{"id":38324,"date":"2012-03-26T06:56:37","date_gmt":"2012-03-26T12:56:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=38324"},"modified":"2012-03-26T11:38:37","modified_gmt":"2012-03-26T17:38:37","slug":"sanchez-and-reporter-should-admit-mistakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2012\/03\/sanchez-and-reporter-should-admit-mistakes\/","title":{"rendered":"Sanchez and reporter should admit mistakes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Heath<\/a>

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

The lieutenant governor may have embellished when talking about voting for Ronald Reagan, but the reporter who criticized him failed to present the most obvious possibility: that Sanchez simply misspoke.<\/h4>\n

I didn\u2019t realize I was stepping into controversy when I wrote a short post<\/a> last week about a newspaper article claiming Lt. Gov. John Sanchez<\/a> said he voted in the 1980 presidential election \u2013 which wasn\u2019t possible unless he did it illegally.<\/p>\n

Milan Simonich<\/a>, who covers the Roundhouse for the Las Cruces Sun-News and several other New Mexico newspapers, wrote the article<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At the recent GOP preprimary nominating convention, Simonich wrote, \u201cSanchez spoke of the pride he felt as an 18-year-old when he voted for Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election.\u201d The problem, according to Simonich: \u201c\u2026every record we have checked shows that Sanchez was born on Jan. 11, 1963. Therefore, he would not have reached the legal voting age of 18 until 1981 \u2013 two months after Reagan\u2019s election.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simonich said there were three possibilities: Sanchez \u201ccould be older than his stated age of 49,\u201d might have told \u201can embellishment to inspire his audience,\u201d or voted illegally for Reagan before he turned 18.<\/p>\n

Sanchez has a history of telling eyebrow-raising stories, so Simonich\u2019s claim didn\u2019t surprise me and I wrote about it.<\/p>\n

Things get nasty<\/h3>\n

My first clue that something might be wrong with Simonich\u2019s reporting came on Facebook when I shared a link to my post. State Rep. Dennis Roch said this<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cI was at the convention. As I recall, he merely said that he was proud that one of the first people he voted for after turning 18 was Ronald Reagan. (He may just as easily have been talking about Reagan\u2019s re-election in 1984 as his initial election in 1980.)\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Things moved quickly after that. News New Mexico<\/a> listened to an audio recording of Sanchez\u2019s speech and reported that what he said was, \u201cMy very first vote when I turned 18 years old was for a man called Ronald Reagan.\u201d (The audio recording was made by the Santa Fe Reporter\u2019s Joey Peters<\/a>. You can listen to it here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

The right-leaning radio program posted a column<\/a> slamming Simonich for \u201cpouncing on\u00a0this seemingly nebulous slip of the tongue\u201d and accusing him of \u201ccleverly\u201d orchestrating a swipe at the secretary of state. That\u2019s because, in his post, Simonich wrote, \u201cNew Mexico\u2019s least effective sleuth, Secretary of State Dianna Duran, publicly said last year that she had evidence of more than 100 people voting unlawfully. Sanchez was not among Duran\u2019s suspects, but his own testimony leaves him open to her next great investigation into voter fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simonich dug in his heels, writing in a new blog post<\/a>, \u201cMy piece about Lt. Gov. John Sanchez\u00a0saying he voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980 has the spinmasters at work, trying to rewrite a small bit of history.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have attempted to challenge the story with statements on other websites. That is their right, but their facts are wrong. They know it too,\u201d he wrote. \u201cSanchez told a Republican convention on Saturday that he voted for Reagan just after he turned 18. Sanchez, now 49, was talking about the 1980 election.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanchez\u2019s office then released a statement that read, in part, \u201cI turned eighteen on January 11, 1981. The first time that I was able to cast a ballot for President was in 1984 and I proudly cast that vote for Ronald Reagan. On Saturday, I stated that \u2018My very first vote when I turned eighteen years old was for a man called Ronald Reagan.\u2019 I was referring to the first time that I was able to cast a ballot for President after turning eighteen years old.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simonich added an update after Sanchez sent out his news release. In it, he claimed the lieutenant governor\u2019s \u201cown words demonstrate the accuracy of what I wrote about him,\u201d and thanked Sanchez for his \u201chonesty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanchez might have misspoken<\/h3>\n

What to make of all of this? First let\u2019s talk about Sanchez. He certainly might have been embellishing to \u201cinspire his audience.\u201d Or he might have misspoken.<\/p>\n

What Sanchez said was, \u201cMy very first vote when I turned 18 years old was for a man called Ronald Reagan.\u201d If you change one word \u2013 \u201cMy very first vote AFTER I turned 18\u2026\u201d \u2013 the statement would be mostly accurate (if you ignore the mid-term election in 1982 and assume he was referring to presidential votes). In fact, look back at Roch\u2019s recollection of the speech, and the word \u201cafter\u201d is what he heard. One word makes a difference.<\/p>\n

But Sanchez\u2019s statement is subject to skepticism if for no other reason than because he\u2019s a politician. Add his history, and there\u2019s certainly reason to question what he said and why.<\/p>\n

Which Simonich did. So let\u2019s talk about him.<\/p>\n

As a profession, journalism needs to do a better job of calling a spade a spade and not getting caught up in the spin and counter spin tossed at it all day long. Simonich was attempting to do that.<\/p>\n

But if you\u2019re going to call a spade a spade, you had better be certain you can back up your claim.<\/p>\n

Sanchez didn\u2019t state that he was referring to the 1980 election, but Simonich wrote, \u201cSanchez, now 49, was talking about the 1980 election.\u201d<\/p>\n

I e-mailed Simonich last week to ask how he was certain. I\u2019ve not heard back. There\u2019s no added context in Sanchez\u2019s speech that points to the 1980 election instead of the 1984 contest.<\/p>\n

Most telling is that, when Simonich laid out the three possibilities he saw \u2013 that Sanchez was older than stated, that he lied, or that he committed voter fraud \u2013 the journalist left out the most obvious possibility, that Sanchez simply misspoke.<\/p>\n

Politicians misspeak all the time. Journalists do it. I\u2019ve done it on this site, and on News New Mexico. We all do it.<\/p>\n

The importance of admitting mistakes<\/h3>\n

Simonich\u2019s assumption that Sanchez was talking about the 1980 election is one of two possible interpretations of the facts, but it\u2019s not definitively proven by the facts. Instead of admitting that, Simonich has dug in his heels.<\/p>\n

Peters wrote about this last week after interviewing me. Here\u2019s what he quoted me as saying in his article<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cTo make sense of this, I asked NMPolitics.net\u2019s Heath Haussamen what he would have done if he were in Simonich\u2019s shoes.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Certainly I would have asked the lieutenant governor for clarification before writing anything,\u2019 he told me.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unclear whether Simonich did that.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaussamen says he\u2019s surprised to see Simonich \u2018dig in his heels\u2019 over the matter. \u201cHaussamen adds that it can be hard for journalists to admit that they\u2019ve made a mistake. He recalls inaccuracies he reported last year concerning charges against former District Judge Mike Murphy, which resulted\u00a0in a post apologizing to his readers and to Murphy<\/a>.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We must admit our mistakes. Our credibility is at stake.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not surprised that Sanchez sent out a news release that danced around the fact that he misspoke \u2013 or worse. Too many politicians do that. But journalists should hold themselves to a higher standard.<\/p>\n

The benefit of the doubt<\/h3>\n

We all have biases and make assumptions from time to time. But it\u2019s critical that journalists avoid jumping to conclusions without exploring all possibilities and learning the facts first. Otherwise they risk overlooking obvious possibilities, as Simonich did in this case.<\/p>\n

I disagree with News New Mexico. I don\u2019t think Simonich used Sanchez to \u201ccleverly\u201d orchestrate a swipe at Duran. I think he just screwed up.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to give Sanchez the same benefit of the doubt and assume he also simply misspoke.<\/p>\n

Unless the facts prove otherwise, the most obvious possibility is usually the correct one. I have no interest in playing the gotcha game. I just wish Simonich and Sanchez would own up to their mistakes.<\/p>\n

Haussamen bio<\/a>\u00a0\u2502\u00a0Commentary archives<\/a>\u00a0\u2502\u00a0Feed<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The lieutenant governor may have embellished when talking about voting for Ronald Reagan, but the reporter who criticized him failed to present the most obvious possibility: that Sanchez simply misspoke.<\/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":[134,107],"class_list":["post-38324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-haussamen-columns","tag-media","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38324","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=38324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38324\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}