Late Morning Reads – Wednesday, April 17, 2019
So, yeah, the real job gets in the way of some things. Morning Reads was unfortunately one of them this week.
Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems like the comment section has been a little more “civil” in the last weeks? I am happy that you guys are being “civil” with each other, and I hope that this will continue.
I am going to make this MR a place where you guys can discuss what you would like to see on this site moving forward, and what you do not want to see. We are quickly approaching another election cycle (some would say it never ends). Would you like to see a section that just hold press releases from candidates? Would you like to see a running list of candidates and links to sites, social media, etc?
Let us know, and thanks for reading.
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Because it was a standalone post when Handel reported her Q1 fundraising (which wasn’t the $325K she claimed, only 205K in contributions and 50k in PAC transfers), for the sake of equal time:
Lucy McBath:388K raised, 92k in PAC transfers
Brandon Beach: 123k raised, 0 transfers.
Jayla Harrison for the “Commandments Party”: 0 raised.
Equal time… in a Karen Handel race… hahahahahahahahahahahaha. I appreciate the optimism, David.
Edit: Because I feel the need to be constructive:
1) I’d like to see more editorial oversight over contributor pieces. The post a few weeks ago where a legislator was given free reign to repeat readily disprovable falsehoods about abortion legislation was unacceptable. If I want politicians to lie to my face, I can go to a town hall or call their office. There should at least be some corner of the Internet where we expect politicians and policy makers to cut the b.s. and have truthful discussion. Why can’t this be that place?
2) If there’s a way to section off the press releases, that’d be great. 99% of Pat’s posts are just regurgitated Doug Collins press releases. That doesn’t provide any unique insight to anyone. Plus, the tribal nature of our politics means every single press release is just mindless cheer-leading. If Johnny Isakson issues a press release criticizing Donald Trump, that’s newsworthy. But we don’t need to waste anyone’s time reminding people that David Perdue thinks the President is just great and the best and a real swell guy.
3) Given the type of folks that read this site, I’d like to see some interviews or Q&A’s with folks behind the campaigns. Would give a little different perspective to the horse race coverage we normally get.
4) If Charlie is gonna work for Handel again this cycle, he needs to step away from the site.
If it was my site I’d do whatever I wanted to do, probably disappear for days then swoop in with wildly slanted articles of support. Anyway, what’s gained by anyone leaving because he’s getting paid? I can pretty much infer who supports whom, although I would appreciate any front-page contributor who has signed up with a candidate making that clear for the benefit of those of us who don’t keep up with campaign hirings.
I thought press releases were for the press but if people enjoy the back-patting and overall bs you find there, that’s fine. Make some pol’s staffer look good.
Thank you for the honest feedback.
We have many Democratic (D) contributors here, but they don’t post as often. I have posted a ton of D pieces over the last couple of years, including Yang’s visit tomorrow (Thursday) just this week.
I covered the GA-6 race between Handel and Ossoff. I published just about everything that came my way, regardless of which side it came from. I believe we were extremely balanced. There was extremely little from McBath in last year’s election, but we covered what we received. If we are not made aware, we cannot publish it. Take a look at her campaign website: Press Releases to see what I mean.
There was a LOT of support from readers to keep the press releases when we asked for feedback. Many of those didn’t want their inbox flooded but liked being able to see them here.
On the subject of being honest, we don’t make a single penny off of this site. This is a passion for us that sometimes takes a backseat to paying the bills. I really need to be in bed right now, but I stopped over here for a little while to see what is up.
Oh for goodness sakes. In the other corner you have the mainstream media outlets and major blogs doing saturation coverage of politics from the Democratic, center-left, left-liberal or progressive viewpoints. And in this corner you have … this one blog which has almost as many conserva-tarian contributors as left leaning ones, and moreover whose right-leaning contributors and commentators are nowhere near as conservative as the ones on Peach Pundit, which can be considered this blog’s predecessor.
You mentioned the abortion legislation. How about seeing this blog as a counterpoint to Jim Galloway’s carpet-bombing crusade against it at the AJC, including trying his level best to rally legislators to vote against it and corporate interests to threaten a boycott?
Another example: the voter suppression thing. At what point did the AJC, New York Times and the other mainstream outlet that “covered” this story mention that nearly all irregularities happened at the county level, in Democrat run counties at that, and that similar voting issues in those counties have persisted for decades? Or that nearly all the “voter disenfranchisment legislation” had been enacted by Democratic legislators and signed by Democratic governors? Or that Stacey Abrams had never raised a peep about these issues during her many years in the Georgia legislature including SIX YEARS as minority leader?
I guess that I can state that since almost every other outlet on the interwebs promotes and defends your point of view exclusively, it would seem to be better for you to spend your time on those instead of agitating for one of the few sites that gives the other side a voice to become Georgia’s version of Talking Points Memo, Salon, Gawker, Vox, The Atlantic … you get the picture.
the mainstream media outlets and major blogs doing saturation coverage of politics from the Democratic, center-left, left-liberal or progressive viewpoints
And you’ve got Fox News, WSJ. Brietbart, Redstate, Daily Caller, talk radio, etc. etc. etc. doing the same thing on the other side (and with better ratings to boot). The existence of media outlets on the left or right does not absolve this site from striving for coverage and discussion that is centered in truth and policy. The 24-hour news networks and politics blogs – whether “liberal” or “conservative” – spend too much time on baseless and intellectual empty vamping. I think the original intent of this site was to provide policy-based and intellectually meaty discussions on Georgia issues (and national issues affecting Georgia). I’d like to see us all (posters and commenters alike) strive toward that.
ow about seeing this blog as a counterpoint to Jim Galloway’s carpet-bombing crusade against it at the AJC
You can provide a counterpoint without lying to people. The column I’m referencing included multiple, readily-disprovable, lies made in bad faith. I pointed them out in the comments. I’m not saying that you can’t publish the “conservative viewpoint,” but you should, at the very least, make sure the person sharing the “conservative viewpoint” isn’t lying.
Lawton, thanks for responding. I’m not demanding that y’all spend any more of your limited free time on this endeavor than you already do. But, at the very least, a little more transparency from site leadership on how things get published would be appreciated.
I want regular leaks from inside the Guv’s office. And the SoS’s office too.
In the “realistic” category:
Once upon a time, I recommended GeorgiaPol to some of my Democratic Party friends as a place where they could see intelligent discussions by reasonable Republicans (With the best part being the comments from a variety of people/opinions across the state.) (Kind of to prove to them that yes, reasonable, intelligent Republicans DO exist.)
I’d like to see that back again. Cleaning up the comments helps a lot (thank you) but they haven’t recovered that richness they once had.
I’d also like to see more disclosure on contributor’s posts. I might be mis-remembering but they seem to be more lobbyist than they used to be.
In the “wish list” category:
For the record, I’m a middle-of-the-road person who has always voted split ticket and have friends/family on all the sides – moderate to extreme from both of the parties. Almost every single one of them tells me that it is no use trying to talk with the other side – but from my vantage point, they all have things in common and I believe that there is value in good discussion.
I would love for this to be a place that enabled those types of discussions across party lines. I recognize that given the site ownership, that probably isn’t going to happen – but you did ask what we would like the site to be. 🙂
I miss Jon.
As an aside, I went back to read the “welcome” tab.
I want that.
Thank you for the feedback. I honestly think the majority of our Republican contributors are fair. We do have many Democratic (D) contributors here, but they don’t post quite as often.
Also, I have signed up for numerous campaign emails for both major parties over the last few years, and I can tell you that the GOP emails are typically press releases while the D emails are often campaign blurbs (“Have you heard the latest? Trump’s coming to town, send me $10 to combat his radical right ideology”). I am sure the campaign people know what they are doing, but honestly, which one do you think is going to get published here?
Handel gets a lot of flak around here, but if you look at the Press Releases on McBath’s website, you can see we didn’t have a lot to work with. I believe we posted all of them.
I do appreciate you responding – both here and above.
I don’t have strong opinions on press releases – I think they should be clearly marked as such but have no opinion on whether to have more or less of them here.
I will note that my disclosure request came partially out of reading Charlie’s pieces and wondering whether or not he is getting paid to lobby for the private school / charter school industry.
My opinion and expectation is that the posters here reveal any business relationship or official position within a campaign or with respect to legislation or lobbying. The commentariat, well that applying would be nice too. I recollect a few people being excoriated here and/or at predecessor PP when such had been found out without disclosure.
I’m at training event in Denver for a week, and TDD notes the comment section was civil that whole time…
Feeling the love guys.