RI Report's Tom Shevlin is giving some appropriate grief to the Providence Journal -- which on Sunday carried the news of former US Senator Linc Chafee's disaffiliation from the Republican Party -- for slighting the Rhode Island blogosphere.
As indicated toward the bottom of this post, Shevlin and the conservative blog Anchor Rising broke the Chafee story on Saturday.
Shevlin notes that the ProJo, starting Sunday, ran stories for three successive days about Chafee's defection. Following the initial front-page story, the coverage included a projo.com update with reaction from the local and national blogosphere, and then another print story on Tuesday.
I say good for the Journal. Milk it for all it’s worth. Sell some papers. Hire some more staff reporters (hint).
But be consistent.
Sunday morning, the vast majority of Rhode Islanders awoke with the impression that somehow the Providence Journal had by chance asked Chafee if he had left the GOP . . . . [The story] goes on “Chafee said he disaffiliated from the party ‘in June or July,’ making him an unaffiliated voter. He did so quietly, and until Sunday, he said, ‘No one's asked me about it.’ He said he made the move because ‘I want my affiliation to accurately reflect my status.’ ” [Emphasis in original]
So did the Journal just decide to ask him about it? Why ever would they do that?
What the Journal failed to mention, but which I reported on Saturday along with AnchorRising, is that Chafee’s disaffiliation was discovered by an eagle-eyed RIGOP activist who had specific questions regarding Chafee’s registration status . . . .
No, there was no press release from Senator Chafee; no press conference or unsolicited phone call to the Journal newsroom. Chafee had kept his disaffiliation quiet for several months before the news broke, and without the diligence of one nosy party activist, the Journal and the rest of us probably still wouldn’t know about it.
Shevlin closes out his post by noting that he's under no illusions.
I realize that the meager readership of the Rhode Island blogosphere pales in comparison to that of the Providence Journal and makes bloggers for the most part bit players in the news cycle. Personally, it would be a dream to one day have the opportunity to write for a paper like the Journal.
But if the Journal chose not to cite these bit players in their “original” reporting, then perhaps they shouldn’t have used reaction to Chafee’s disaffiliation for the basis of their follow-up story on Monday. Especially if those reactions were taken from a blog which carried the real story the day before the Journal’s own report ran.