Moral Issue: Grand Forks Herald Smears Dead Benefactor To Affect Referendum

• April 19, 2009

Yesterday I did a post about how the Grand Forks Editor and Publisher considers eliminating the University of North Dakota’s athletic nickname a moral issue. A moral issue.
Right on cue the Herald showed how moral they are by printing allegations made by opponents of the nickname against the University’s largest benefactor. I’m not going to copy it here, but if you want the gory accusation you can read it on the trash site that the Grand Forks Herald has become.
So is it a moral issue to publish unfounded accusations made by the opponents of the nickname. Is it a moral issue for the Herald to publish this accusation against a person that’s passed away so that he can no longer defend himself.
The Herald “reporter” says that the person who brought this up has an affidavit that this happened, but can’t find it right now. I realize that they are claiming that they are only reporting on the accusation, not the underlying baseless charge. But the fact is that this is a smear put on by the Editor and reporter of the Grand Forks Herald.
The Herald’s also been reporting unfounded accusations that the Ralph Engelstad Arena people have been flooding the reservation with money to pass this referendum. Of course the Herald’s reporter hasn’t been able to come up with any examples so once again he’s stuck reporting what the opponents say. It seems to me that the reporter could at least bother to find out how that money is supposedly being spent.
I guess trying to confirm a news story isn’t important when you’re on a moral crusade.
Not only is Ralph Engelstad the largest benefactor ever for a North Dakota college, his gift was one of the top gifts at the time of his death and is probably still in the top ten for the country.
I wish I was paying for a subscription to the Herald because if I was I’d be canceling it Monday morning.
Update: I’ve never done this before but I want to ask the Grand Forks Readers to send this story around. To do so you can click on the share button right under the title of the post. We need to show the Herald were outraged by the smear.

Tags: Media, North Dakota News

http://grandforker.com/ Patrick C. Miller

Let’s put it this way: When Dan Rather smeared Bush with fake but real memos, was the news media supposed to look the other way and pretend it didn’t happen? Should all conservative bloggers have just stayed silent to avoid repeating the obvious smear?

All smears are NOT created equal. Some are newsworthy because of the circumstances and the status of the people involved.
http://grandforker.com/ Patrick C. Miller

But you picked a really crappy example.

It’s a good example because it was a smear that was newsworthy. You seem to believe it’s an all-or-nothing issue. Either the news media reports on every smear someone invents or they don’t report on any of them. It doesn’t work that way, nor should it.

Let me ask you this: What would you say if the vote on the Spirit Lake reservation failed and word later leaked out that the Engelstad smear was a decisive factor in the loss? Would you be glad that the Herald sat on the story to protect Ralph’s reputation or would you be uspet that nobody outside the reservation knew about it?
http://grandforker.com/ Patrick C. Miller

It was a smear job plain and simple.

Accusing Ralph Engelstad of uttering a despicable racial epithet when he’s not even around to dispute the charge is a smear of the highest order. But the smear didn’t originate with the Herald. The Herald simply reported on the smear after it had been made for the purpose of influencing the voters of Spirit Lake. Maybe you don’t want to know about such things, but I do.

Tu Uyen Tran wrote it knowing that people will remember the accusation not the fact that it was groundless.

If I had to make a guess based on what Tran wrote in his blog, I’d say that he wrote the story because he considered it newsworthy and his editors agreed. As a Herald subsriber, I’m glad they did the story.
http://ndgoon.blogspot.com/ goon

Update: I’ve never done this before but I want to ask the Grand Forks Readers to send this story around. To do so you can click on the share button right under the title of the post. We need to show the Herald were outraged by the smear.

Whistler I can post this article up on my Hockey blog if you want or I can add you to my blogger and you can post it up a lot of people will see it.
http://boyddrivefollies.blogspot.com/ Good Ol Boy

I don’t know what kind of twisted reverse-psychology thing Jacobs and his flunky have got going here, but I certainly hope it backfires on him/ them.
To be so desperate, so devoid of good arguments as to be forced to launch a whispering campaign such as this is to lay open your cause to the whole world and expose it for the hollow “movement” it is.
I noticed this morning reading the article that they also did not have a comment section for the readers. Gee, I wonder why?
Maybe those allegations of some at the Herald being serial masturbators should be looked into further. This is obviously a case of journalistic self-pleasure.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

So if I were to run off a few copies of a smear against Mike Jacobs on my ink jet printer would the Herald run a story on an unsubstantiated smear.

In fact the Herald [strike]reporter[/strike] advocacy writer knows that people will remember the accusation and not the fact that it is completely unsubstantiated.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

Dave we all know that the Herald knows if they run any kind of story based on a baseless accusation people are going to remember the accusation.

I’m sure the Herald will eventually parrot the same line.

However you aren’t fooling anyone.

This was a disgusting baseless smear.
http://grandforker.com/ Patrick C. Miller

So, Rob, in your opinion, people of the region don’t need to know that days before an important election on the Spirit Lake reservation, opponents of the Fighting Sioux nickname launched a smear campaign of the worst kind against the late Ralph Engelstad?

That may not be the news I want to read, but it is the news I need to know. The more light shed on the dirty, decietful, dishonest, shameless tactics of the Fighting Sioux nickname opponents, the better.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

PP, I was giving Patrick the benefit of the doubt that he was mocking Dan Blather here.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

Again, the issue is that a few idiots doing a smear campaign doesn’t justify a news story that broadens the smear over all.

Furthermore the story wasn’t written in a fair way either.

It’s started with describing the smear so closely that anyone could see it. Then it had several paragraphs before they printed the rebuttal by the Englestad family.

OK fine, that’s not the way I’d do the story.

But the meat of the story is that the proponents don’t have a leg to stand on.

That was at the end of the story.

It was a smear job plain and simple. Tu Uyen Tran wrote it knowing that people will remember the accusation not the fact that it was groundless.

As a comparison, I just found out a couple months ago that John Delorean was found not guilty of what they accused him of in the early 80′s.

People remember the charge, not the acquittal.

By the way tomorrow’s post is going to show this is SOP for the Herald on this vote. Print the charges however baseless they may be.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

The Herald ran that story to smear Mr. Englestad’s name.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

So if I were to find someone with a grudge that were to say that so and so who’s no longer with us was a pederast that’d be a news story as well.

I don’t think so.

This is a smear that’s orchestrated by the Herald.
http://grandforker.com/ Patrick C. Miller

This was a smear by the nickname opponents, not by the Herald. For the Herald to ignore a legitimate news story would have been irresponsible journalism. How would people of this region be better off not knowing about the tactics being employed by the nickname opponents?

Over the years, I’ve had many complaints about how the Herald covers the nickname issue. One of my primary complaints was that much of the news covereage made no attempt to verify claims made by the nickname opponenets. The Herald frequently published their statements without question or followup to investigate whether they had any basis in fact.

That is not the case with this story. While I might quibble with some of the reporting Tu-Uyen Tran has done on the Spirit Lake nickname vote, overall, I believe that he’s done a far better job than what’s occurred in the past.

Attacking the Herald only serves to deflect the criticism from where it really belongs. That’s my point.
ec99

I have posted a reaction to the story and the strategy behind it on 2′s blog. Here I would just say that the Herald has fallen down the slippery slope it created when they it to kill the story regarding Tom Clifford’s daughters and his wife. Using the excuse that it was a private matter, they failed to run it. What Ralph E. might or might not have said in a bar is also a private matter. When a paper adopts a selective standard on what it will or will not run, where what you do run just happens to coincide with your own publicly stated stand, that paper loses all journalistic legitimacy.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

If you check the Herald newspaper story you’ll see that the smear artist wrote the story knowing that the actual facts of the story (that there are none) was going to be buried inside the paper.

What matters is to smear the guy on the front page to these guys.

It’s disgusting.
http://grandforker.com/ Patrick C. Miller

The Herald didn’t launch the smear campaign against Ralph Engelstad. The Fighting Sioux nickname opponents did. I fail to see how it’s helpful if the only people who know about the smear are its intended targets. Why is the public better off not knowing about it? Nobody has explained that.

The Herald reported the story because it’s news. The Herald didn’t publish the accusation until it had asked for and received a response from Engelstad’s family. The Herald also reported that the accusation was based upon flimsy evidence that has yet to be produced.

The Herald explained the position of the nickname opponents, which was that it doesn’t matter if the racially inflamatory charge is true because:

A) American Indians have historically been mistreated.

B) The other side has more money.

C) It seems plausible to them that a man for whom they have an irrational hatred said something irrationally hateful.

D) The end justitifies the means.

This story does nothing to help their cause and reveals their vile tactics.

I do think the Herald is open to criticism for not reporting the full statement released by the Engelstad family. It seems to me that if the Herald asked for a statement, the newspaper is obligated to report it in its entirety. But, as Tu-Uyen Tran reports in his blog:

We decided not to put it on our Web site verbatim only because it made some counter-allegations against the anti-nickname side — nothing on the scale of that quote, I can tell you — and we decided that it wouldn’t be fair without a statement from the anti-nickname side.

For years, the Herald has been reporting the unsubstantiated claims of the nickname opponents. It is now holding nickname proponents to a far higher standard than it sets for nickname foes.
Billy

I’m glad to know that these kinds of despicable attacks are considered effective by some people.

If the Herald hadn’t reported that the Reservation opponents of the nickname are inflaming racial prejudice and slurring the reputation of a man who can’t defend himself, I can imagine the nickname’s defenders shouting “It’s a cover-up!”
http://grandforker.com/ Patrick C. Miller

Shooting the messenger — the Grand Forks Herald — is ridiculous. I am glad that the Herald is reporting on the tactics being used by the nickname opponents. In reading the story, Tu-Uyen Tran made it clear that there was no hard evidence supporting the charge against the late Ralph Engelstad. He gave Engelstad’s relatives an opportunity to respond. What more can he do?

Like it or not, this is a legitimate news story that can’t be ignored. The more people know about the level to which the nickname opponents will stoop, the better. Slamming the Herald only diverts criticism from where it should go: on the opponents of the Fighting Sioux nickname and their abhorrent behavior.
studakota

If anti-Sioux are so morally offended then do the moral thing and give the money back. I’m sure the Engelstad or so just now. They’d be out buying distressed Vegas properties so fast it’d make your head spin.
pparets

PatrickCMiller…

with fake but real memos…

Patrick… are you seeing the problem I’m seeing here….?
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

Dan Rather blasted the smear out to the world on CBS which is a lot more consequential than blogs were at the time.

Not only that the rest of the old-media picked up that story.

Actually I see you’ve got a point, after all I wondered if I should do my post.

But you picked a really crappy example.

In this case you had a few flyers out on the reservation. The Herald put that story out to tens of thousands of people who are only going to remember the accusation.
jimmypop

the funny thing; if ralph was still alive you know darn well hed for another construction company, tip that building over and walk away. and the WORLD would notice. this pc crap has got to go.

why dont we all go protest the use of the vikings in all the school and pro teams? I WANT TO REQUIRE EVERY ATHLETE TO TAKE A APPRECIATION OF NORDIC CULTURE CLASS AND FREE TUITION!!!!
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

Patrick, I don’t think it’s as simple as that.

Every day I get hundreds of emails making all sorts of absurd claims about Obama and Democrats in general. Most of these are based on evidence about as firm as what the Herald is basing its reporting on. But if I posted on that stuff, people would criticize me for propagating bogus information.

And rightfully so.

Just because someone is making a claim doesn’t necessarily mean it’s newsworthy.

This was a smear.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

This was a smear by the nickname opponents, not by the Herald. For the Herald to ignore a legitimate news story would have been irresponsible journalism.

That’s based on the assumption that it was a legitimate news story.

Which it wasn’t.

SayAnythingBlog.com

Moral Issue: Grand Forks Herald Smears Dead Benefactor To Affect Referendum

Create a SAB Readerblog

Recent Comments