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Tainted cash: Did you know Maine Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins accepted a $10,000 donation from a political action committee associated with newly indicted Alaska GOP Sen. Ted Stevens? Not if your only source of news is Maine’s morning papers. While all of them carried wire-service stories about Stevens’ legal problems in their July 30 editions, none picked up on the local angle. For that, readers had to go online, where the Web sites PolitickerME.com and Maine Politics both picked up on what appeared to be a tip from an anti-Collins blogger about the questionable money.

Both also reported on Collins’ hasty decision to donate the Stevens check to charity and the Maine Democratic Party’s call for her to also return a 2002 contribution from Stevens’ PAC. All these events took place in the early evening of July 29, well before normal newspaper deadlines. Which raises these questions: If it wasn’t a lack of time that kept the story out of print, was it a lack of reporters? Or a lack of interest?

Tainted spelling: The July 29 Maine Sunday Telegram editorial honoring the recently deceased geneticist – and native Mainer – Victor McKusick was appropriate and deserved. Or it would have been if the Telegram had managed to spell McKusick’s last name correctly. It was “McCusick” in the headline and several times in the article. The error was first spotted by “mediadog” (no relation) on the As Maine Goes Web site.

The editorial doesn’t seem to be posted online. Neither does a correction.

Tainted blood: MTV’s Street Team ’08 producer Jaime McLeod has an excellent piece on a recent protest in Portland over the Red Cross’ refusal to accept blood donations from gay men.

McLeod, who describes herself as a “citizen journalist,” lets both sides tell their stories in complete and concise form. My only gripe is that somebody decided to bleep out the word “faggots” from the soundtrack, while leaving the same word in shots of the mock posters that protesters put up. It’s not OK to say it, but it is to read it?

Al Diamon can be e-mailed at aldiamon@herniahill.net.
 

Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 in Permalink