Truesee's Daily Wonder

Truesee presents the weird, wild, wacky and world news of the day.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

 

The RNC's least favorite reporter

The RNC's least favorite reporter
Keach Hagey

August 6, 2010 09:23 AM EDT

The Republican National Committee, embroiled in an internal squabble over the leadership of Chairman Michael Steele, is leaking like a sieve.

In an indication of just how bad it’s gotten, CNN reported — via a leak, naturally — that one of the first orders of business at the RNC summer meeting in Kansas City on Wednesday was a resolution by the Republican state party chairs urging the RNC executive committee to launch an investigation into the leaks.

“It is a unanimous move to strike against the repeated consistent leaking in regards to committee finances,” said a committee source, speaking anonymously to CNN’s Mark Preston and Peter Hamby.

While there have been a series of leaks to several different outlets, including POLITICO, anyone following the RNC’s internal knife fight knew these words were aimed at the reporting of one man: The Washington Times’ veteran political writer, Ralph Z. Hallow, who has broken a steadier stream of stories about the RNC than anyone else.

Hallow, who has covered the RNC for The Washington Times for decades, has forged an entire beat out of the infighting of the RNC, which is divided between the supporters of Steele and critics of his spending and leadership style. That latter, which includes many major GOP donors, has been feeding Hallow internal documents damaging to Steele almost since the moment Steele was elected in the spring of last year.

Those leaks culminated in a particularly damaging story by Hallow on July 20th, based on a leaked memo by RNC Treasurer Randy Pullen accusing Steele of trying to hide $7 million in debt from the Federal Election Commission in an attempt to make the RNC books look healthier than they actually were.

As MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow reported in a segment about The Washington Times’ reporting on Steele shortly afterward – which didn’t mention Hallow by name – “If you want to know how badly the Republican establishment wants Michael Steele to go away, take a look at The Washington Times, where you will find that reporting dirt on Michael Steele has become a beat all its own.”

Steele supporters believe that Hallow is too close to his sources to be objective, and charge that he overlooked stories about Pullen’s own debt-hiding controversies — published in the Huffington Post and the local press in Arizona, where Pullen is state party chairman.

But Hallow’s editor, Sam Dealey, said the paper had another investigative reporter look into those charges against Pullen and found them to be without merit.

Other reporters on the RNC beat say Hallow cuts a familiar, if someone mysterious, figure at RNC events, where the he is as likely to be hobnobbing with RNC members as in the press pen with his fellow scribes. 

But there is no question that Hallow’s relationship with members of the RNC goes beyond the professional. Hallow and his wife, Millie, were listed as guests of outgoing RNC member David Norcross at a farewell party in Norcross’s honor Thursday night, according to an e-mail obtained by POLITICO.

Millie Hallow said her family and Norcross’s family became friends when their children were RNC interns together during Haley Barbour’s tenure as RNC chairman in the mid-1990s.

“Ralph and Millie are attending as friends,” Norcross said. “They are old friends.”

Norcross said there was also an NRA connection. “Millie works for the NRA, and I’m a member of the NRA. I don’t remember if we met at a convention.”

Hallow declined to comment on his relationship with Norcross, saying only that he had been a newspaper reporter since 1965 and didn’t get into it to be in the spotlight himself.

“Came into the craft believing it was a secular priesthood whose members sought the truth without fear or favor,” he said. “Journalism’s practitioners were not newsmakers and news breakers. I still believe that.”

Dealey said Hallow is simply a well-sourced reporter who is doing nothing inappropriate by attending the dinner. “Ralph’s stories are based on committee documents and on-the-record quotes,” he said. “I do not believe that The Washington Times should regulate the private lives of its reporters and editors. They are free to marry, vote and socialize as they like.”

Norcross has been critical of the RNC’s fundraising under Steele’s leadership, telling The Washington Independent earlier this week that he was “disappointed” by the results to date. The $12.5 million the RNC had in May was less than a third of what it had raised by the same time in either the 2002 ($47 million) or the 2006 ($44.6 million) midterm election cycle.

But he believes Pullen’s disclosure will likely help the RNC turn a corner.

“Given the opportunities that we’ve got, I think fundraising has got to pick up, because I think Republicans are really, really excited,” he told POLITICO. “And the whole stuff about the treasurer coming out, that ought to make people feel more comfortable, because things are being fixed.”

He also thinks the RNC is spending too much of its energy obsessing about the leaks.

“Today, I said to the membership in the members-only meeting that spending a lot of time worrying about leaks is a waste of time,” he said.

Hallow’s reporting has been one of the few bright spots of a bumpy year so far for The Washington Times, which went through significant layoffs in January, the freezing of 401K contributions and the loss of its publisher and president, Jonathan Slevin, in April.

The paper has also had to kill its sports section and focus on international, national and cultural issues. In a symbolic move, the White House Correspondents Association voted Sunday to move the paper’s White House correspondent back a row in the White House briefing room.


Comments:
Truesee if you ever want to drop me a line somewhere, here is my personal blog page:
http://www.myspace.com/miguelbrownblog

my name is Peter...
Post a Comment

<< Home

Archives

March 2024   February 2024   January 2024   December 2023   November 2023   October 2023   September 2023   August 2023   July 2023   June 2023   May 2023   April 2023   March 2023   February 2023   January 2023   December 2022   November 2022   October 2022   September 2022   August 2022   July 2022   June 2022   May 2022   April 2022   March 2022   February 2022   January 2022   December 2021   November 2021   October 2021   September 2021   August 2021   July 2021   June 2021   May 2021   April 2021   March 2021   February 2021   January 2021   December 2020   November 2020   October 2020   September 2020   August 2020   July 2020   June 2020   May 2020   April 2020   March 2020   February 2020   January 2020   December 2019   November 2019   October 2019   September 2019   August 2019   July 2019   June 2019   May 2019   April 2019   March 2019   February 2019   January 2019   December 2018   November 2018   October 2018   September 2018   August 2018   July 2018   June 2018   May 2018   April 2018   March 2018   February 2018   January 2018   December 2017   November 2017   October 2017   September 2017   August 2017   July 2017   June 2017   May 2017   April 2017   March 2017   February 2017   January 2017   December 2016   November 2016   October 2016   September 2016   August 2016   July 2016   June 2016   May 2016   April 2016   March 2016   February 2016   January 2016   December 2015   November 2015   October 2015   September 2015   August 2015   July 2015   June 2015   May 2015   April 2015   March 2015   February 2015   January 2015   December 2014   November 2014   October 2014   September 2014   August 2014   July 2014   June 2014   May 2014   April 2014   March 2014   February 2014   January 2014   December 2013   November 2013   October 2013   September 2013   August 2013   July 2013   June 2013   May 2013   April 2013   March 2013   February 2013   January 2013   December 2012   November 2012   October 2012   September 2012   August 2012   July 2012   June 2012   May 2012   April 2012   March 2012   February 2012   January 2012   December 2011   November 2011   October 2011   September 2011   August 2011   July 2011   June 2011   May 2011   April 2011   March 2011   February 2011   January 2011   December 2010   November 2010   October 2010   September 2010   August 2010   July 2010   June 2010   May 2010   April 2010   March 2010   February 2010   January 2010   December 2009   November 2009   October 2009   September 2009   August 2009   July 2009   June 2009   May 2009   April 2009   March 2009   February 2009   January 2009   December 2008  

Powered by Lottery PostSyndicated RSS FeedSubscribe