Bias at the Moscow-Pullman Daily News

Moscow-Pullman Daily News publisher Nathan Alford has repeatedly extolled to me the virtues of free speech and the press. But is the press at the Daily News free of bias?

You read these examples and tell me:

In 2005, a letter to the editor from Ed Schweitzer endorsing Wal-Mart was sat on until the day after the Pullman City Council election in which a PARD member was running. The Daily Evergreen published the same letter two weeks before.

A reporter from the Daily News wanted to cover my visit to the Wal-Mart Home Office in April 2006, but an editor killed the story.

A BREO press release last year about a petition from a group of seniors in favor of Wal-Mart was never covered.

Libelous and defamatory comments from PARD members and sympathizers are allowed to be posted and remain posted at Dnews.com in the name of the "Safe Harbor."

So when a reader of this blog wrote a rebuttal to Chris Lupke's latest insane rant against me, what did the Daily News do? Bury it.

Oh, every letter to the editor trampling out the vintage where the sour grapes are stored from Lupke, Orlich, Damm, et. al. gets published. But here's the letter sent in a few weeks ago that you haven't seen in the Daily News:

I read with interest the letter from Christopher Lupke dated July 5, 2008. In the letter he claims the salary he makes is inaccurate. The information on salaries comes from http://lbloom.net/wsu07.html. The information on the web site is gathered from the Washington State Office of Financial Management and is for 2007. I checked both the salary for my husband and myself. According to the website, both were listed correctly. When the list first came out, I also discussed this site with friends who work at WSU and they agreed that the information was correct. Therefore my question is this…is your listed salary too high or too low, Mr. Lupke? Or is it that you are embarrassed to be earning that much money for only nine months of work? According to Mr. Forbes figures the average Pullman family earns $40,709 a year. It certainly makes it difficult to claim non-elite status when you are earning approximately 54% more for nine months of work than the average Pullmanite makes in a year.

As for the comment, “This pig needs to be removed from the trough.” It was written by a commentator to the blog, not Mr. Forbes personally. Many people can post to blogs. This is just a typical example of taking something out of context for your own personal end. Rather similar to what PARD did to Pullman for the last few years by their unseemly lawsuits and their claim of representing the common people of Pullman. At any rate, the comment was meant to show some professors are elitists and make far too much money for the work they do.

If you want the healing to begin, PARD should apologize for holding Pullman hostage and putting our tax base in jeopardy.

I expect this kind of crap from the puerile Watermelon. But a paper run by level-headed adults? I think we can find a better local newspaper.