Cleveland newspaper has a novel strategy for covering one politician's falsehoods: Don't

[dalton99a]

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/cleveland-newspaper-has-a-novel-strategy-for-covering-one-politicians-falsehoods-dont/

Cleveland newspaper has a novel strategy for covering one politician’s falsehoods: Don’t
March 15, 2021 at 6:18 pm
By Marisa Iati
The Washington Post

Ohio’s biggest newspaper is taking an unusual tack toward covering falsehoods from a U.S. Senate candidate: It does not plan to do so at all.

The Plain Dealer in Cleveland said its journalists intend to ignore inaccurate statements from Republican Josh Mandel that they consider to be ploys for attention.

“Mandel is pretty much a nobody right now, a nobody begging for people to notice his Tweets a year ahead of the Senate primary,” Chris Quinn, The Plain Dealer’s editor, wrote in an opinion piece published Saturday. “Just because he makes outrageous, dangerous statements doesn’t mean it is news.”

Quinn’s decision is a marked departure from conventional journalistic wisdom that politicians’ statements inherently deserve coverage and that every story has at least two sides. Newsrooms across the country have increasingly reevaluated that tactic because of former president Donald Trump’s more than 30,000 false or misleading claims, many of which dominated the news cycle and helped him amass a following.

[Baitball Blogger]

1. This is not how these things work.

On the local level, politicians have their own cliques and support groups. They are used to "spread the story." If there is no authority setting the record straight, the locals have nothing but word of mouth to rely on.

Happened here in the nineties. The Orlando Sentinel allowed the county editors to censor their own information. As much as we tried to send the information downtown to the paper, they kept referring everything to their county rep. And the info kept getting buried. So, without an authority to challenge the lies that were being spread in the community, falsehoods were allowed to hold, even to this day.

[mopinko]

2. i'd say it's not a bad policy. but it's not a good one, either.

i applaud them for trying something, but at some point, they have to call the guy out as a liar.

maybe close to the election, do a big story and catalogue all the lies, and explain why they didnt print them.

the best strategy i have heard on this is the truth sandwich. say the truth 1st, not the lie. then repeat the truth, w evidence.

[machoneman]

3. Better: Post it all with chyrons/texts in big letters: this is a LIE!