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The Washington Post busts the Madison County Record.
The Madison County Record, an Illinois weekly newspaper launched in September that bills itself as the county’s legal journal, reports on one subject: the state courts in southern Illinois. A recent front page carried an assortment of stories about lawsuits against businesses. […]Nowhere was it reported that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce created the Record as a weapon in its multimillion-dollar campaign against lawyers who file those kinds of suits.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce created the Madison County Record.
“We wanted to educate [the people] that their county is the laughingstock of the country” because of the large number of lawsuits filed there, said Stanton D. Anderson, chief legal officer for the chamber, which is a part owner of the Record. […]
Through a common acquaintance, Anderson met Brian Timpone, 32, co-owner of a small chain of community newspapers in Illinois. Over the summer, Timpone agreed to become the Record’s publisher with the chamber as his silent benefactor. The chamber has poured about $200,000 into the 6,000-circulation broadsheet and expects to invest more, Anderson said.
The chamber hopes the Record’s influence will spread beyond Madison County and help push tort reform nationally. Anderson distributes the Record to interested companies and business trade associations. Timpone sells subscriptions to law firms and companies across the nation — some of which have cases pending in the county.
$200,000 and the Chamber is only part-owner? Not a bad gig if you can get it. My hat’s off to Timpone
Seriously, I remember the days when the Chicago Federation of Labor owned a popular music station, WCFL. But the Chicago Fed never hid the fact that it owned “Super CFL.” Its slogan, “The Voice of Labor,” was repeated throughout the day and they did some labor-oriented programming (mostly at times when nobody was listening).
Timpone said the chamber doesn’t dictate the paper’s news content and he defends the stories he runs as genuine news. He said he chose not to divulge the Record’s connection to the chamber in print because “I was afraid we’d be prejudged. I thought, ‘Let people judge us by our actions.’
Actually, the paper isn’t too bad, although its bias is pretty clear in editorial comments and story choices.
Interestingly enough, the Post’s article hasn’t been picked up by any papers in Illinois that I could find , although Reason has an Op-Ed up.
posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Dec 9, 04 @ 2:26 pm
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So when the Record ran a story last fall, about a poll that showed the candidate who got $2 million in U.S. Chamber money was leading in the supreme court race, and identified the source of the poll as only “a pro-business group”, was it hiding a conflict of interest by not identifying both the source of the poll and the Chamber’s roll in the paper’s ownership?
Comment by Anonymous Thursday, Dec 9, 04 @ 3:42 pm
Interesting, Mr Miller. Amiel Cueto, years ago, created a scandal sheet to disparage, denigrate, and deride federal prosecutors, hence Marilyn “Miss Piggy†Mequelon and the man whom they called “Flounder†which sounds like a fish but evidently that was a character in “Animal House.†So he and Costello were, evidently, film conissuers.
Comment by AmyEAllen Thursday, Dec 9, 04 @ 4:40 pm
Cueto’s problem was he attacked the heat. Never attack the heat if you’re being a really bad boy.
Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Dec 9, 04 @ 10:23 pm
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran a front page story on Wednesday. I have to say, along with the delayed reporting of the armor (and other) problems in Iraq, I’ve become increasingly irked with the failure of major “news” outlets to get the public the info it needs to make informed decisions in a timely manner. If they want to publish history books, fine, otherwise, get it to us when it happens. Otherwise, it isn’t “news” anymore. Capitol Fax, of course, remains an exception.
Comment by Anonymous Friday, Dec 10, 04 @ 2:40 pm
I was grateful to have already read your post on this when I heard our NPR affiliate’s story a couple of days ago. I like the station, but it sounded like the local reporter was reading directly from a Chamber press release this time. Thanks for trying to treat complicated issues (which tort reform and conflicts of interest generally are) with some attention to nuance.
Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Dec 14, 04 @ 12:14 pm