Aides Re-edited News Articles on Candidate’s Web Site
NY GOP Candidate alters news stories for better coverage
As William F. Weld runs for governor of New York this year, his campaign has put a new spin on the old political rule of having a positive message. Campaign aides have significantly altered two newspaper articles on his Web site about his bid for governor, removing all negative phrases about him, like “mini-slump” and “dogged by an investigation,” and passages about his political problems.
It’s interesting enough that Bill Weld is running for Governor of New York after being Governor of Massachusetts. You would think that his record as a Republican in one of the most Liberal states in the Union would be enough for him to campaign on, right? Apparently not. It seems that Weld is worried enough about his past that he has his aides editing newspaper stories before they’re posted on his campaign’s web sites. After all, propaganda is worthless unless it paints one in the best possible light, eh?
What I find most disturbing about this episode is how little attention and outrage Weld’s historical revisionism seems to be attracting. Here we have a Republican candidate for Governor of probably the most important state in the Union who feels the need to redact anything that might paint him in a less than glorious light. Doesn’t that speak to Bill Weld’s integrity and, by extension, his worthiness to govern? Can the people of New York really trust someone who is willing to massage the truth?
Of course, he IS a Republican…so what else could we reasonably expect?
Also removed were references to a federal investigation of Decker College, a Kentucky trade school that Mr. Weld led until he left to run for governor last fall; the college collapsed into bankruptcy weeks later amid allegations of financial aid fraud. And criticism of Mr. Weld by a former New York Republican senator, Alfonse D’Amato, was removed.
The Weld campaign placed the sanitized articles, still under the reporters’ bylines, on its Web site, weldfornewyork.org under the heading “news.” Nothing told readers about the changes.
It is generally considered inappropriate for a political campaign to alter news articles or photos and then render them as the true content. “It’s totally dishonest” said George Arzt, a New York political communications consultant who worked for Eliot Spitzer, now the leading Democratic candidate for governor, in 1998. “I’ve never heard of such a thing done by a major player in a gubernatorial race.”
But a Weld spokesman defended the practice, comparing it to selecting positive blurbs to run in movie advertisements.
One of the articles is from The New York Times of Jan. 21, and the other, by a Gannett News Service writer, ran in The Poughkeepsie Journal on Jan. 25.
In its revision of the Times article, the Weld campaign lopped off the first three paragraphs, which reviewed Mr. Weld’s problems. The Weld version carried the reporter’s byline but dropped the story headline, “Campaign May Be Down, But Weld Certainly Isn’t,” and began with a first paragraph (originally the fourth) about Mr. Weld being known in Massachusetts as “a man who never had a bad day.”
The changes, which were discovered by a reporter, were made at a time when Mr. Weld, a former governor of Massachusetts, is trying to establish himself as the leading Republican candidate for governor. He is ahead of his three rivals in fund-raising and influential Republican leaders have endorsed him.
If Weld is successful in winning the Republican gubernatorial nomination, Democrats will have a legitimate issue to work with. If Bill Weld is willing to massage the truth in order to paint himself in a more postiive light, can the people of New York reasonable expect honesty from him when it comes to the state of affairs in New York? Can (or should) they expect honesty and openness from a man willing to manipulate the truth for his own self-aggrandizement and political advantage? Or must they be willing to countenance a Governor who will tell them only what they want to hear?
Of course, I’m certainly not the most objective observer of our political world. I would sooner wear a pink taffeta ball gown and a tiara than endorse a Republican for anything, but I have to believe that the people of New York are intelligent enough to recognize a liar when they see one…and Bill Weld certainly fits that description. If he cannot even operate his campaign’s website with a degree of honesty, what do you think he’s going to do once he takes the oath of office in Albany?
