Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

I recieved an e-mail from the folks responsible for a new political news site, The Arizona Guardian. Already there is talk that it will be “democratic leaning” due to the involvement of Democratic consultant Bob Grossfeld. They make a little hay of this accusation in their “Guardian Angel” column:

Thanks to Arizona Capitol Times and the Yellow Sheet for announcing the start up of The Arizona Guardian in an item last month. Wow, what a scoop that was. Too bad they got it pretty much wrong. But we hear that’s not an unusual occurrence for that venerable old publication (1929? Really?). To correct the public record: There are four - not three - journalists staffing The Guardian. It is not “backed” by Democrats; the four journalists are co-owners along with Bob Grossfeld, who indeed has long associated with Democrats. We’ll beat him up later. But the simple math that even an airhead Angel can do makes him far from a majority owner. Sam Coppersmith, another pesky Democrat, is not an owner or backer of the new venture. He is merely the attorney who filed the initial paperwork with the Corporation Commission. Ah, if only the Cap Times had followed standard journalistic practices and made an actual phone call before publishing fiction as fact. But then, as the Angel likes to say (shamelessly quoting another longtime reporter pal): The truth is so limiting.

Coppersmith’s firm also advertises on the blog. Not that big of a deal though. It makes sense that the Capitol Times is having palpatations about it, given that if this venture succedes it would cut into their turf big time (plus, it’s free!) The folks at the Capitol Times and the Yellow Sheet are very protective of their franchise, as evidenced by the nastygrams I get from them when I even casually reference an article. Of course, the Yellow Sheet has been more than happy to lift my material in the past, but hey…

This thing will of course be regarded as Democratic leaning. Anything that smacks of actual journalism (Paul Giblin and Patti Epler make themselves out to be muckrakers in their bios) directed at legislative leaders will be regarded as some sort of partisan act. Heck, anything which isn’t outright cheerleading is regarded as partisan by those guys.

If you still need fears of “partisanship” assuaged: when I visited the site yesterday, I was greeted by an over large picture of Jon Kyl, who wrote a piece for the site. Giblin was definitely not a favorite of Ann Kirkpatrick’s campaign after the last election. Doesn’t sound exactly like a partisan Democratic organ.

I’m not bowled over yet, but I’m willing to wait and see how the legislature is covered.