Sound Reporting?

I should have written about this last Friday when it was still fresh on my mind, but I got caught up in weekend planning. What I'm referring to is a story reported by a political reporter on ABC 7's Friday news at 5pm that State Senator Don Harmon had endorsed Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka for Governor at a meet and greet in Elmwood Park. Sounds like a helluva interesting story to pursue. I'm short on names and links, so please feel free to help me out on this one.

In an interview with Harmon's opponent, the reporter learned that the opponent heard from somebody at the meeting that this endorsement had taken place. Who's the first person the reporter should call to confirm the validity of this claim? How about the person who gave the alleged endorsement -- Senator Don Harmon. The reporter asked Harmon if the story was true. Harmon couldn't have stated more clearly that this was not true. He said that it was a gimmick that his opponent was using to get some free news coverage. It worked -- Channel 7 was in a giving mood last Friday.

But maybe Harmon was lying to cover his tracks. Maybe its not a good idea to endorse the candidate of the other political party who hopes to win the job of the incumbent governor from his own political party. So the reporter asked Topinka if Harmon had in fact endorsed her. She denied it. Looks like the story is falling apart, right?

Well, this reporter wasn't ready to let this doozie of scoop get away -- facts or no facts. So he tied it all together in the end by saying that somebody accused Alderman Mell of planting the story. Naturally, Alderman Mell's office denied the accusation saying that he expects to be the scapegoat for many a bad story throughout the Blagojevich campaign.

Of course, how could we forget the family feud. If the facts of the story don't add up, inject the family feud. While this story is sad, the saddest thing is that it was the lead story on the 5pm news. It was also sad that the reporter would try to force this story to be true so that he could be the one to break it. Could it be possible that, while trying to fact check the story with one of the event attendees, he misled this person to believe that Alderman Mell's office had told him it was true, even though this reporter stated that the Alderman's office denied it?

Now this isn't about Blagojevich, nor is it about Mell. It isn't about Harmon, nor is it about his opponent whose name I can't remember (sorry pal -- Don gets my vote anyway). This is about news coverage that would make me feel ashamed to say I was in the business. What ever happened to reporting the facts? This was more like anti-news.

Whack-A-Mole