Kent Conrad Tried To Intimidate Journalist After Town Hall Story This Summer

Today comes word from a journalist in North Dakota who will remain nameless about Senator Kent Conrad responding badly to a less-than-flattering story about his handling of a town hall this summer.
Followers of this blog know that Senators Conrad and Byron Dorgan were met at town halls around the state this August with angry constituents who opposed government health care and were upset about the government’s overspending (Rep. Earl Pomeroy no doubt would have been met with the same thing had he bothered to hold an in-person town hall). Followers of this blog are also aware of Senator Conrad’s efforts to manage and choreograph these town halls, demanding to know who would be allowed to ask questions and what questions they’d be asking weeks in advance of the events.
But according to this reporter from one of the state’s major newspapers, after running a story that illustrated Conrad’s dismissive attitude toward the town hall attendees the reporter and his publication’s editor and publisher were called to a meeting with Conrad and a member of his staff. At the meeting, they were excoriated for the story they ran and threatened with a loss of access/ad revenue.
To their credit, they refused to retract or correct the story and Conrad went away from the meeting frustrated. But for the public in general, that Conrad would react to criticism with such thuggish intimidation should reveal the slimy underside to North Dakota’s lapdog media.
People often wonder how Conrad and his colleagues Dorgan and Pomeroy get away with so little criticism from the collective state media. And the answer is because they threaten and intimidate anyone who does criticize them.
On my radio show on Saturday BismarckMandanBlog.com blogger Clint Fleckenstein said that one thing to remember about those millions that Conrad, Dorgan and Pomeroy raise for their re-election campaigns usually, for the most part, go to political advertising in the state. Given how small of a media market North Dakota is, millions of dollars in ad revenue goes a long way.
That, according to Clint who has experience working in North Dakota’s media, is something else Conrad, Dorgan and Pomeroy hold over the heads of North Dakota media. If you’re too critical, if you cross the lines they lay out, then you don’t get any advertising money.
It’s an ugly truth.