Did Knute Berger celebrated Crosscot.com's switch to a not-for-profit Journalist-ish media outlet with a little slander?
While pretending to be on the fence between the two Seattle mayoral candidates, Joe Mallahan and Mike McGinn, Berger slung a little mud (emphasis mine).
If Mike McGinn is a conviction candidate — as contrasted with Mallahan, who seems to be an avatar (or is it shill?) of Seattle's power establishment — he's undercutting his main strength, which is to take bold, challenging stands against the conventional wisdom. You can say this is smart politics, and I suppose it would be if he were running as a conventional politician, but everything about his campaign's appeal — the low budget, the accessibility of the candidate, the insurgent tactics, even the beard — have pointed in a different direction. Are we going to discover that McGinn is now just a more rumpled, perhaps more articulate but also more lawyerly version of Joe Mallahan.
Berger, McGinn's tunnel cave, Crosscut.com
Calling McGinn a rumpled lawyer is factually correct. Would it be a stretch to call Mike McGinn, and his development brokering company, a shill for local developers wanting to greenwash housing devepment?
Calling somebody a shill is a pretty serious charge. In some states it is against the law to be a shill. Berger should know this.
But I am not sure how Berger can call Mallahan a shill, as if he is he pretending to be someone that he is not in order to misslead people into buying into him?
So, I will just chalk this up to a political in-kind contribution from a non-profit media organization.
The other in-kind media contribution of the day was from Publicola.net's Erica C. Barnett, ironically from a column/report called Contribution of the Day. in this report Barnett lists who contributed money to which political campaign. But for Barnett the facts are not enough.
. . . conservative mayoral candidate Joe Mallahan.
Erica C. Barnett, Contribution of the Day, Publicola.net
This label prompted the first comment to the story to question the author:
1. Stacy, Stacey, Stacie says:
@ECB
“Conservative mayor candidate Joe Mallahan?”
Are you even going to pretend to be a journalist Erica? Susan Hutchison yes, Joe Mallahan no. That tag is bullshit and you know it.
The answer is clearly no, Barnett is not even going to bother to pretend to be a journalist. And yes, it is "bullshit".
A conservative candidate for mayor, in Seattle, really?
It looks like Publicola.net's endorsement of Mike McGinn for Mayor does not stop with its editorial staff (whoever that is).
What is the monitary value of media bias? Should Mike McGinn have to claim these labels applied to his opponent as a contribution?
No, but the public should be aware that these two media entities are not newspapers.
