{"id":21876,"date":"2010-09-24T07:13:29","date_gmt":"2010-09-24T13:13:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=21876"},"modified":"2010-09-27T08:06:56","modified_gmt":"2010-09-27T14:06:56","slug":"the-truth-about-joe-monahan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/09\/the-truth-about-joe-monahan\/","title":{"rendered":"The truth about Joe Monahan"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Heath Haussamen<\/p><\/div>\n

I rarely respond to anything political blogger Joe Monahan has to say, so when he wrote about me on Thursday, I was tempted to ignore it completely. Monahan reports rumors and frequently gets his facts wrong, and I realized long ago that he was not to be taken seriously.<\/p>\n

Then I started getting phone calls, texts and e-mails from people who were taking what Monahan wrote about me seriously. And I realized that perhaps one reason people take him seriously is because people like me don\u2019t call him out.<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s the truth about the rumor Monahan spread about me, and the truth about Monahan.<\/p>\n

Monahan was writing on Thursday about dueling polls released by the Republican gubernatorial candidate Susana Martinez and Democratic candidate Diane Denish. In writing about Martinez\u2019s poll, he posted this:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe poll was released through Las Cruces political reporter Heath Haussamen<\/a> whose own financial prospects could improve if Susana wins. He\u2019s getting prominent mentions in political circles as a possible communications director for a \u2018Governor Martinez.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It won\u2019t be surprising to people who pay attention to such things to learn that Monahan doesn\u2019t have his facts straight. The poll wasn\u2019t released \u201cthrough\u201d me. It was released on Wednesday to Chris Cillizza, a reporter for the Washington Post whose blog post<\/a> about it went up at 4 a.m. New Mexico time on Thursday. I wasn\u2019t sent the poll until after that.<\/p>\n

On to more important matters\u2026<\/p>\n

Not interested in a job from Martinez<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Shortly after Monahan posted his blog, I received an e-mail from a Democratic insider asking if I could assure him that \u201cdiscussions like this are not under way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The answer: Such discussions are not underway, have not taken place, and will not take place. I am not a \u201cpossible communications director\u201d for Martinez if she wins the governor\u2019s race. There\u2019s not enough money in the world to get me to work for Martinez or Denish.<\/p>\n

I was last approached about a government public relations job by someone in the Richardson administration in 2007, before I was blacklisted by the Governor\u2019s Office. The job would have paid much more than this site makes. I told that person something that is still true now: Thanks, but no thanks. I have no interest in government public relations and I have no interest in moving to Santa Fe. End of story.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not looking for a government job. I like working for myself.<\/p>\n

To be as clear as I can be: I have not been approached about a job by Martinez or anyone tied to Martinez and I have not approached Martinez or anyone tied to Martinez about a job. I\u2019m not seeking such a job and would not take one if offered it, no matter how much the job pays (and the governor\u2019s communications director makes quite a bit of money).<\/p>\n

That\u2019s exactly what I would have told Monahan\u2026 if he had bothered to ask.<\/p>\n

But of course, checking facts isn\u2019t what Monahan does. He prints rumors and dares people to call him out when he\u2019s wrong \u2013 because by getting people to call him out, he gets them to pay attention to him. It\u2019s about making himself feel more important than he is.<\/p>\n

Monahan is a blogger and PR professional<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Monahan\u2019s posting put in people\u2019s heads the idea that I would compromise this site\u2019s integrity by trying to secure a job in a potential governor\u2019s administration while also reporting on the governor\u2019s race. That\u2019s offensive because it\u2019s something I would never do.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s exactly the sort of thing Monahan has done over the years.<\/p>\n

Monahan recently disclosed<\/a> that he \u201cdid some professional PR work\u201d for Secretary of State Mary Herrera\u2019s office in 2008. Blogger M.G. Bralley wrote on his own site<\/a> that Monahan\u2019s disclosure came after he told Monahan \u201cwhat I had learned about his work for the SoS\u2019s office and asked if he wanted to make a comment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bralley quoted Monahan as saying that he\u2019s made the disclosure before. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s true or not. I\u2019ve been unable to find it. Regardless, it doesn\u2019t appear that Monahan has ever told us how much he was paid to work for Herrera\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

Even more problematic is the evidence that Monahan blogs about politicians while he\u2019s working for them without disclosing it. If you check out documents I obtained from the City of Albuquerque through a records request (here<\/a> and here<\/a>), you\u2019ll find that Monahan did contract work for former Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez\u2019s administration in 2004 and 2005 \u2013 while he was blogging about Chavez\u2019s 2005 re-election bid.<\/p>\n

The documents indicate that the city paid Monahan $21,875 over those two years to do public relations work related to the city Environmental Health Department\u2019s \u201cair aware\u201d campaign \u201cto reduce air pollution from mobile sources in an effort to improve air quality and keep Bernalillo County out of ozone nonattainment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where was the disclosure of that? I couldn\u2019t find mention of it. In fact, on June 20, 2005, it was left out of a \u201cfull disclosure\u201d<\/a> Monahan posted on his site related to the mayoral race:<\/p>\n

\u201cHere\u2019s some \u2018full disclosure\u2019 for you as we blog the 05\u2019 mayor\u2019s race. I consulted the 93\u2019 Mayor\u2019s race with R Cargo, Baca in 97\u2019 and the 01\u2019 battle for Mayor Marty. I covered the first one in 74\u2019 for KUNM-FM. In 81\u2019 I was working in Washington, D.C. In 85\u2019 I covered for then KGGM-TV, now KRQE-TV. In 89\u2019 I was working for the city in PR. In 05\u2019 I\u2019m blogging. Since 1989 I have anchored and produced live Election Night coverage for every major state and city election for KANW 89.1 FM in ABQ. We\u2019ll do it again this year with top NM lobbyist Scottt Scanland and my other experts on Oct. 4.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What did he say he was doing in 2005? \u201cBlogging.\u201d No mention of the PR contract with Chavez\u2019s administration.<\/p>\n

Monahan also posted this<\/a> on April 18, 2005:<\/p>\n

\u201cMy main biz is public relations and consulting. I disclose that at the top of the blog. I seldom blog about an issue or cause that I am working on because often it is not connected to politics, but if I do I disclose my interest. \u2026 I believe my readers need to know when I am professionally involved in something and making comments or predictions about it so they can weigh that.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019m not for sale<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Monahan works for politicians \u2013 or at least the agencies they run \u2013 while he\u2019s blogging about them. I do not. I have worked to set up a system that discloses to you how this site is funded. You can view the list of NMPolitics.net\u2019s financial contributors here<\/a>. Most of the rest of this site\u2019s funding comes through advertising (you can see who advertises by looking at their ads on the site). A small percentage of funding comes through syndication of this site\u2019s articles for services like LexisNexis and sales of photo reprint rights.<\/p>\n

I also post ethical guidelines for my site and disclose potential conflicts here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I recently gave up a more lucrative job at The New Mexico Independent to try to make this site financially viable because I believe in this site. I have no intention of compromising this site\u2019s journalistic integrity for money. I\u2019m not for sale.<\/p>\n

Haussamen bio<\/a> \u2502\u00a0Commentary archives<\/a> \u2502\u00a0Feed<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Political blogger Joe Monahan reports rumors and frequently gets his facts wrong, but there\u2019s more to tell about him. Here\u2019s the truth about the rumor Monahan spread about me on Thursday, and the truth about Monahan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,10],"tags":[134,137],"class_list":["post-21876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-haussamen-columns","tag-media","tag-news-about-this-site"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21876\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}