Argus Leader skips Daschle corporate money story in Roll Call

A few months ago, I noted a troubling pattern developing at the Argus Leader, where negative stories about John Thune that appeared in Roll Call were covered the following day by the AL, while negative stories about Tom Daschle that appeared in Roll Call were never reported at all by the AL. Unfortunately, that pattern seems to be continuing.

Yesterday, Roll Call had a lengthy story headlined "PAC Dollars Favor Daschle" which reported that Tom Daschle had raised three times more corporate money than John Thune. This is a story that reflects negatively on Tom Daschle, as it deflates his "taking on the special interests in Washington" meme. And, of course, the Argus Leader did not follow up that Roll Call story in today's edition. It's remarkable how quickly they follow up negative Roll Call pieces on John Thune, and completely ignore negative Roll Call pieces on Tom Daschle. Once again, we are observing institutional bias at the Argus Leader. I'm currently investigating what I think may be behind this institutional bias, and will report my findings very soon. Stay tuned.