Leaders answer the tough questions

I’m frustrated again.

I’m trying not to be bitter about it, but this is also an industry-wide issue that I think readers should really be aware of.

To avoid rehashing things I’ve said before, please read Politicians and corporations are walking away from the table. It’s about one facet of how social media has eroded the power and quality of traditional news media that employ actual reporters.

I have a first-class example to share with you this week, and I’m going to name some names because I’m tired of there being no repercussions for behavior like this.

I received a call from Rep. Jack Bergman’s Marquette liaison, Rich Rossway, on Tuesday. I’ve worked with them before, so they know me professionally and they had my card with my cellphone number on it. Before scheduling anything, I confirmed that they knew I had left the Daily Mining Gazette and that I was now self-publishing.

They said yes! They said they knew I’m doing my own thing. Would I have time Wednesday to sit down with The General (as he’s called by his admirers — he holds the rank of Lt. General with the U.S. Marines)?

I said that I would absolutely make some time, but understand I’m going to ask some tough questions and push a bit on the answers to make sure they hold up. They said that shouldn’t be anything new for a U.S. Representative. And I absolutely agree.

Being an American politician, being any kind of leader, means answering tough questions.

They even agreed to let me record the interview so I could release it as a podcast, which I thought would best reflect Rep. Bergman’s answers. I’m not trying to misrepresent him, after all. I’ll press people on their answers, maybe fact-check them if necessary, but I’ll let them say their piece.

So I spent a while Tuesday night getting questions together and researching possible responses to make sure I was prepared. I wanted to talk to him about Afghanistan, in light of his 40 years of military experience. I wanted to talk to him about his responses to COVID-19 and his comments (and votes) on election fraud. I was even going to throw him a little bit of a bone and wind up with his membership and work with the Climate Solutions Caucus.

Come Wednesday, I get no call to confirm, and despite repeated calls, no responses to my attempts to contact them. Not even a “Sorry, we can’t make it.” Through the grapevine, I find out they instead granted the Daily Mining Gazette an interview, with only minutes of notice.

I don’t begrudge Garrett the interview at all. Frankly, I’m surprised they didn’t call him first on Tuesday to set things up. Because that’s what they should have done in the absence of a publicly announced and openly accessible press conference.

Garrett is a good reporter and could probably have done a fine interview given adequate time to prepare. The Gazette is still the newspaper of record in Houghton County. I’m proud of Late Edition and all, but I’m still a small-fry and don’t blame people for not knowing about it.

Instead, they first wasted time I could have spent doing something else by setting me up, and then they ambushed Garrett and gave him no time to prepare, which gave them just what they really wanted; an easy interview with shallow questions (no offense intended to Garrett), and a breezy article in the newspaper to keep Rep. Bergman’s exposure up.

Everybody makes mistakes, but this is a coordinated strategy. They’re playing a dirty game to avoid public accountability, and I’m calling them out on it.

I have a handful of criticisms for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, but at least her office was open to questions this week when she was in town. While I didn’t make it there, she had a press conference where she took a few questions from a myriad of reporters who had notice and thus time to prepare for the press conference.

Openly and publicly taking questions seems a lot more like good-faith leadership to me than hiding from a reporter who you know has tough questions at the ready in favor of one that you’ve insured doesn’t. We’ll have to see how Bergman’s new political opponent, Dr. Bob Lorinser, handles the media.

P.S.—In the interest of full disclosure; I did get a text message from Rep. Bergman’s Marquette liaison to apologize for not contacting me about the interview. It came in on Friday, fully 48 hours after the interview was supposed to have taken place.