What McClatchy Reporters Are Saying

Below is a comment from a long-time reporter at the Sacracmento Bee sent to wp2.  We thought it was too good not to share with those visiting the site.  We also appreciate recent contacts from the Statesman newsroom on material Dan Popkey decided to withhold from readers on several issues.  We will do something Popkey doesn’t bother to do.   We will get sources and make sure the information is accurate.

“After putting up with McClatchy’s flagship newspaper, The Sacramento Bee, for 25 years I can tell you that you haven’t seen anything yet.  The McClatchy’s long  ago abandoned journalistic principles in favor of promoting their own social/progressive world view.  Their papers don’t present the world as it is, they show you the world as they would like it to be.  I’m sure they see the Statesman as an opportunity to reshape the Idaho local yokels into a more California-acceptable mindset.  The real journalists will leave the paper, if they haven’t already, and the only people who will be left are those who feel they know better than you what you should think, and will write their stories accordingly.”

Extra notes:  Statesman ad sales are still off and McClatchy stock drops to $10.00 a share.

How Are Boise Tax Dollars Different from Fed Tax Dollars, Kevin?

Workingpresstoo (wp2) was not going to blog so quickly, but the Statesman and McClatchy invite it. Kevin Richert serves it up on a platter.

Look at Richert’s editorial Sunday about Congressman Bill Sali. He attacks Sali for using tax dollars to poll constituents. If Kevin is so concerned about this activity why didn’t he go after Dave Bieter when he spent $130,000 of Boise tax dollars to do an issue poll? Dave turned around and used this for his 2007 campaign.

How is the Sali issue different than the Bieter issue?

Besides the insider material wp2 is getting from Statesman folks, now we are receiving emails from former McClatchy reporters in other parts of the country confirming what we already know. McClatchy is in big trouble.

McClatchy stock is now listed by Moody’s as “speculative.” And yet the Statesman still doesn’t think its readers need to know this little fact.

We will also be visiting the University Place story several more times in the coming months. Roy Eiguren was wrongly accused of many things by Dan Popkey. Dan broke the University Place story. He was the only one with the information.

How did Dan get it?

Why was Dan pulled off one of the biggest stories of his career?

The Statesman’s lack of journalist ethics and just plain biased behavior is even getting on the nerves of readers. Check out their letter column today. We saw a handful of letters telling them to back off on the Craig story. How many hit the delete files?

McClatchy vs Micron

The Statesman had a week to let folks know that Micron wasn’t the only stock to reach historic lows.

Last Saturday, January 5th, the Statesman’s front page story on their Saturday business section said “Micron stock drops to 14 year low.” It was not that the story was inaccurate. Key Dey does a balanced piece on where Micron stock currently stands. What should be disturbing to readers is that the Statesman is quick to point out other’s shortcomings, but they won’t share their own imperfections with the public. In spite of this fact they demand transparency from everyone else.

This is the perfect storm when it comes to duplicitous behavior by a newspaper. While they are reporting that Micron is at a 14 year low, their own stock (McClatchy Newspapers) drops to either an all time low or near an all time low on the same day (January 4).

If McClatch stock prices are not important, then why do all of our journalism professors tell us to follow the money.

Call the Statesman and ask them about their fire sale on ads for January. Does this sound like a newspaper that’s on solid financial footing?

It won’t be long before we hear about more layoffs at the Statesman. But don’t be surprised if we get the news from someone else.

Biggest Embarrassment of 2007: Idaho Statesman and McClatchy Newspapers

Marty Trillhaase of the Idaho Falls Post Register recently said Larry Craig was one of the biggest embarrassments of the year. Shame on you Marty. You used to work for the Idaho Statesman and inside sources at the Statesman said you nearly had a nervous breakdown working for those editors back in the 1990s.

What Marty knew then many of us know now. The Statesman is a dishonest embarrassment to the news community. For these and many other reasons Working Press Too (wp2) is happy to share the following that we have gathered from many former Statesman reporters and current reporters that are not happy with the current publisher or executive editor.

So with that in mind let’s look at the top ten reasons the Idaho Statesman is Idaho’s biggest embarrassment of 2007.

Number 10: Sloppy journalism. The Statesman can’t even match headlines
with their stories. Toward the end of 2007, the fed lowered the interest
rate and the Statesman ran a front page story, top of the fold with a
headline that said the fed raised the interest rate. Then in the first
paragraph the Statesman says the fed lowered the interest rate. This kind
of thing happens way too often at the Statesman. Our inside sources say
they are laying people off and not replacing them leaving everyone else to
do more with less.

Number 9: Lack of transparency at the Statesman. The editors constantly
bully local companies like Micron, Republicans and others for lack of
openness. Pot-kettle. The Statesman is constantly hiding things from
readers and advertisers. Wp2 will be listing many of those things in the
coming weeks and months.

Number 8: Ripping off McClatchy stockholders. No newspaper group in the
country has nose-dived more and faster than McClatchy has in the last two
years. They’ve lost 80% of their value according to stock reports and a
recent story in the Wall Street Journal called “Read All About It.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119888825411356705.html?mod=yahoo_hs
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oo> &ru=yahoo

Number 7: Horrible circulation. In 1987 the Statesman circulation was
55,000 and today, 20 years later they claim circulation at about 65,000.
The bad news for the Statesman is that the population of Ada County has
nearly doubled since then. The Statesman is losing ground faster than
Europe did to Hitler.

Number 6: Hiding behind the 1st Amendment. The Statesman abuses the 1st
Amendment on a regular basis to destroy the lives of good people like Larry
Craig. They tried to do the same to Roy Eiguren, but failed miserably. Now
that they can’t find anything on Craig, they are just making things up and
presenting them as fact.

Number 5: Justifying horrible reporting. Never has wp2 seen more excuses
written by an executive editor to justify a story that’s been written by
charlatans like Dan Popkey. Every time he writes a story to destroy
someone, she has a little sidebar explaining why they had to take a cheap
shot at someone. We doubt very seriously that Popkey could sustain the same
scrutiny he has put others through.

Number 4: Cradle robbing. When are Statesman managers going to put an end
Popkey’s hitting on the young girls in the newsroom, less than half his age?
Many young women who used to work for the Statesman said it happens all the
time and the publisher and executive editor turn a blind eye for their
favorite pet, Popkey.

Number 3: Inflating circulation figures. All year long the Statesman has
been trying to give away free papers and people won’t even take them for
free. Wp2 has seen them doing their giveaways at football games, in Fred
Meyer, Albertson and they even have a kiosk in the mall. On top of adding
these figures to their circulation, they also give extra copies to
businesses in the Treasure Valley and claim that as additional circulation.
Maybe the SEC should give them a closer look. Inflating or falsifying
circulation figures with a publicly traded company is a no-no.

Number 2: Ignoring stories that would hurt democrats. During the Boise
mayor’s campaign, the Statesman ignored the fact that Jade Riley, a key
staffer in the Bieter administration, was let off on a DUI by some clever
legal work. Bieter’s attorney asked for a change of venue from Boise to
Garden City where the prosecutor is Frank Walker, Bieter’s former law
partner and good friend. Walker let Riley go with a withheld judgment in
spite of the fact that this was his second DUI. The running joke in
democrat circles is that they don’t need their own newsletter, they have the
Statesman.

Number 1: Constant badgering of Senator Craig. Even though the Statesman
has no facts to support their claims, they continue to attack Senator Craig.
Our sources at the Statesman tell us that Popkey and the management have
proof that many of their claims are false, but they refuse to reveal these
facts.

Wp2 will be revealing more in 2008.

Follow the Money Part 2

First of all, I would like to thank the many Statesman employees and former employees who have contacted me to share some of the nastiness going on inside the Statesman newsroom.

There are so many things to write about when it comes to the Statesman and McClatchy Newspapers. They have been so dishonest and unethical its time the Society of Professional Journalists should start their own investigation on these so-called journalists because they (the Statesman) are destroying what’s left of a rapidly dying industry.

Today, Kevin Richert couldn’t even help himself. He had to take a cheap shot at Larry Craig just because it was fun for him. Fellow staffers heard chuckling while he was writing his column.

Now for one of the new questions of the day. Why did a certain reporter along with the Statesman editorial staff decide not to cover the Jade Riley DUI story during the Mayoral elections? Jade Riley is a key staffer for Boise Mayor Dave Bieter and his DUI was swept under the rug by the Statesman. Why? Is the Statesman somehow tied to the Mayor’s office?

We’ll have more on this and other issues about the Popkey tabloid material in future blogs. Feell free to contact us at wp2 and share your stories with us. I won’t release any of the information and will be happy to share whatever you would like the world to know about the unethical behavior of the Statesman and McClatchy Newspapers.

Follow the Money

December 20, 2007    One of the great things about this new venture at workingpresstoo (wp2) is the willingness of so many that used to work for McClatchy and the Statesman to talk with our reporters about what’s going on in the Statesman.

Dan Popkey said he worked on Larry Craig story for six months. Anonymous sources inside the Statesman said he and Mia (I want a Pulitzer) Parrish were giddy when they met and Dan worked on the story for over a year. They couldn’t even be honest about that.

He bragged to one of the young girls he dated on the Statesman staff (Dan like’s them half his age) about how he was going to take down the Senator. Not only could Dan find no evidence to run a story, but he found exactly the opposite of what he was trying to prove.

What to do. Oh, what to do.

Again, insiders and former Statesman reporters helped us piece this together. By May of this year it was clear they had no story, so they needed a hook to run the bogus material they collected.

That’s where Minneapolis comes in….former last newspaper stop of Popkey’s executive editor, Vicki Gowler. Both Vicki and Dan had become very familiar with what was going on in the Minneapolis airport. Besides the fact that Vicki lived their, Dan had traveled thru many times following Craig as he tried to catch him at something. Dan bragged in his stories about showing Craig’s picture to people in gay bars and public restrooms.

wr2 has found that Dan showed and even shared pictures of Craig with the so-called airport sting clowns. All this was done after May and into June when the Statesman decided they didn’t have anything.

When Craig walked into that restroom he was checkmated. If he plead to anything it was a story. If he fought it it was a story. Either way Popkey had what he needed.

Now, how to get the story out of Hennepin County. Popkey knew Craig was going to announce for reelection in early September, so the August recess was a perfect time. But if the Statesman had reported the story if would have looked to fishy.

What to do. What to do.

Several sources in DC (working press) told wr2 that the Hennepin County prosecutor leaked the story to the Roll Call reporter in August. What perfect timing. And it had the added benefit of taking Popkey’s fingerprints off of the setup in Minneapolis.

Roll Call writes the story, Popkey and his indignant editor, Gowler, claim they have the right to destroy Larry and they run their bogus material. Then this month they write a total tabloid piece of hearsay on the front page. Even Statesman readers call BS on their so-called reporting. The Swanky Conservative website’s December 3rd entry has a great description of this. swankyconservative.com

So what does this have to do with following the money? Check out McClatchy’s stock website and all the analyst downgrades in the last year. And then check out the December 18th story “McClatchy’s Fall From Grace” piece by Louis Hau of Forbes.com If McClatchy stock falls much more they will be ripe for a takeover and the liberals at McClatchy would hate to see a Rupert Murdoch swoop in and by their precious liberal rags.

If there was ever a time to “follow the money” and see if a story passes the smell test, now is the time.

There’s a lot more, but wr2 will be patient and wait for our Statesman insiders and former staffers to give us more of the dirt on America’s newest tabloid, the Idaho Statesman.