First, the AZRep actually publicizes how much lobbyists spend on our legislators, then Richard Ruelas pens a column detailing Maricopa County DA Andrew Thomas' penchant for awarding millions of dollars worth of contracts for outside law work to firms that help his election campaign.
Did Rush Limbaugh make a Viagra delivery to the editorial suites over there?
(This may not speak well of me, but my goal this week is to work a Rush reference into at least one post per day. :)) )
Of course, the lobbyist info is public info, available at the AZ Secretary of State's website, and the Phoenix New Times beat the Republic to press on calling out Thomas' ethical missteps.
But let's not quibble; anything resembling investigative reporting is an improvement for the Republic these days.
3 comments:
Seriously. I grew up reading the Arizona Republic, and only recently have I realized how much they just copy and paste from the AP or the NY or LA Times. The sort of reports they actually do investigative reporting are those cute family front-page specials. Give us some real friggin' news.
I get the Tribune now, so much better for local news.
I first visited AZ over Labor Day Weekend in 1992 (moved here a year later). As is my habit when traveling, whenever I visit a new city, even for a layover in the airport, I pick up a copy of the local newspapers.
The weekend that I was here, the Rep ran an unsigned editorial concerning the Census and accurate counts. I don't remember the exact wording, but it was basically "Don't put too much effort into counting poor people and minorities" or something similar.
The part that got me: Back home a few days later, I read the EXACT SAME piece, also published as an unsigned editorial, in the Boston Herald.
Since then, whenever I see an editorial in a local paper (particularly the Republic) about a non-local issue, I begin to wonder about the source of the piece.
I used to subscribe to the Trib, but their quality control (i.e. - proofreaders) was lousy, and they had a habit of running the same article in two different sections. For example, an article about the trend of new baseball stadiums for MLB would be both in Sports and Business.
Has it gotten any better? I liked the Trib otherwise, but always felt like it was a low-end weekly from Podunk masquerading as a competitive daily in a major market.
I haven't noticed any repeat articles, but they could use better proofreading.
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