{"id":9390,"date":"2009-11-13T16:02:49","date_gmt":"2009-11-13T23:02:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=9390"},"modified":"2009-11-15T23:43:05","modified_gmt":"2009-11-16T06:43:05","slug":"the-media-including-me-needs-to-step-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/11\/the-media-including-me-needs-to-step-up\/","title":{"rendered":"The media (including me) needs to step up"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Heath

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

It\u2019s ironic that I had to write an article this week about discovering improper spending on news releases sent to the media in 2004. Why didn\u2019t I and others recognize the problem five years ago?<\/h4>\n

The irony of having to write an article<\/a> this week that revealed, for the first time, the improper spending of public money on political news releases sent to the media five years ago isn\u2019t lost on me.<\/p>\n

The fact that it was inappropriate for government officials who work for Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a> and Lt. Gov. Diane Denish<\/a> to send out political news releases on government letterhead was apparently unnoticed by the media when the releases were distributed in 2004. Earlier this week, I came across those news releases online and wrote an article about how such an expenditure of public money is improper.<\/p>\n

Acknowledging that, Denish\u2019s campaign is reimbursing the state for the cost of producing and distributing three news releases and for other political activity. Richardson\u2019s office has still not responded to request for comment about whether he sees a problem with something his office did that is blatantly inappropriate.<\/p>\n

I choose those words carefully: \u201cBlatantly inappropriate.\u201d That\u2019s exactly what using public funds for political activity is.<\/p>\n

So why was it a revelation, five years after the fact, that Richardson and Denish did something inappropriate by using public money to send out these news releases? Why didn\u2019t the media pick up on that fact five years ago?<\/p>\n

By the media, I mean every journalist who was getting those news releases. That includes me.<\/p>\n

I have no memory of receiving releases from then-Denish spokeswoman Lauran Cowdrey. I was working at the Las Cruces Sun-News at the time, and my primary beat was county government. I don\u2019t think I was ever on Denish\u2019s distribution list when I worked at the Sun-News, and I don\u2019t recall ever meeting or talking with Cowdrey.<\/p>\n

However, I do remember receiving Richardson\u2019s news release — from spokesman Gilbert Gallegos — about the governor being pleased with then-Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry\u2019s selection of John Edwards to be his running mate. I don\u2019t recall it ever occurring to me, until I rediscovered that news release this week, that it was inappropriate.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019m to blame, along with the rest of the media, for not calling out the governor and lieutenant governor for this inappropriate behavior when it occurred.<\/p>\n

An awakening<\/h3>\n

In the last several years, New Mexico has had an awakening of sorts as it relates to ethical behavior in government. Corruption has landed two former state treasurers, a former state Senate president and others in jail, and criminal charges against a number of other current and former public officials are pending.<\/p>\n

Calls for ethics reform have grown louder as the depth of the political corruption in New Mexico has been revealed. Many state officials have, albeit slowly, come around to the realization that government needs to change. New Mexico still has a long way to go.<\/p>\n

So I guess it makes sense that, five years ago and before the corruption dominoes started falling, the media was also, to some degree, not paying attention. There are probably a number of reasons for that, and they have more to do with the institution of journalism in New Mexico than they do with individual journalists.<\/p>\n

There are many good reporters in New Mexico. But, as traditional media organizations collapse under financial strain, there are too few of us, and we\u2019re all busy, have limited resources to work with and are constantly being doused by a fire hose that\u2019s spewing public relations spin at us.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean journalists haven\u2019t done important stories over the years, but it hasn\u2019t been consistent, and it hasn\u2019t been enough. After all, if New Mexico had a strong tradition of watchdog journalism that rooted out corruption, our state would not be as crooked as it has become in the first decade of the 21st Century.<\/p>\n

Yes, the media\u2019s role in society is that important.<\/p>\n

New Mexico\u2019s media has taken some steps in recent years to become a more aggressive government watchdog, but we\u2019ve still got a ways to go. I\u2019ll try to take that to heart as I continue to do work I consider important for a healthy Democracy.<\/p>\n

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

It\u2019s ironic that I had to write an article this week about discovering improper spending on news releases sent to the media by the governor and lieutenant governor in 2004. Why didn\u2019t I and others recognize the problem five years ago?<\/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-9390","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\/9390","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=9390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9390\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}