UPDATED: Washington Post's Hsu gave to GOP to cover hotel bill - please UNRECOMMEND
Mon Sep 12, 2005 at 02:56:20 PM PDT
UPDATE:
Looks like a legitimate expenditure:
Michael David Smith points out that Opensecrets.org lists Washington Post reporter Spencer Hsu as a Republican Party of Virginia contributor. Not true, says Post assistant managing editor/metro news Robert McCartney. He writes: "This payment was not a political contribution or donation of any kind. It was reimbursement to the Virginia Republican Party for a hotel room for Mr. Hsu during the Republican National Convention in New York. Mr. Hsu was covering the Virginia delegation to the convention. Standard practice was to house the reporter with the delegation, and to reimburse the delegation later for the cost."
First, read
Armando's diary
Then join me on the jump and read this. You judge for yourself if Washington Post reporter Spencer Hsu made an "honest mistake" or deliberately helped spread GOP talking points.
From a letter on Romenesko's Media News:
Washington Post ombudsman Michael Getler wrote on Sunday of the Post's decision to print the false accusations of a senior Bush official against Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco. Getler acknowledged that Post reporter Spencer S. Hsu was wrong to repeat a bogus charge, but he also took a swipe at people "who use such moments to bash the media for alleged bias."
The thing is, there is nothing "alleged" in Spencer Hsu's bias. His bias is right there, out in the open, for all to see.
By law, political donations are disclosed in this country, which means that Hsu can't hide that he's a Republican partisan: The public information that he gave $1,031 to the Republican Party of Virginia last year makes that perfectly clear to anyone who wants to look.
Maybe Hsu thought no one would bother to look at the public record because he couldn't be bothered to look at the public record of whether Blanco had declared a state of emergency.
Here's the link to his contributions listed on Open Secrets.
HSU, SPENCER MR
WASHINGTON,DC 20071
WASHINGTON POST/REPORTER
8/4/2004
$1,031
Republican Party of Virginia
From The Post's response, it looks like a legitimate reimbursal and I owe Hsu an apology which I'll deliver in an email to him.
That said, should I delete this diary?
UPDATE: New on Romenesko:
[Michael David Smith's letter regarding Spencer Hsu and opensecrets.org will be reposted with the Washington Post's response.]
Looking forward to that response.
UPDATE again:
Here's the Post's full response:
From ROBERT McCARTNEY, assistant managing editor for metropolitan news, Washington Post: [Response to Michael David Smith's letter.] The listing on the Opensecrets.org website is inaccurate in suggesting that Washington Post reporter Spencer Hsu made a political donation of $ 1,031 to the Virginia Republican Party on Aug. 4, 2004.
This payment was not a political contribution or donation of any kind. It
was reimbursement to the Virginia Republican Party for a hotel room for Mr. Hsu during the Republican National Convention in New York. Mr. Hsu was covering the Virginia delegation to the convention. Standard practice was to house the reporter with the delegation, and to reimburse the delegation later for the cost.
We have a Washington Post expense ledger that shows that Mr. Hsu was
reimbursed $ 1,031.08 by The Post for "Lodging" on Aug. 6, 2004.
Washington Post reporters are not permitted to make political contributions -- and none was made in this case. This evening we have contacted the executive director of the Center for Reponsive Politics, which sponsors the Opensecrets.org Web site, and asked the website to delete this inaccurate listing. He said he suspected the error occurred because the payment was misclassified by the Federal Elections Commission.
We have also contacted the Virginia Republican Party, which has agreed to write a letter outlining the mutual understanding that this payment was a reimbursement rather than a political donation.
I include below a copy of an Aug. 5, 2005 article from the Richmond
Times-Dispatch reporting that it ran into a similar difficulty regarding
its reporters who covered the Virginia delegation at the 2004 convention.
ARTICLE FROM RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH:
Journalists who covered event listed as donors to state GOP
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Friday, August 5, 2005
A reporter and photojournalist for the Richmond Times-Dispatch are
listed among contributors to the Republican Party of Virginia in federal
campaign-finance reports as a result of covering the Republican National
Convention last year.
The names of Jeff E. Schapiro (listed erroneously as Jeffrey C. Schapiro) and Robert A. Brown (whose photo credit appears as Bob Brown), as well as other Virginia reporters who attended the event in New York, are included in reports filed with the Federal Election Commission because they paid for their travel and hotel accommodations through the state GOP.
The state GOP arranged and paid for the travel and lodging, and The
Times-Dispatch reimbursed the state party. Hotel rooms are often in short supply at the national conventions, and reporters prefer to stay at the same hotel as members of their state's delegation.
"A number of members of the press corps requested hotel accommodations to be closer to the delegation, and we made available to the capitol press corps the delegation's pricing packages," said Shawn Smith, executive director for the state GOP. Federal election law requires that candidates and political parties report all receipts and disbursements
exceeding $200.
"This is a transaction which is required by law to be reported," Smith said.
Virginia reporters who covered the Democratic National Committee in Boston last summer didn't stay at the same hotel as the Virginia
delegation and paid their hotel directly.
