I agree with you that the press shouldn't act as a mouthpiece of elected officials, reporting their good deeds like press releases. The press serves an important check on the powers of government. Free press separates us from dictatorship or oligarchy.

But the two critiques I have of the press that are "bias" oriented, are (i) getting involved in the story themselves and (ii) selectively reporting bad stuff on some elected officials.

To me, the Wage Tax campaign waged, in part, by the DN and other folks, was making the news, not reporting it. It was advocacy. (Disclaimer: I fervently believe that you have to dramatically cut the wage tax, and City services, which will mean shrinking the size of City government.) That clouds the judgment, I believe, of the press as an institution and undermines confidence, b/c it now has a stake in the outcome of the news. So its hard to say on other stories we are reporting the news, when the paper took a strong advocacy position previously.

On the selectively supporting bad stuff, a good example is the fact that many in the African American community feel that the DN has a bias towards African American officials b/c it focus "bad" stories on them, as opposed to their white counterparts. Their argument is essentially, yes there are some of us who are making mistakes, doing bad things, but where's all the press on our white counterparts who are doing the same things. (A better argument is not to do the bad things in the first place, but I digress.)

For instance, the Ron White scandal. Ron White had built up his power during the Rendell Administration. (Helped by Street, no doubt about that.) But the focus of much of the reporting suggested that Street had essentially steered all bond and airport work to his firm during his tenure as Mayor, is what I have heard some in the African American community would argue.

Ron White had been doing that sooner than Street being Mayor. But the perception is that there was little if any focus on all of the business that he had received during the Rendell administration, and the fact that there were virtually no minority law firms that could do much of that co-counsel work. (I am glossing over the fact that he took it to new heights under Street, and most minority lawyers in town had complained for years about his stranglehold on the work.)

But some felt that the failure to point out all of the large majority firms who had worked steered to it, and made much larger campaign contributions, focused unnecessarily on the one African American lawyer who had done a lot of work, but a pittance as compared to the other majority firms. (Don't do that other article, those firms will sue and win.)

Also, when reporting about Carol Campbell, she is almost always framed as someone selected by City Committee, as if Dan Savage and Bill Greenlee were not. (Doesn't make any of them bad people, but the focus on Carol Campbell, for that issue is odd.)

To me, both are crappy examples, although I do hear them mentioned alot, b/c they involve folks with "dirty hands" -- using the legal term of art for when you are denied certain remedies, not a comment on their hygiene. But there have been stories, that I was a witness to, we speak to the reporter, the other side speaks to the reporter, and the reported story contains a slant that defies facts and logic.

So I ask, Hey,[insert name of reporter], that's not how I remember that. Why did you not add this fact, or why did you highlight that fact. What I have found is like politics, in the press business, relationships matter. Relationships for good leads on bad information. Relationships for the "inside story" and very few African American elected officials have those relationships, and they get crappy coverage from time to time as a result.

Many are scared to death of the press or are convinced that they will not take into account their point of view. ("They are just going to write whatever they want to write, my quote will only legitimize the story, so I will ignore their call.") As a result, they do not have any relationship with the press, and no way to get across the dirt of their political opponents, or add explanations to balance out the reporter's story.

To me, the example of failing to report all sides is rare. Most stories are on point. But every once in a while, there is a story, that is just so slanted, or fails to take into account obvious mitigants or alternate explanations, that it just angers me. That happens more when the subject is an African American elected official than not.

I try, in circles of African Americans, to point out that the press always reports bad stories about people in power, and now more African Americans are in power. But I must say that that argument is poorly received, b/c the feeling of bias is strong, if not well-backed up.

Online chatter of the sort I and others engage in here is not journalism.

Journalists, and the fuzzier world of columinists like you and Baer, are held to a standard of objectivity that we are not here. In a newspaper, I couldn't brand a column with the candidates I support, as I do my posts here. I like that I get to do that here...since there is some (albeit vague) underlying progressive ideology that readers and writers either share or, at least, respect.

It's interesting how a different--but still understandable--standard of behavior has developed in the online world. When Dan and Ray chase off magpie-hacks in the employ of some political person, most people here understand why and support the move.

You're absolutely right of course about the responsibility of journalists to report our leaders' misdeeds. Ben Franklin's old town should demand nothing less.

Thanking all the valiant candidates endorsed by Philly For Change, and looking forward with GREAT expectations to the first four years of MAYOR MICHAEL A. NUTTER!

it's hardly the whole job. Most people have no idea what the legislature and other governmental bodies do, and telling them only about the graft and corruption hardly helps them figure it out. When I vote, I want to know what my reps have done on the minimum wage, on health care, and on climate change. When they screw up I need to know that too. But if that's all the media focuses on, it does indeed, as Representative Cohen suggests, feed the notion that government exists only to rip people off. I think it's remarkable that you think your entire job is to tell people what a rotten thing government is. Do you mean the press isn't supposed to help me figure out who to vote for beyond telling me who isn't a thief?

that it was a right wing conspiracy - but that's not what I heard and read him say.

What I remember is that he said that jumping on the pay raise outrage bandwagon would result in some negative blowback (which it did), add to the destructive public sentiment that diminishes the role and validity of government (which it did), and was in some ways based on less than fair analysis (which it was because: (1), the total amount of money involved wasn't that significant relative to other budgetary items, and (2), in some ways it could reasonably be argued that the legislators deserved the pay raise).

However, what I haven't heard Mark say is that he understands why there was so much outrage about the way the pay raise was handled, and that he recognizes that the way it was handled was a violation of the public's trust, and that legislators need to be more sensitive to these perception issues so that they can gain the trust needed to garner support for progressive issues. That is the sense that I feel that Mark has been tone deaf. I feel similarly about how he presents his arguments in favor of gerrymandering, and his failure to understand why people would be upset about his expenditures on the public's dime.

My sense from Baer's reporting on the pay raise situation is that he never attempted to present the issues fairly, and instead sought to ride the wave of rabble-rousing to gain readership. And in that sense, I get Mark's point about why we should demand that journalists conduct good investigative reporting rather than simply look to create a stir by digging up dirt.

Public pressure that seeks to discredit the advocates of progressive positions is not welcome. Arguing that legislators were not sincere about advocating for a higher minimum wage because a legislative pay raise passed first was a lie and a smear. Arguing that the minimum wage legislation had no chance of passing and was merely a political effort to strengthen the Democrats in the 2006 elections was neither helpful nor true either. Threats of civil disobedience as part of a minimum wage effort only set up another obstacle towards the difficult job of getting Senate Republican votes.

And the parting shots at Democrats for not spending campaign funds to pass the minimum wage was bizarre, considering the massive public relations effort we and AFL-CIO related organizations were making along with the Minimum Wage Coalition.

The pay raise was repealed in November, 2005, and a $7.15 minimum wage effective July 1, 2007 (with $6.25 the interim increase) was enacted in July, 2006. I have been working to increase Pennsylvania's minimum wage since January, 1987, and I have led the fight for the only two successful minimum wage increases above the federal level in Pennsylvania history. I picked the $7.15 figure to fight for. It was 15 cents higher than the original position advocated in the state senate and 15 cents ahead of what was then the national position of the AFL-CIO.

I am currently leading efforts to raise the minimum wage in Pennsylvania to $9.35 an hour in 2010, a position that least so far is ahead of where the national and Pennsylvania AFL-CIO and the Minimum Wage Coalition are willing to go.

As part of my effort to raise Pennsylvania's minimum wage in the 1987-1988 legislative session, I initiated the effort of pro-labor legislators around the country to get the AFL-CIO to begin the long process--now institutionalized in various forms--of helping states run national campaigns in state legislatures around the country. These efforts were vital in embarrassing Senate Republicans in 2006 into supporting our minimum wage increase after (1) 21 other states had also raised their minimum wage above the federal level and (2) three of our neighboring states had picked the $7.15 figure.

There are now 19 states with either annual cost of living increases with no caps on what the minimum wage can be, or higher caps than Pennsylvania's $7.15. Events are moving in the right direction. Pennsylvania is now one of five states capped at $7.15.
I will continue to work to see that we do much better.

Calling John Baer a "strong" supporter of the minimum wage increase is historical revisionism. While he attacked legislators for voting for the pay raise and not a minimum wage increase, he carefully avoided calling for a minimum wage increase.

Finally, after I repeatedly needled him on the subject, he once called for a minimum wage increase of an unspecified amount at the end of a long column on something else. This caused him even more grief from his radical right wing friends and allies and perhaps aggravated his animus towards me.