Author: erikeisele

The Holiday Season

December has a way of ripping by. Between endorsements, court battles and employee parties it’s nearly January, and I have barely kept up with LPJ.

So it’s time to update.

Endorsements: The Conway Daily Sun endorsed Mitt Romney for the 2012 G.O.P. nomination, although without enthusiasm. He is essentially the best of a poor field, the endorsement said, and so he’s the one we’d go with. Huntsman was good, but he seemed to me to be working out the bugs for a 2016 presidential run. Everyone else was severely lacking in some way. So we went with Mitt. It was an uninspiring choice, but overall the experience was a painstaking one. Buddy Roemer, in fact, was an office favorite, but you can’t endorse someone no one has even heard of. As a protest vote it would fall flat because people wouldn’t even know what we were saying. So we went bland but reliable — Mitt 2012. I look forward to similar discussions around the general election.

Court: We had our day in court with the Conway School Board over whether they had the right to deny our request for documents under the Right To Know law. I got to argue the paper’s position in front of a Superior Court judge, while two attorneys, two school board members and the superintendent took the opposing position. It was a ton of fun. I laid out the paper’s points as well as I could, and then laid out arguments against each point the two lawyers made. I’m not sure how we/I did yet, but if we lose we have the right to appeal. And regardless it was a fantastic experience.

And lastly, I was named the Sun’s employee of the year. I got the award at the paper’s Christmas party. It’s all glass and weighs as much as a brick. I have a photo somewhere, I’ll have to put it up here…

A lot happens in a couple weeks, even in a slow news month like December…

Rick

Rick Santorum is an interesting guy. His politics are way to the right, and I doubt he could ever win a general election, but his beliefs come from his convictions. In a lot of ways he is similar to Ron Paul, except instead of religion being a minor influence on his policy positions they are the foundation for them.

After reading about Santorum and seeing him in debates I was skeptical he would be an engaging candidate, but his passion mimics charisma. After talking to him for an hour I got to feel like I liked him, if not his politics. On a personal level it’s funny how important that is. I think back to Primary Colors and other portrayals of Bill Clinton — it is that ability to connect that makes a politician.

I recorded the entire Santorum interview, from start to finish. There were a few choice cuts that I need to cull together, but first I put the whole piece up online. Check out the one below. If you’re short on time go about halfway in and watch to the end. It’s good to see the human side of these candidates, even if it’s a long shot they’ll ever be president.

One More President

One more presidential hopeful, I should say. Or should I say two more? Wait, three. Nope, four.

That’s the kind of week it has been, and the kind of week it’s going to be. John Huntsman and Rick Santorum were in the office last week, Buddy Roemer is in tomorrow, and next week is Mitt Romney. I’m shooting video, uploading and writing as fast as I can, but I haven’t deluded myself into thinking I’m going to stay caught up.

I’m also due in court next week to challenge a refusal of a request for records under the state’s Right To Know law. And I’m doing an outdoor piece for an online magazine. Busy week.

But I just wanted to make sure everyone knew Rick Santorum is a nice guy. His politics have made him a controversial figure, but after more than an hour with him at the Sun I have to say he’s a super-likable and pleasant man. And he’d be fun to disagree with over the dinner table, because he seems to enjoy explaining his views without getting confrontational.

Now that isn’t an endorsement, however, but seeing as most people don’t get the kind of time we get I figure I ought to share some of the insights that won’t make it into the newspaper. His politics are very conservative, so he’ll only appeal to certain voters. Others will revile him for those same politics. But given a chance to bring a guy home to have an engaging (and spirited) conversation, I think thus far he’d be it. I’ll put the video of the interview up once I’m done so you can see what I mean. Some parts of my job are so cool.

The Story

This is the big story we did. In print it actually said by Lloyd Jones and Erik Eisele, but because I uploaded it to the system it only says my name online. It certainly was not just mine.

The most interesting thing has been the fallout—very little. The only things we’ve received are more tips of things to look at and more reports like those in the story. I expected to hear a lot more criticism, but maybe it’s just a question of not yet.

So that story is done for now, but we still have to fire court paperwork to challenge the refusal of our right to know request under RSA 91-A. I’m interested to hear what a judge says about their attorney’s position.

Defending the Public’s Right to Know

I’ve got a good story coming out tomorrow, written in collaboration with one of my colleagues at the Sun. It’s about a school board member who gets out of control at sports events and school administration’s unwillingness to release information about it. We were able to get people who were familiar with the documents do go on the record, however, and do almost the exact same story as we would have done otherwise. The only difference was an added portion about the school’s refusal and basing the stories on quotes instead of documents. We confirmed with five different people the school received complaints, however, so we know the information is good. And they all went on the record to confirm it.

Then today I got to call the school board members to get their comments. I pushed hard for explanations as to why information about a public official was being kept from the public, and in at least on instance a board member felt I was too aggressive, even hostile. That sucks, since I was only looking for information, but luckily one of my colleagues was able to speak to her later and let her know I hadn’t intended to come off that way.

It is hard to sit by, however, while a board denies the public their right to information. The unfortunate point in this instance is that it was administrators, not board officials, who made the decision. The board members didn’t know anything about what was going on, even though the administration was ostensibly acting in the board’s name. I pushed the board because they should have been made aware of what was going on. They weren’t, and that stinks.

But it has made for a good story, and at the end of the day we did good work. Despite efforts to keep potentially embarrassing information about  a public official private we were able to get it out there. That’s what it’s all about, and it’s nice to be able to finish the day knowing that’s just what we did.

Underground

I caught this program online the other night and was blown away (click here to watch the entire program):

 

Watch Syria Undercover on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

I was impressed by the dedication of the reporter and the level of risk she was willing to take to get the story out, and I told her as much on Twitter.

Any report like this, of course, is only a small part of the story, but when the coverage is so restricted it is wonderful to have someone willing to go where others aren’t. PBS’ Frontline, like NPR’s Poisoned Places series, is an example of excellent investigative reporting in broadcast form. Too rare these days, but stunning when it’s done well. Bravo PBS, eye opening coverage.

Cancelation Policy

Buddy Roemer and John Huntsman both canceled for this week, leaving only “front-runner” Mitt Romney. I put front-runner in quotes only because the latest polls don’t actually place him at number one, but I’m not really sure that doesn’t mean he’s the front-runner.

I do worry the G.O.P. is going to face what I would call “the Kerry Effect” if Romney is nominated. Democrats never really rallied around Senator John Kerry, and therefore he was unable to unseat an otherwise vulnerable George W. Bush. Barack Obama could get the same window into a second term—so few conservatives seem excited about Romney it could be hard for the Republicans to turn out the vote. It does make for an interesting primary season: it’s only November, but the contest already feels over. There aren’t many viable options to Romney, at least not that voters are taking notice of. We’ll see if he can hold onto the lead, and if he does how he’ll fair in the real contest next November.