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About Joseph Knippenberg
Bio
I am a professor of politics at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, where I also direct the Rich Foundation Urban Leadership Program. Much of my scholarly work focuses on the relationship between religion and politics.
I am also an Adjunct Fellow of the Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs at Ashland University in Ohio. In addition to contributing occasional essays and columns to the Ashbrook website, I am one of the principal bloggers at No Left Turns.
My political (and other) commentary has appeared in The American Enterprise Online, The American Spectator Online, The Weekly Standard, the Claremont Review of Books, and Touchstone magazine, as well as in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Marietta Daily Journal.
I live in Dunwoody, Georgia with my wife, Lee, and our two children, Liam and Charlotte. We attend Smyrna Presbyterian Church (PCA).
Rep. David Scott's financial shenanigans
This morning, after this story in The Politico.com, the Atlanta paper finally "investigated" the tangled web of Rep David Scott’s (D-GA) campaign finances. The AJC story consists largely in uncritically reporting the Scott camp’s explanations of documentary evidence that, according to the paper, "has been anonymously circulated among news organizations, including the Journal-Constitution, in recent months."
Scott is moderate and well-connected (his brother-in-law is Hank Aaron). The latter fact by itself may explain why no one locally bothered to look into these documents. But I can’t help thinking that the AJC and the national press would have been all over similar allegations about any Republican. In this case, it took a national story by an up-and-coming political website to provoke my somnolent local paper to file even a cursory report.
Don't you think we deserve better in Atlanta, both from our representatives and from our newspaper?
Comments
Is there smoke? Then there is probably a fire
If there was smoke, then there would probably be fire. I'm a little skeptical of the call that the AJC is pro-Democratic and anti-Republican. The AJC isn't going to pass on a story about a corrupt Congressman because they are a Democrat. The San Diego paper that broke the Duke Cunningham story won national acclaim and awards. Sure some bloggers, like TalkingPointsMemo really pushed the story along, but ultimately it was a mainstream newspaper that was the tipping point. You can't feel very highly about the professionalism of the AJC if you believe they are bound to one party without some sort of quid-pro-quo. (now that would be a good story!)
I'm going to assume that their isn't even smoke in this case.
Re: smoke
I don't want to pre-judge Scott, but apparently the AJC didn't bother even investigating the documents until after THE POLITICO posted a story. The Atlanta paper should have been leading, not responding.
I can't help but think of the dubious documents Dan Rather rushed on the air. In this case, the documents aren't dubious, and I'm not yet sure that we have both sides of the story.
Joe Knippenberg
Joe: since when does the AJC
Joe: since when does the AJC lead in the investigation of a non-sports story? While there are some good people there and some talented writers, there doesn't seem to be any emphasis placed on good in-depth investigative reporting at the AJC. For the size city we live in, it is shameful to have such a lackluster paper.
Blogs and the New Media
Joseph-
I can understand some frustration maybe with the newspaper, but I'm a little skeptical about assigning partisanship to a newspaper.
The Duke Cunningham story was pushed for a long time by Joshua Micah Marshall over at TalkingPointsMemo before the San Diego Union-Tribune picked it up and ran with it. I think Josh saw something dubious 6-9 months prior to the story really "breaking".
I would argue that "new media" like blogs are excellent at pushing stories and doing some of the labor intensive background work that lays the groundwork for old media to put story together. That's what happened in the case of Trent Lott, Dan Rather, Attorney General firings, Duke Cunningham and the Ohio "coingate" scandal.
If Rep. Scott is corrupt, the story won't die because right wing blogs will keep investigating and finding new things. If the allegations are simply political vendettas, then this is the last we've seen of it.
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