Despite his longstanding rule that “just because it’s on CCAP doesn’t mean it’s a story,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Dan Bice didn’t hesitate to report on the story of Erin Forrest, a woman who appeared in an ad for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke, despite Forrest having been charged with Battery and Disorderly Conduct stemming from an incident with her now ex-husband.
While Bice’s article did note Erin Forrest had herself been a victim of domestic abuse at the hands of her then-husband, the story Bice seemed intent on telling was that there was something wrong with Erin Forrest appearing in an ad for Mary Burke because of one incident taken by itself and without the full context. This blog has more context and some heart-felt thoughts on the entire situation, and it’s worth reading.
And while I’m at it, I’d just like to note how ironic I find Dan Bice’s “longstanding rule” that “just because it’s on CCAP doesn’t mean it’s a story.” I’ve noticed Bice’s enforcement of his own “longstanding rule” seems selective, with his article about Erin Forrest as just one of several examples of Bice ignoring his own rule when the individuals on CCAP happen to be Democrats.
Forrest should have told the Burke and Happ campaigns about this before the ad appeared, regardless of the circumstance, because she had to know the GOP-aganda machine would try to do something about it, and Bice follows any right-wing squawk that’s out there and gives it a megaphone.
Interestingly, “Mr. Watchdog” refused to mention the racist cartoons and texts in the latest John Doe document drop. Funny how the standards change for Danny when they might hurt Republicans- he gets a lot more “judicious” in what might be printed.
Jake, you summed up the point I was trying to make here.
It’s funny to me how Bice’s standards for what constitutes “news” seems to change depending on the party affiliation of his targets.
Bice implied there was ” no story ” on the racist emails because Walker didn’t respond. Funny how he doesn’t use that judgment when GOPs and their fake media outlets (MacIver, Media TraKKKers) throw their stuff against the wall.
I responded back. We will see how he explains the double-standard.
I’m not defending Erin Forrest by any stretch of the imagination, but I’ve said before that Daniel Bice was the mainstream media’s Joe McCarthy, and he’s proven me right yet again.
“just because it’s on CCAP doesn’t mean it’s a story” is not the same thing as saying that no info on CCAP is worthy of a story. In other words, just because it is on CCAP doesn’t mean it is a story, but it might be. I see no logical contradiction here re DB’s long standing rule. He did not violate his rule. Now if he said I will never write a CCAP story, well, that would be different.
The technicality you mention does not negate the validity of any of the other comments here nor the point of the Zach’s post. No one mentioned logic, you don’t see it because it doesn’t exist in Bice’s professional behavior here. The topic is another instance of obvious partisan favoritism, where readers should be able to expect at least a modicum of non-biased coverage, reporting and editorial opinion from paid staff at the publication, which after all is, iirc, the official paper of state record. Try to stay on topic.
My comment was not intended to negate the validity of the other comments. Re me being off topic, if that is the case please inform Zach not to mention off topic information four times in his relatively brief post, including sentence #1. But of course, you are wrong again non. Zach mentioned Bice’s long standing rule four times, suggesting to me at least that he, Zach, didn’t think Bice should have written the story because it violated his (Bice’s) “long standing rule.” My point that Bice did not violate any self imposed rule is therefore highly relevant. Your comments, not so much.
OFF TOPIC:
First, as politely as I can, thanks for agreeing with my lead sentence. Next, if my plain English, crystal clear explanation of how I defined the topic fails to register with you, that is your problem. That you now appear to be dragging a lure (i.e. trolling) to bring the discussion farther off topic and to make it all about YOU, the poor, poor misunderstood conservative leaning VICTIM again, be my guest.
Forgot to press the reply button, sorry, this was intended for 7:17 am.
“Forgot to press the reply button.”
Pressing buttons is what you do anon. How could you forget?
I did not agree with your first sentence, I refuted it.
Remember, this is the paper that’s won Pulitzers for INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING. They could dig so much deeper, they could go so much further than Dan Bice.
They’ve barely scratched the surface with the reporters they have allowed to do anything with the information that’s out there, they hardly have to dig and they can’t even bring themselves to do that.
They could have done so much, they won’t.
Zach, you and I can disagree on what I write about, but it simply isn’t true that I make my determinations based on which party is affected. That’s just silly. In this case, i decided to go forward with it after I looked at pictures of the injuries sustained by the husband in this case.