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After reading yesterday’s post, someone at a Missouri newspaper made a good point: a newspaper’s editor, not the reporter, has the final say in what makes the print edition of the newspaper.

For me to criticize the reporter (1) for failing to cite the Arch City Chronicle assumes that the reporter did not include the citation in her original copy, and that is an unfair assumption.

Maybe the original version of today’s Kansas City Star piece gave the ACC credit for discovering the link between the Sandra Thomas campaign press release and Daryl Duwe, and an editor removed the reference. Who knows?

I’ve always had a feeling that political reporters, who visit Missouri blogs every day, value those blogs — and that their editors are the ones who consider bloggers to be second-rate muckrakers undeserving of the ink on their dead trees. (2)

Eventually — when the average old typewriter-era newspaper editor either assumes room temperature or discovers the Internet (3) — their chairs will be assumed by people who understand the medium.

Meanwhile, bloggers should continue to point out when newspapers take stories from bloggers and fail to cite them as a source. (4)

Unless bloggers keep pointing out when this happens (5), bloggers will continue to be treated like a mistress by the traditional media — newspapers will use us to satisfy their immediate needs, but never acknowledge our services in public. (6)

(1) The author of the article in question, Jo Mannies, is very good about citing blogs as sources in Political Fix posts. Witness last night’s post on the topic.

(2) Reporters and editors: Am I right?

(3) My money is on the former.

(4) While you would never expect the Missouri Republican Party to acknowledge a site like johncombest.com, it’s surprising that the Missouri Dems — who seem to know their USB port from a hole in the ground — didn’t cite the ACC as the source of the story.

(5) Roy Temple noted an example some time ago. I don’t remember all the details, but it was noteworthy because I agreed with every word he wrote.

(6) As pointed out in the Letters section of The New Yorker (Sept. 4, 2006 — not available online), bloggers on the left and right are united in their disdain for the arrogance of traditional media outlets. Using blogs as sources without giving them credit intensifies this perception.

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Stories affecting both of Missouri’s statewide races originated on blogs last week.

First, someone let local blogger PubDef into a meeting between Claire McCaskill and influential Democratic leaders, and the site posted comments McCaskill made to the assembled group. The reporting of McCaskill’s behind-closed-doors comments put her campaign on the defensive.

On Friday, Dave Drebes of the Arch City Chronicle taught campaigns the meaning of “File: Properties.” Witness the viral nature of today’s political communication: From the original link to an observant blogger, to another blogger, picked up and packaged into a press release by a political party, then finally covered by the traditional news media (which, in turn, failed to cite Drebes as the origin of the story). All this within a matter of hours.

On the national level, MSNBC began its partnership with National Journal last week. As far as I know, this arrangement — between a powerful television network and an influential blog network — is the first of its kind. The results are impressive.

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Your local and national news sources are providing you with lots of 9/11 coverage. Here is some more that you might otherwise have missed:

Tony Messenger: What happened to our civility, neighborliness?

Jack Buck’s speech at Busch Stadium after the attacks (video).

The 2996 project (link via Katie Favazza).

Barbara Smith: 9/11 attacks give us a new challenge.

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It takes a lot to get me to feel sympathy for a Democratic spokesperson.

But Claire McCaskill has done it.

You’ve read the articles, but have you heard the audio of the McCaskill campaign’s “explanation”? (1)

Yikes!

Last week, I wrote of Blunt spokesman Spence Jackson: “Spence is not so great — how could he be? — when he is forced to explain dumb mistakes made by others in the administration.”

The same can now be said for Adrianne Marsh and the actions of her boss. (2)

Put yourself in Adrianne’s shoes for a minute. Your campaign puts together an event for local Democratic activists. Like activists of all political persuasions, the most vocal and least productive ones are constantly whining that the candidate does not spend enough time with them.

Whoever is working the door at the meeting somehow keeps the face of the new St. Louis Democratic Party (state Sen.-elect Jeff Smith) out, but lets a guy with a video camera in. (3)

Operation Placation gets underway, and your candidate begins talking. She should, you think to yourself, politely listen to these men and women complain, pretend that their demands for more of the campaign’s time and attention and money are important, and be on her way to an event that actually matters.

But unfortunately, your candidate decides to play Moses and wanders into the rhetorical desert. She tries to show she relates to the black folks in the room — remember 2004, when she famously said that Matt Blunt was “dissing” St. Louis? — and then she says it:

“George Bush let people die on rooftops in New Orleans because they were poor and because they were black.”

If a candidate slips and no newspaper reporter is around to see it, does anyone end up reading about it? They do if an ambitious blogger was in the room. (4)

The lessons of this fiasco are many and varied. And when Claire’s staffers move on after the election, they will impart those lessons upon their next boss and hope that the candidate listens.

Claire has surely apologized to her spokeswoman by now, but words can only do so much. Did you hear Adrianne’s voice during that interview? Somebody needs a hug, Claire, and it needs to come from you.

(1) Besides being totally not-believable, the “many people felt” argument wouldn’t even make it into a Wikipedia entry (see ad populum arguments).

(2) I think it’s inaccurate to call Claire’s statement a mistake, because I don’t think she was being dishonest; I think she got caught saying something she really believed, and she didn’t think it would leave the room.

(3) This is what literary types call “foreshadowing.”

(4) Will candidates ever learn that with some people, there’s no such thing as “just between us”? Do they realize that it’s foolish to assume that party loyalty trumps all other considerations? This lesson is at least two decades old.

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