As Quentin noted earlier today, the Argus Leader has ignored the Rapid City Journal story about the reconciliation between Russell Means and John Thune. That story was also picked up by the AP. When Means and Thune had a falling out earlier this year, the Argus Leader pounced on the AP report of the story, because it cast Thune in a negative light. Instead of reporting this positive development about Thune today, what does the Argus Leader report in huge headlines above the fold on page A1? A negative story about Thune headlined "Thune splits roles as lobbyist, candidate." Interestingly, the Argus Leader had a front page, above the fold story on Thune's lobbying on January 27, 2004 headlined "Candidate Thune plans to continue lobbyist job; Work helps state, he says."
This all makes sense if you know that Patrick Lalley, the Argus Leader editor who is the filter for what political stories get published and what ones don't get published, thinks Republicans are "evil" and has vowed to "work from the inside."
It seems that for the remaining three weeks of the campaign, the Argus Leader has decided to break its rule about not quoting campaign managers, and has turned long-time Daschle pal David Kranz loose to cover the Senate race. (Until lately, Jon Walker had been covering the Senate race.) Now that the AL is signaling its intent to take the gloves off in order to get Tom Daschle reelected, it's time to be particularly vigilant. From here on in, we'll be subjecting to even more careful scrutiny the facts or characterizations the Argus Leader chooses to include in each of its political stories, along with its choice of articles and the prominence they're given (to paraphrase Daniel Okrent). The Argus Leader's editors are already national laughingstocks. Over the next three weeks, they can redeem themselves or wallow in their laughingstock status. We bloggers will be here to observe which choice they make.
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