ABQ Journal Reporters on the Defensive

A Duke City Fix (DCF) post on First Mate Sandra Richardson's email detailing Captain Greg Payne's role in Honey Bee Paulette De'Pascal's campaign is generating a very animated comment discussion on the responsibility of MSM reporters.

Two of the Albuquerque Journal's reporters, John Fleck and Dan McKay have been pulled into the discussions. Most notable is this comment by Mr. Fleck:

"Great story. Better if true."

Corroboration is the difference between a wonderful tale (and a delightful blog item) and a defensible newspaper story - in this case, the difference between a bizarre email by a whack job and wrongdoing by a city official.

The problem is that Mr. Fleck's excuse for the Journal not covering the story (i.e. Mrs. Richardson is a "whack job") does not hold water. In fact, a quick Google search indicates that Mrs. Richardson is a very involved community member:

Albuquerque Tricentennial
Library Advisory Board
Participant in the Town Hall on Albuquerque's Energy Future
Quality of Life Initiative - Campaign Member

And the list goes on. I'm not sure why the Journal continues to ignore this story, but some of the DCF's readers have some great ideas about how the Journal might go about reporting it - if they were so inclined.

Greg Payne Responds To Sandra Richardson

I had some calls from folks yesterday wondering about the authenticity of that email I posted from Sandra Richardson yesterday. Well, I heard from Greg Payne himself, and now there is no doubt it's real:

Mario,

Following is my response -- on Sunday, July 15th from my own computer -- to the e-mail you've since posted from Sandra Richardson, dated July 14th.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: Paulette, THE PLAN and the structure
From: greg@gregpayne.com
Date: Sun, July 15, 2007 8:44 am
To: "Sandra P. Richardson" <sprichardson@comcast.net>
Cc: ckb8249@msn.com, depascal@aol.com

Please forward this to Mike Collins. He'll be consulting Paulette on the campaign.

Thanks,

Greg

Greg feels confident that this indicates that someone other than himself would be working or "consulting" on the campaign. And, he asks people to consider if he were running the show, why would he want it forwarded to somebody else?

So my friends, what do you think? Don't be shy, go ahead and put your comments below.