Iowa Independent Runs with Rumors

Iowa Independent Runs with Rumors
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Dueling headlines, with rumors the snack of the day.

Here's the headline the Off the Bus editor ran on Huffington Post:

Accusations That Clinton Campaign Has Fixed Upcoming Iowa Debate

Here's Chase Martyn's headline on Iowa Independent, which is the same post cross-posted above:

Chase and I have become colleagues over the last months. He is a regular guest on my radio show, and I have respect for him, but this post crosses the line and I told him so this morning on the phone. In fact, we talked about the Brown and Brown dinner this week on my show. We had a very lively discussion on the phone today about it as well.

I don't care who wins Iowa. Let me first get that out.

However, when rumors were flying about Obama busing people in to the Jefferson Jackson dinner, what did the Iowa Independent write? Not one word until the dinner was over. They evidently couldn't prove Obama's campaign did anything wrong.

Too bad the Clinton camp can't get the same treatment, which is the very definition of what journalism is all about.

Instead, Iowa Independent runs with rumors, even though the Clinton camp denies emphatically stacking the Black and Brown forum this weekend. Is that up front? No. It's buried in Chase's post. Is the headline Clinton camp denies stacking Iowa forum used? No. Instead Iowa Independent decides to play National Inquirer with the upcoming event, which the Off the Bus editors at Huffington Post make worse.

There are many rumors that the Black and Brown event has been handled badly. If anyone in charge is stacking it towards Clinton, prove it. Wayne Ford and Mary Campos are getting slammed pretty hard by rumors and innuendo, and so is Clinton's Iowa camp. If they've done anything wrong they will then have to take the heat, but where is the proof as it stands today?

Whether it's Clinton's Iowa team rumored to be doing it this weekend, or Obama's team stacking the Jefferson Jackson dinner with 18 year olds, it should be exposed as what it is: playing politics. Interesting how no one bitched about Obama stacking the JJ dinner, including Clinton. But the Vegas debate, held in a state where Clinton is ahead by a mile, had everyone crying that too many Clintonites were in the audience. Can you sense the double standard?

I also have to wonder why the Iowa Independent isn't running a story on Obama's health care ad, which is flatly false? Why isn't that a big story in Iowa? After all, Mr. Obama is asserting he will cover all Americans when it's been proven that his plan does not.

Again, if the organizers of the Brown and Black event, or Clinton's Iowa people, are doing anything corrupt, prove it. I'll trumpet the reporting, blast it in a post and help expose the culprits. But as of today Iowa Independent has bupkis.

One last point that is important. Iowa Independent isn't allowed to endorse candidates because of their status. But just because they don't do it in an op-ed doesn't mean they aren't doing it through their posts.

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