The Toledo Blade investigates itself

[deminks]

Anonymous letter to Pulitzer Board spurs investigation by The Blade

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060528/NEWS08/605280346/-1/RSS

On April 3, Blade editors were informed that an eight-page anonymous letter attacking the newspaper's Coingate entry was received by the Pulitzer Prize Board at Columbia University.

Editors believed that the letter was written by someone working at the newspaper. The letter mentioned "our readers" and detailed Blade meetings, story assignments, and past disciplinary actions against staff members.

The letter raised questions about the journalistic ethics of Fritz Wenzel, former politics writer for The Blade. Mr. Wenzel had nothing to do with the reporting and writing of the Ohio Coingate scandal, which began with the newspaper's reports in April, 2005, into Tom Noe's failed $50 million rare-coin investment for the state and expanded into corruption in the office of Gov. Bob Taft.

Editors made a hard choice — to investigate their own staff to determine who wrote the letter. The probe would also address the allegations against Mr. Wenzel.

(end snip)

Wow, a disgruntled employee, and a possible Republican operative in their midst. Fascinating. Much more at the link.

[nicknameless]

1. Weird. Turns out Wenzel is a repub.

He even worked for Jean Schmidt's campaign. His family has ties to Noe's. And his son is a GOP operative.

The allegation that's most interesting to me is this one:

Did a reporter sit on the big story?

The biggest journalistic transgression alleged in Mr. Tanber’s anonymous letter is that Mr. Wenzel sat on a story — a huge story.

The letter claims the politics reporter met three times in 2004 with Joe Kidd, then director of the Lucas County Board of Elections, and was told by the GOP insider about a scheme by Mr. Noe, the Maumee coin dealer, to illegally launder money to the Bush-Cheney campaign.

Mr. Kidd said that he met with Mr. Wenzel in January, February, and September, 2004, and says that at each meeting he told Mr. Wenzel about the scheme.

Mr. Wenzel says he does not remember being told of the money laundering until the meeting in September, 2004. He says he did not believe Mr. Kidd because the former election director failed to give him evidence to back up the claims and because Mr. Kidd had been fired by Bernadette Noe.

“These rumors that Noe was involved in funneling money to the Bush campaign would occasionally come up, but nobody could substantiate them in any way,” Mr. Wenzel said.

Federal prosecutors believed Mr. Kidd, and in May, 2005, a grand jury in Toledo indicted Mr. Noe on three felony counts of laundering money to President Bush’s campaign.

<snip>

[annabanana]

2. Sounds like Tanber is about due for

a position in the Administration. He sounds like a perfect fit.

[nicknameless]

3. I don't know. I thought that's what the story would be too,

given the first 2/3 of the article. But it gets much more revealing towards the end.

Instead, it sounds like Wenzel has connections to the Noe family and sat on the "Coingate" story for a year.

Tanber worked for Zogby. Wenzel worked for Jean Schmidt.