‘Dark Money’ present in Elevate Flagstaff finance report, that was the headline and above the fold article in Tuesday’s edition of the AZ Daily Sun.
The article went on to highlight $17,812 of in-kind contributions Axiom, a Phoenix based political consulting firm made to Elevate Flagstaff in their efforts to drastically amend prop 414, Flagstaff’s voter approved $15 minimum wage. Not surprisingly, and in record time I might add, the article quickly drew a connection to the Koch brothers.
American Encore, which is the successor to a group called the Center to Protect Patient Rights, is run by Phoenix political consultant Sean Noble, a partner in Axiom. Noble has been connected with so-called dark money in previous elections, and Noble has acknowledged in previous interviews with other news media that his group is connected to conservative billionaires and political donors Charles and David Koch. AZDailySun.com 4/25/17
What’s conveniently missing from the article is the fact that Flagstaff Needs A Raise, the political committee that heavily supported prop 414 received $5,000 from UFCLocal99 PAC out of PHX. Is the fact that a Flagstaff political committee received contributions from an outside union not relevant information to present to readers? Especially in an article about outside money.
The reality is groups in support of prop 414 and opposed to 414 both took outside money. And this is perfectly legal. It’s to bad the article in the Daily Sun did not report all these facts.
And if you’re going to do an article about campaign finance issues in Northern Arizona, why not include the biggest issues of the day? The Daily Sun had no problem putting Tom Chabin in one of their articles about Rep. Thorpe not holding town-halls (except on the Jeff Oravits Show), yet they fail to mention the shady (but legal) practice of Tom Chabin taking clean elections money and donating it to the Democrat Party, who in turn donated money to PACs that influence Northern Arizona elections.
And where is the article on Democrat Tom O’Haloran accepting money from ex-owners of alleged child sex trafficking website BackPage.com?
So you tell me friends, is there a media bias present here? Or just bad reporting?
We’ll discuss this with Rob Wilson of Elevate Flagstaff today on the Jeff Oravits Show on 97.1FM and http://www.BigTalkerRadio.com
Yesterdays Jeff Oravits Show with John Kistler, discussing gun control, vegans, wages and more is now available.
The Jeff Oravits Show 