Yahoo News shines national light on Walker dark money
Michael Isikoff is among the growing list of high-profile national reporters (Katie Couric, Howard Fineman, et al) who moved moved from traditional print (The Washington Post) or broadcast (NBC) journalism to online, digital platforms - - Yahoo, in Isikoff's case - - and today he has given national exposure in-depth to Scott Walker's dark money, conservatively-driven campaign machine.
The piece discloses and catalogues multiple, big-dollar donations routed at Walker's behest through a third-party, so-called independent third-part group, including $1.5 million from Wisconsin billionaire retailer John Menard, Jr.
The chain of stores which bears his name has received $1.7 million in state tax credits from the Walker-chaired Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation; both Menard and the chain have been heavily fined by the state for environmental violations, the story reports.
Definitely a milestone keeper in national media interest in Walker.
The Journal Sentinel has a short summary of the story, and a link.
The piece discloses and catalogues multiple, big-dollar donations routed at Walker's behest through a third-party, so-called independent third-part group, including $1.5 million from Wisconsin billionaire retailer John Menard, Jr.
The chain of stores which bears his name has received $1.7 million in state tax credits from the Walker-chaired Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation; both Menard and the chain have been heavily fined by the state for environmental violations, the story reports.
Definitely a milestone keeper in national media interest in Walker.
The Journal Sentinel has a short summary of the story, and a link.
8 comments:
WOW............this really lays out the Walker behind the scenes activities. He's got the money behind himself............ but he doesn't have the truth and if we can get the truth to the people in spite of the media, Walker and his Republican legislators will be gone by 2016.
I think the Yahoo article is great! My only reservation is that someone new to Walker's shenanigans might not realize he chairs the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. The article doesn't flat out say that, so a newbie might not make the connections.
That's so "regular joe" of Walker to receive a $1.5 million from a Billionaire. It happens to the rest of us all the time
So will MJS now revise the dishonest "Path to 2016" series by pointing out that Scott Walker is not a workingman's hero and that he is anything-but a "regular joe".
You can't tell me everyone at the JS didn't know about this, or was incapable if connecting the dots
Of course the J-S has a 'short article' on this. That's all they're willing to do. They should have been the ones to write this but that's too much to expect.
I know you aren't keen on commenters criticizing WI media and I understand that reporters only report what they are assigned, but...
Reporting at this level is what state papers should have been doing for a long time. I no longer subscribe to the J-S because this is what I expected from them and never got.
They have (or had) Pulitzer-level commitment to investigative reporting and have been under-reporting or flat-out ignoring red flags for years, while the editorial board endorses obvious nonsense or excuses it.
The fact that we are getting deep reporting from outside of the state, years after the fact, should be cause for embarrassment for our major news organizations.
Sue's right -- this is cause for embarrassment for major Wisconsin news organizations. They can expect many more of these embarrassments.
P.S. Sue's also spot on about the JS editorial board's endorsements and excuses of obvious nonsense.
But they did get blowout 4th Quarter earnings at JournalComm with Walker ad money. Do that's a nice little payback from flushing your credibility down the drain, isn't it?
They're still trying to bury this story at jsonline. Probably hoping people won't ask why they missed the story- and if reporters were ordered to miss it
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