Reading The Virginian-Pilot editorial regarding the Sessoms/Obama fliers last night, I wrote a rather snarky post about it but decided I had picked on the Pilot enough this week already 😉 I mean, when the editorial board makes such broad pronouncements, like this:
It’s highly unlikely the flier changed the result of the election
and
There is no evidence that Sessoms, who won the election by 6,852 votes, knew about the flier or approved of it…
[…]
If Iwans is guilty, punish him. If others were involved, find them and hold them accountable, too.
it gets pretty hard to take them seriously. After all, isn’t that the purpose of an investigation and the grand jury?
Buried in the editorial, though, was this gem:
Iwans, his campaign manager, paid for the flier out of his personal account
What? Did I miss a story that told us about this? After all, I’ve pretty much been on this from the beginning. So when did the Pilot tell the readers that Dave Iwans had paid for the fliers? I went back through all of my posts and re-read every single article that has been written by the Pilot.
The initial article on November 5 says “a private donor” paid for the fliers. On November 29, Bruce Williams, a consultant to the Sessoms campaign, says he doesn’t know who paid for them, a point reiterated in this December 13 article. In that same article, Virginia Beach Commonwealth’s Attorney Harvey Bryant says he does know who paid for them, but the article doesn’t tell us who it is. Even the latest article on March 24 doesn’t say that Iwans paid for them.
Wait – there’s this quote (emphasis mine):
“We didn’t willfully or intentionally break any laws,” [Peter G.] Decker [III, Bruce Williams’ attorney] said. “All they had to do is put, ‘paid for by Dave Iwans.’”
That’s it. That the the extent of the reporting by The Virginian-Pilot that Iwans paid for the fliers. It wasn’t in the original story that I wrote about.
Now, did the editorial board read just that quote or are they now making news? What does that say about the news side of the Pilot? Didn’t they consider that who paid for the fliers was a big enough deal to warrant at least a statement in the article?
This gets to the core of what the local newspaper, in my opinion, should be doing: local news. The failure to report who paid for the fliers is a serious misstep and should make everyone wonder whether we are ever getting the unvarnished truth in our “news”paper. Readers should not have to parse sentences to come up with the facts.
OK, so maybe “pick on the Pilot” week isn’t over 😦
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
“We didn’t willfully or intentionally break any laws,”
Criminal intent is not necessary for prosecution or conviction.
Actually, the penalties are civil ones unless “In the case of a willful violation, he shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.”
While not on the same level or degree of crime, don’t some of these points sound somewhat like the Nixon White House defense talking points for Watergate?
“It was just a break-in . . no big deal. No one at the White House or close to Nixon had anything to do with it. Nixon certainly didn’t know anything about it.”
“This didn’t have any effect on the election. It was no big deal, just someone leaving a disclaimer off. I know they all said they had nothing to do with it at first, and now the campaign manager not only KNEW about it, but paid for it out of his pocket. But that still doesn’t mean others knew about it, including Sessoms. And sure, they all met in the law firm offices of Sessoms’ best buddy, Billy Harrison, the night before the election, but that doesn’t mean the Mayor knew anything about it, just because his campaign manager and best friend did.”
“It’s still not that big of a deal. They just left off the disclaimer; it’s not like they were trying to tamper with the election results. Uuuhh, actually they were. But so what? Just because they tried something illegal so as to deceive voters doesn’t mean it worked and actually swayed the election. OK, so they WERE trying to sway the election by deceiving voters. There’s no proof that it worked (Really? Check out Vivian Paige’s analysis).”
“Just because TWO mayoral candidates — Oberndorf AND Scott Taylor — filed complaints, doesn’t mean anyone cares. Just because Sessoms and his buddies tampered with an election doesn’t mean it would have changed the results. And we certainly know that Will Sessoms didn’t know anything about it, don’t we? Or do we?”
“Oh,that’s right — he said he didn’t. Just like Bruce Williams and Dave Iwans said they didn’t know anything about it. So Sessoms probably is telling the truth, even if no one else is.”
“So the VP editorial page is right — why are we wasting time looking into an election that was tampered with? Slap Iwans on the wrist, assume Sessoms is telling the truth and let’s get on with doing the developers’ business and letting Iwans go back to work for Paul Fraim/Will Sessoms (one and the same).”
“After all, the VP endorsed Sessoms without asking any real questions, so why take a chance on embarassing them by finding out he actually knew something. Those pesky grand juries and Commonwealth Attorneys!! ”
“The VP editorial board doesn’t respect the electoral process and the voters, so why should Sessoms, his campaign and his cronies?”
So you were expecting honesty from the Pile-it? They have mangled their product more than a VDOT road crew fixing potholes! You can’t lay off half your workforce and expect to keep any degree of quality with your product. Pile-it has destroyed itself! The only place any of us can look for quality in reporting is the internet and bloggers! The quality and level of excellence you demand on your blog, far exceeds anything you’ll ever find in the Pile-it!
Dave Iwans is a professional “media consultant,” just like Kirwin. Do you really think that he unintentionally printed, paid for, and distributed these fliers? And that the fliers just happened to wind up in certain precincts, distributed to certain voters, by NSU fraternity brothers?
It shouldn’t be difficult at all to prove that the violation was willful.
Also, isn’t Iwans required to disclose these payments? Did he comply with that law?
If Iwans was Sessoms’ campaign manager, this should have been reported as an in-kind contribution by the Sessoms campaign. There is no possible way to justify it as an “independent expenditure”.
IMHO, it’s interesting to me,with the underlying racism that exists here that Will Sessoms would use Barak Obama’s implied endorsement to get elected. I miss Meyera Oberndorf.