| The Montana press has never been an engine of speed, efficiency or thoroughness. It's agility in getting to the bottom of a story is somewhere between that of a Sloth and a Tortoise.
For example, when the press "broke" the story about Max Baucus having recommended to the White House that they hire his secret paramour for a job at the Department of Justice, they were reporting something that had been known for probably a good year or so by just about everyone in state politics, by all the writers, all the editors, all the pols. The same thing was true of the John Morrison affair. Morrison's extracurricular activities and excessive hormones were well known, but for a long time the press just didn't want to report it and had it not been for some crafty work on the party of pro-Tester partisans to keep the story bubbling on blogs and in mailings, it might well have gone unreported until the general election, which would have meant humiliation and (probably) defeat for Dems had Morrison won the primary. And when Denny Rehberg got drunk and fell off his horse in Kazakhstan back a few years ago, it was ages before the Montana press felt it necessary to report it, even though the story was well known around town. In fact, it was not until the story appeared in the Washington Post much later that the Helena IR and other esteemed media institutions considered that it might be news at all. And to this day, it appears that not a single writer can be bothered to get Denny Rehberg or Dustin Frost on the record to confirm whether they have submitted, or plan to submit, work comp claims (i.e., millions of dollars of socialized reimbursement) for Denny's white-trash binge-boating wreck injuries. Whether, in all of these cases, it is the writer or editor's fault, I don't really know.
At any rate, my favorite one of these is the Bozeman prostitution ring, and it's supposed connection to a high ranking political official. This story, mind you, was broadcast on ABC's Nightline, and yet it was virtually a complete censorship job here in Montana. A small story, buried in the paper, off topic, with no subsequent investigation, was pretty much all we got.
Last year, Nightline reported that the DOJ was investigating the involvement of political figures in a Bozeman prostitution ring. (As clients and not as pimps, we should pray.) You'd think Nightline's mention of such a thing, in and of itself, would be news here.
For some unexplained reason, the DOJ settled for nailing a woman who was the mistress of Bill Martel (as in Martel Stadium where the Bobcats play). Martel had been sleeping with her and supporting her, with a car, money for her children's school, medical care, etc. Then he got tired of her, so he stopped paying her and kicked her out. She went broke, and began demanding from Martel that he continue funding essentials like her kids' medical care which he had been paying for. For this, she was arrested for extortion. She moved to Vegas, and has never talked to a reporter. Martel got off free, of course.
The extortion part was half-assedly reported in the Montana papers. What was never examined at all was the bigger question: what was this prostitution ring, and what politicians were suspected of being involved in it?
It gets better. There was no investigative followup by the Montana press, no phone calls to the US Attorney's office or snooping around for some answers, or even editorials or op-eds asking why there were no answers, and what the initial suspicion about a politician might have been. Nor did anyone ever get an interview with the woman's attorney, who gave a long and impassioned speech in court explaining how his client was a scapegoat for the bigger game that the DOJ tried and failed to catch. This attorney, it should be noted, fingered Max Baucus in the courtroom as the target of the DOJ investigation (transcript here). Since it was never exactly clear whether the attorney had anything to back it up, the press did not report on the attorney's comments in the courtroom. Perhaps that was the right call. It's a tough one. (My bet has always been that it was Rehberg. He is super-close with Martel, and, as we know, likes to party and, from what I am told, likes to clean the plumbing every so often. Max is a little long in the tooth for high-priced call girls, plus he seems to prefer females who work in his office.)
Nevertheless, there is a story here, full of sex, intrigue, and politics. What could be better?! At a minimum, why not look into what the hell Bill Mercer was looking for? The Montana press, in its chronic state of laziness and apathy, might need some help in looking into it. Perhaps the Billings Gazette should contract out to Left in the West for some investigative journalism. |
