attempts to unionize businesses to tend to want to give then any leeway. That is why when the story of AG Lori Swanson's attempts to block the unionization of her office first surfaced, I gave her the benefit of the doubt. That was until Amy Lawler bravely came forward and told her story to the Eric Black at MinnPost and then subsequently was placed on "administrative leave" by the AG's office for doing so. It was at that point that I started paying attention to this case. The local televised media covered Lawler's suspension, but didn't dig any further into the story or her allegations. The Star Tribune devoted a couple of stories to the suspension but didn't dig much either. The St. Paul Pioneer Press didn't cover Lawler's allegations or suspension AT ALL. The only ones that really seemed interested in digging into the allegations raised by Lawler and others were MinnPost, Minnesota Public Radio, Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Delano) who has repeatedly asked Rep. Tony Sertich (DFL-Chisholm) to open legislative hearings on the issue and a multitude of center right blogs like Let Freedom Ring and the lefts favorite Minnesota Democrats Exposed.

Contrast that with the extensive coverage given to Rachel Paulose last fall. The Star Tribune had 20 stories on Paulose versus 7 on the Swanson allegations. KARE 11 was Paulose 22 - Lawler/Swanson 3 counting Friday's announcement of the Legislative Auditor's investigation. WDFL, er WCCO had 50 stories on the Paulose allegations to 3 for Lawler. KSTP had 32 stories on the Paulose allegations versus 4 for the Lawler suspension. Only the PiPress gave almost equal coverage to the stories.

So what is the difference between Lori Swanson and Rachel Paulose? Both are female lawyers who were high profile AG's - one state and on federal. Both are very aggressive - you have to be in their line of work. Both have (according allegations) rather brusque management styles. By all accounts, Ms. Paulose was a competent fairly well liked attorney who made a couple of mistakes and made amends for them. Ms. Swanson, on the other hand, is universally feared by her employees (see next post). She has been accused of asking her employees to falsify time cards, give improper advise to clients, file frivolous lawsuits and generally engage in ethically questionable behavior. So why the disparity in coverage?

The allegations against Ms. Swanson (see LFR where Gary has a copy of the letter sent to Deputy AG Olson), if accurate, are stunning in their scope. The letter is a peek at an office where political power was wielded like a weapon and woe to anyone who questioned the tactics taken or the orders given. It seems to me that this just the kind of story most reporters would give their eye teeth to have dropped in their laps and yet our local media seems curiously silent on the issue. Where are the investigative reporters in this town? Why has NO ONE outside of MinnPost, MPR and the blogosphere done any digging into this story? Why is the local media "covering up" for a DFL State AG when they were so eager to go after a Republican appointee US AG? These are questions that all media consumers need to be asking themselves.

More and more our local media outlets continue to give the impression that they are nothing more than a PR arm for DFL Party. They continue to lose viewers and readers and they don't seem to understand why. While I don't know what it will take for them to finally "get it", I simply can not let slide the most recent example of media bias that Minnesotans have come to expect from their local media.

A bit of housecleaning....I must correct a little sloppiness on my part. Rachel Paulose was not a USAG she was the US Attorney for the District of Minnesota. My apologies for the mistake.