The Shot!

[Tim Cameron] 

Magazine Criticizes “The Shot” While Funding McCain Blogger Efforts    

I’m writing this post in response to Newsweek’s article “The Dirty War Moves South”, since I was not afforded the opportunity to do so in their piece. I was not called or e-mailed once by any of the eight contributors to this article, which is something I believed to be a common journalistic courtesy. Instead of having the chance to defend myself to the readers of Newsweek numbering in the millions, I have to make my case to the few thousand loyal readers of my website. The only solace I take away from this fact is that the readers of my website are also the people who matter the most in my life.

Newsweek decries the fact that a person with a loose affiliation to a campaign has the opportunity to share their opinions with others saying:

Last year, just about the time that Tompkins signed on as Romney’s top South Carolina strategist, a new blog of state politics, The Shot, popped up. Much of it was filled with standard political gossip and news, but some readers detected a pattern of barbs aimed at McCain, Fred Thompson and every other GOP candidate—except Romney. The Shot turned out to be the creation of an employee of Tompkins’s consulting firm.

Deceptively, Newsweek fails to mention they have been paying for and promoting this behavior on behalf of Sen. John McCain campaign for president.  This past December, The Politico broke a story about a contributor to Newsweek’s section called “The Ruckus”, who was affiliated with the McCain campaign and also less than forth coming about his financial ties to McCain. The article said:

Newsweek’s recently launched group blog, The Ruckus, features nine political bloggers — including one employed by a South Carolina direct mail firm that’s been paid over $79,000 by the McCain campaign this year, according to Federal Election Commission reports.

Adam Fogle, who is also editor of the blog The Palmetto Scoop, is described in his Newsweek bio as an “account representative for Mail Marketing Strategies in Columbia, S.C., … owned by former House Majority Leader Rick Quinn, whose father Richard Quinn serves as an unpaid adviser to Sen. John McCain in South Carolina.”

But that disclosure from Newsweek’s blog, which was launched in conjuction with the Media Bloggers Association, fails to mention thousands of dollars in printing and postage fees paid by McCain to Mail Marketing Strategies as late as September 2007.

Newsweek defends their actions in the article saying:

Depke continued: “However, according to Fogle, that is no longer the case. … Because our intent was to develop a panel blog of PARTISAN bloggers, the prior relationship was not an issue for us. However, in retrospect, it should have been disclosed in Fogle’s bio, and we will make that change…

… Depke also said that if Fogle’s employer re-enters “a financial relationship with the McCain organization, we would re-evaluate Adam’s appropriateness as a Ruckus contributor.”

Aside from the fact that Newsweek choose to take two completely opposite stances on similarly situated bloggers, it should be noted that evidence of a continued relationship between Adam Fogle’s employer and the McCain campaign surfaced since the publication of The Politico’s article. Three days ago Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic published a John McCain direct mail piece that was mailed using Mail Market Strategies’ federal bulk mail permit. If you click here, you can clearly see the companies name in the upper right-hand corner of second image. While the massive political staff at Newsweek might have not noticed this, both Fogle and the McCain campaign should have disclosed their “renewed” financial relationship. Today another piece, this one attacking Romney, also used Mail Marketing Strategies’ federal permit according to Bethany Thomas at MSNBC’s First Read.

The duplicitous behavior by Newsweek in this instance is not limited to words alone. Newsweek has been financially compensating Fogle for his work during the same period the cash-strapped McCain campaign was securing a $3 million loan to pay for their expenses. In essence, Newsweek has been subsidizing the McCain campaign consulting fees at the most critical time during this presidential primary. Since the details of the financial relationship reached between the Ruckus bloggers were not fully disclosed, it remains to be seen whether they have surpassed the $2,300 dollar contribution limit. But the McCain-Fiengold Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act clearly states that corporations are prohibited from contributing to a Presidential campaign. Additionally, the tenants of basic journalism ethics discourage any news publication from contributing to ANY political campaign.  

While the Newsweek article does not mention me by name, The Shot is clearly associated with my name. When this article hits news stands my family and friends will be confronted with numerous half-truths and lies that tarnish my good name. Newsweek claims:

The Shot turned out to be the creation of an employee of Tompkins’s consulting firm. The same employee created a “Phony Fred” Web site that ridiculed Thompson as “Playboy Fred” (”Once a Pro-Choice Skirt Chaser, Now Standard-Bearer of the Religious Right?”).

If one of the eight contributors to Newsweek had the common decency to contact me before publication they would have realized that I had nothing to do with the creation of that website.

Newsweek also claims that, “Last year, just about the time that Tompkins signed on as Romney’s top South Carolina strategist, a new blog of state politics, The Shot, popped up.”

Newsweek fails to state that The Shot was created several months before Warren Tompkins signed on with Romney. They also fail to mention that at the time The Shot was created I was not affiliated with Tompkins, but rather Starboard Communications, who is currently advising Fred Thompson. One of our major contributors, Casen Gregg, is a Ron Paul supporter. I’m not necessarily accusing Newsweek of intentionally lying, but I would have divulged all of this information had Newsweek attempted to contact me prior to publication.

Above all, Warren Tompkins has absolutely no affiliation with The Shot. 

Last year my website entered an agreement with the National Journal, which is a political trade journal with a limited circulation. I told the publication about my ties to the Romney campaign, and other political consultants, including Florida politico Jason Sayfie. The McCain campaign decried this partnership, and eventually the National Journal ended our partnership. The Politico reported:

The Hotline acted after more than a month of private complaints from the campaign of Sen. John McCain of Arizona, one of Romney’s rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, people involved in the discussions said…

… McCain’s campaign, however, distrusted the relationship beyond the immediate content of the site, in part because Tompkins played a central role in George W. Bush’s campaign against McCain in South Carolina in 2000. That campaign featured a series of covert attacks on McCain, including the creation of a previously unknown confederate flag advocacy group that mailed out thousands of attacks on McCain.

McCain’s top South Carolina aide, Trey Walker, had no comment on The Shot’s relationship with The Hotline.

“What they were hoping to do was build this site up to legitimacy and then that’s when they were going to cut the journalism loose and unleash whatever they had on McCain,” speculated the McCain supporter familiar with the campaign’s conversations with The Hotline. “It’s a sleeper blog cell.”

But their campaign remained silent when a blogger affiliated their campaign entered a relationship with a much more widely circulated publication.

I don’t have a truth squad. I was living in Georgia attending high school during the 2000 presidential primary and obviously had nothing to do with the covert attacks on McCain. I can’t play the victim card. I’m just a campaign insider with a blog, who decided to excise my First Amendment right. I’ve unfairly had my name dragged through the mud by the McCain campaign and the media, while others have gone completely without media scrutiny. This Newsweek article just represents another instance when I’ll have to defend my right to express my opinion to my friends and family.  

At its best this Newsweek article represents a clear lapse in ethical judgment, and at its worst it demonstrates a clear media bias for McCain. Many members of the media believe McCain is an ethical saint above underhanded political attacks, but as this case clearly demonstrates, every once and awhile even the “Straight Talk Express” can veer off into the mud. 

Newsweek needs to admit its hypocrisy, poor journalism practices, and print a correction concerning the facts surrounding this story. They also should immediately sever both their financial ties and publishing partnership with the McCain campaign immediately. 

This entry was posted on Monday, January 14th, 2008 at 10:33 pm and is filed under The Chaser, Top Shelf News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.