Jack Seaman: Fargo Forum Should Report Full Story About North Dakota U.S. House Race

Today the Fargo Forum published an in depth, front page, 3,500 word article about the U.S. House race in North Dakota by reporter Tu-Uyen Tran. This was one of several the paper has published in recent weeks by Mr. Tran, of which only one has even briefly mentioned me as a candidate in the race.

I don’t have any background or education in journalism but it seems to me that if you are going to write a feature story about a race for the U.S. House of Representatives, you should at least mention the names of all candidates who will be listed on the November 4th ballot. For whatever reason, Mr. Tran decided that wasn’t necessary.

I believe that this type of exclusionary reporting displays a complete lack of journalistic integrity on the part of Mr. Tran and the editor of the Forum, Matthew Von Pinnon. The fact is, voters will have three choices for U.S. House on election day, not just two, and news articles written about the race should include information and quotes from all of the candidates, regardless of their Party.

To be fair, the Forum did include me in their 2014 Voter’s Guide, which contains basic information on the candidates and brief answers to five identical questions but as George Sinner would say, “let’s face it, folks”…that’s not the same level of coverage I’m referring to here.

I understand the Fargo Forum can write whatever they want about whomever they wish and they may consider this response “whining by a 3rd party candidate”, but when they write an article of this size and depth without so much as a mention of me, they are doing the voting public a disservice through omission.