Delaware is a funny state. We don’t get live coverage of our gubernatorial debates like Pennsylvania and New Jersey do, so we have to trust what we read in the newspaper, unless we actually attend the event ourselves. And our only major (if you can call it major) is the Wilmington News Journal.
Last night, three of the four candidates for Governor, Jack Markell, John Carney and Mike Protack, attended a debate in Dover. Naturally, this morning’s lead story in the News Journal concerns that debate and the news about prison healthcare that emerged from the debate. This post is not about that news. It is about how the News Journal covers this story.
Read this follwing blurb below the fold and tell me how many candidates you think attended the debate last night.
The problems are difficult and complex, Markell said, but he said a criticism made in the report — that the system suffers from a “lack of stable and effective leadership” — is an apt metaphor for the Minner-Carney administration and the way it has managed the vendor. The administration should at least impose financial consequences for failure to meet performance expectations.
“From my experience in the business world, you have to have very clearly set objectives, milestones, and you have to have consequences for not hitting the milestones,” he said. “And you’ve got to ride herd. If the governor has to meet with them every week, every month — demanding that the CEO meets and explains, you don’t take no for an answer. What is it going to take to be successful?”
Carney will face Markell in the Democratic primary Sept. 9.
Republican candidate and retired Superior Court Judge Bill Lee said he agrees with Carney’s call to end the CMS contract, but wonders why it took so long for the lieutenant governor to reach that conclusion.
“I am glad to see John Carney has finally seen the light on this issue,” Lee said. “I am disappointed it took eight years and an election to find his voice. In fact, four years ago he staunchly defended the governor’s position on the prison issue during our campaign. This is clearly a transparent attempt by John to distance himself from the many failures of the Minner administration. It’s too late. Eight years of sitting silently during scandals like these makes John Carney an accomplice, not a leader.”
Mike Protack, who will face Lee in the GOP primary, said the state has suffered from mismanagement of the issue.
Hey! It looks like all four candidates attended last night’s debate! For you see, Retired Judge Bill Lee has a quote inserted amongst the statements the other candidates made at last night’s debate. Thus, the reader, if he or she did not know better, that Lee actually attended last night’s debate and made those quotes during the debate. And there is nothing before or after this little blurb in the article that dispels the notion that Lee actually attended the debate. With respect to the Lee quotes themselves, there is no mention that they came from an interview, or a campaign statement, or a press release. Now, there is a photo of the three candidates attending the debate last night, without Lee, but there is no caption saying that these three candidates were the only candidates in attendance last night.
Courtesy of the News Journal.
So, again, the reader can just assume that Lee is just sitting off to the side, out of the range of the camera. Thus, this News Journal story leaves its readers with a false impression as to reality, and that is not good journalism.
UPDATE: I finally found another story dealing with the debate at the Latino forum last night. In this article, it is clear that only three candidates attended. My criticisms of the main article still stand though, despite commenter Rainmaker’s assertions about my mental abilities.
UPDATE 2: And if the frontpage prison story is not about the debate, then why did the News Journal make it appear that way with their placement of the above photo in and around this story? (Click here to see larger versions)
