When an embarrassing fact about Scott Walker and his sidekick Fred Luber disappeared from a Journal Sentinel story, inquiring minds wondered why.
Tom Daykin, who wrote the story, explained in response to an email inquiry:
I love Scott Walker, and am actively supporting his campaign. But that’s just between us. This is off-the-record, right?
Actually, joking aside, I will forward your email to the boss who edited the story.
I am guessing, though, that it was cut because it was at the end of the story, which probably ran too long for the space allotted in the paper. I put it at the end of the story because we had already reported Walker’s criticisms, and the city’s responses, in a separate story that my colleague Larry Sandler had written the day before. And I thought the new concerns being raised by Ald. Bauman were more newsworthy (as a matter of fact, I am planning to run another blog item soon just about Bauman’s concerns, given that he is normally a very strong advocate for high-speed rail. Kind of a Nixon goes to China thing….)
OK, I guess. As a recovered newsman, I understand the inverted pyramid story and cutting from the bottom, but that's not exactly what happened here.
Somewhere along the line that critical sentence just disappeared from the online story, too.
It appears story that ran is longer than the original, although it takes a different tack. And the final version that appears in the paper replaced Daykin's earlier blog entry. Apparently, that's how it works when something is rewritten or edited for print.
Go figure.
In other news, wait till Walker hears about this: Using our tax money to bring jobs to Janesville? What next?