I don't trust The Plains Sentinel and neither should you
Please point and laugh at this sad excuse for a news outlet.
Hi,
Imagine you're a journalist covering politics. A campaign operative comes to you with an inflammatory claim that one of their political opponents is interfering in the electoral process. They provide no evidence to support this accusation.
What do you do?
(a) Verify their claim before publishing anything.
(b) Go ahead and just run that shit.
If you answered (b), congratulations! You're not a journalist at all. You're actually working at the local slime factory known as The Plains Sentinel. It's a Substack that purports to be a non-partisan news outlet, but in practice it operates mostly as a mouthpiece for Republican politicians in Nebraska.
The inflammatory claim in question comes from this recent Plains Sentinel post: Lincoln Mayor's Chief of Staff Accused of Tampering With Charter Amendment Process.
The piece is about Lincoln's biggest local news story at the moment: Namely, a local conservative group's failed effort to get three city charter amendments on the November ballot. (All three ballot petitions would've substantially changed how Lincoln's local elections work and were opposed by pro-democracy groups like Civic Nebraska and Lincoln's Democratic mayor.) Lots of local outlets covered the news, which broke Wednesday, that the Lancaster County Election Commission had thrown out two-thirds of the petitions' total signatures, an unusually high rejection rate. The story has gotten even weirder in the past 24 hours because follow-up reporting revealed that 13,300 of the nearly 20,000 rejected signatures were flagged as possibly fraudulent. And just this morning, multiple news outlets reported that the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office has made five arrests in connection with this suspected fraud.
This is obviously an enormous story. A possibly unprecedented level of fraud seemingly orchestrated by the folks hired to gather signatures for a ballot petition is a huge deal. But out of all the news outlets covering this story, only the Plains Sentinel thought it was a good idea to platform anonymous, evidence-free accusations that the mayor's chief of staff did something to interfere with the petitions. From their story:
Complaints that the process has been compromised point back to Rick Hoppe, the chief of staff for [Mayor Leirion] Gaylor Baird.
Hoppe allegedly told multiple people that the amendments had failed just days after they were filed with Wiltgen’s office. Organizers say Hoppe’s comments were suspicious, given that it was likely the signatures had not been fully counted and the group had turned in nearly 10,000 signatures to be verified for each petition, with only 5,000 valid signatures needed to qualify.
Trust me, if the folks at the Plains Sentinel or their sources in the Good Government Lincoln campaign had any proof that Hoppe did something wrong here — something that actually qualifies as "tampering with [the] charter amendment process" — they would have posted it. In fact they'd be blasting it out on every social media account they own. But they don't, so they aren't.
Instead, the Plains Sentinel posted vague gossip. They don't even have the guts to name their source! "Complaints that the process has been compromised point back to Rick Hoppe." Okay, but who is doing the complaining? "Organizers say Hoppe’s comments were suspicious." Oh yeah? Which organizers?
I hate to do Journalism 101 here, but apparently I need to: Credible news outlets don't provide anonymity to people quoted in their stories unless there's an actual chance that naming a source could cause them harm. Serious journalists recognize that bad actors, especially in politics, can use anonymity as a way to launder dubious allegations into public discourse. And that's exactly what's happening!
To be clear, I'm not here to defend the city against legitimate criticism or support the mayor and her chief of staff. That's not my job, and I am more than happy to dunk on the city when there's a good reason to do so. But it is my job to identify cynical propaganda that masquerades as journalism.
Frankly, I don't like how the Plains Sentinel operates. Nebraska has many (though not nearly enough) talented, hard-working journalists, and the fact that the Plains Sentinel thinks it's even in the same conversation as outlets like the Flatwater Free Press or Nebraska Public Media is hilarious.
Even if you look past the fact that they were founded by a Nebraska Republican Party flunky, their editorial approach is not to be trusted. The publication's most consistent obsession is the mere existence of queer people in public life, which they attempt to frame as a problem. Their board includes the founder of right-wing grievance mill The College Fix, which probably helps explain their focus on whether universities are doing enough to coddle conservatives on campus. Yet the Plains Sentinel still has the gall to say that other media outlets in Nebraska are overrun by "partisan influences."
I'd be the last person to discourage anyone from starting a blog that covers local issues. Obviously. But a word of advice: If want to claim your website is "restoring integrity and balance to local journalism," I suggest you start by not being a total hack.
~ Ty
If you want to support someone who isn't a total hack, consider signing up for a paid subscription to This Week In Lincoln.
P.S. One more thing: The Plains Sentinel demands to be taken seriously as a source of "trusted Nebraska news" but has a logo that inexplicably leaves out half the state. I guess Kearney, Hastings and McCook just don't exist in their version of Nebraska? What makes this especially funny is that they ran a whole story about Brett Lindstrom launching his gubernatorial campaign launch with a fucked up version of Nebraska on his logo.
