Kansas Watchdog is a fairly reliable source for honest news. Earl Glynn, the guy that runs it (used to run it??) is as honest as the day is long. He also runs a site that mirrors the Drudge Report, called Kansas Meadowlark. It's filled with local news of the week, and I visit it often. I do know Glynn is a conservative, a major, major conservative. He's also a pretty savvy researcher, but he's done a great job at Kansas Watchdog of holding to the center in his investigative reporting.
Meadowlark is his own site. Watchdog is part of some think tank, I think. (Kansas Policy Institute? I'm not sure.)
However, in the last few days, I've been wondering if there haven't been some changes at Watchdog. I haven't had time to investigate what with Election Day bearing down on us like a Frankenstorm over climate changed Atlantic Ocean waters.
I've been noticing that the Tweets coming from Watchdog have what I would call a liberal bias. Note, for example this Tweet: @KansasWatchdog : @kctv5 shines a light on extravagant #expenditures by @govsambrownback. http://ow.ly/eSAYx
It's the word "extravagant" that sticks in my craw. I don't think that's a neutral word. I haven't even read the story yet, but it's the second or third Tweet in the last few weeks that has me wondering: what in the world is going on over Watchdog?
Feel free to spill what you know in the comment section.
Where's Waldo?
ReplyDeleteMy current assignment at the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity is to work on research and special projects.
I write technical reports published at the new site, www.watchdoglabs.org, and work with our reporters in many states on related computer-assisted reporting projects. (Take a look at my most recent report, Michigan lost 55,000 people but gained 500,000 voters between 2000 and 2010 census.)
I tweet mostly now as @WatchdogLabs or @EarlGlynn. Occasionally during the weekly twitter #FOIAchat I tweet/RT on Kansas topics as @KansasWatchdog. Otherwise, tweets are from the Kansas Watchdog reporters.
The @KansasWatchdog bio page identifies Travis Perry and Gene Meyer as the www.KansasWatchdog.org reporters.
KansasWatchdog.org and WatchdogLabs.org are both projects of the Franklin Center that supports news reporting in a number of states at Watchdog.org.
KansasMeadowlark.com is my personal "hobby" and sadly I only have time to update it once or twice a week now.