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by Tim Skubick
April 10, 2009

Before the Internet was invented by Al Gore, the only google anybody heard about was the old song “Barney Google” with his great big googley eyes. Now google is a verb and the Internet has insidiously extended its tentacles into virtually every facet of our lives, including politics.

We now have more political dialogue going on than ever before, which is both a blessing and, as you’re about to read, a deadly curse.

Nineteen months ago, in the middle of an Internet firestorm, the dangers of Internet “journalism” came through loud and clear.

A certain political TV reporter was assigned to cover a gathering of GOP candidates for president on Mackinac Island.

Trying to soak up as much free media as he could was a guy named Ron Paul. He was a cult-like figure who had used the Internet to spawn a movement that you could not ignore. All of his followers/believers were drinking the Kool-Aid, and when he showed up on the red porch in front of the Grand Hotel, he granted an engaging, insightful, and newsworthy 10-minute TV interview.

Afterwards, the news crew went into the hotel dining room, where Paul would give a speech just after lunch. The goal was to get some generic video of what was going on inside. To make sure the video was not slanted to favor one candidate or the other, the producer said to the crew, “I don’t want these Ron Paul people, but I need shots of audience people eating and crap like that for voice over.” A voice over is when reporters write a script to “voice over” or be read while the pictures go by.

In was an innocent instruction with no malice intended. Tell that to the Ron Paulite with a video camera who recorded the brief conversation and then placed it on the Internet with this foreboding headline: Reporter censors Ron Paul.

65,000 persons viewed the “censoring” video during the first week it appeared on You Tube. (It is still there, by the way, for your viewing pleasure.)

And the flood of downright vicious and borderline threatening emails that it spawned left you breathless and, frankly, even a little scared.

Recall that the storyline at the time had the mainstream media ignoring Paul, or at least that’s what his supporters believed. So the video declaring, “I don’t want those Ron Paul people” was just the evidence they wanted in a poignant example of “Don’t confuse me with the facts, my tiny little mind is made up.”

There was no censoring of Paul. Had that been the motive, why do the interview with the candidate?

But all the explaining in the world did not change anyone’s mind and, in fact, the feeble attempt to do so only enflamed the outrage even more.

What was missing, and what tends to drive professional journalist nuts, is that nobody bothered to call for an explanation — which is Rule One of reporting. Maybe it was censoring? Maybe it wasn’t? Talk to the source before your run the story.

But no one called; no one suspended his or her judgment to get at the truth.

It was an eye opener. Internet news seekers beware. Not everything you read is true.

Surprise. Surprise.

Tim Skubick is Michigan’s senior Capitol correspondent and has anchored the weekly public TV series “Off the Record” since 1972.

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Brooks Stays on the Bench
Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson won’t confirm this, but take it to the bank: he is not running for governor. Period. No second-guessing. No way.

It’s been a great couple of months for the affable Mr. Patterson, who kept everyone and his uncle guessing about what he might do.

He played it like violinist Itzhak Perlman.

On the eve of a major fundraiser earlier this year, he deftly trotted out the notion that he might run for governor. He and the media dutifully listed all of his attributes: he had business-attracting prowess, he was well known, he presided over a county that actually had economic growth surrounded by 82 other counties that did not, and on and on it went.

It was a great tease, but even from the get-go you could just tell his heart was not in it. Sure he would love to be governor, but he was not in love with earning it.

Yet he steadfastly refused to kill the speculation. You could just see him smiling, maybe even laughing with his buds, about how the media loved this story and would not put it down even though, if you thought about it, it was a long shot at best.

Pressed several weeks ago to either run or get off the pot, Patterson confessed that his attitude was based on “who talked to me last.” Some whispered run, others whispered don’t, and in the end Patterson listened to the latter and his own heart.

It is a slog to run all over the state, shaking hands, posing for the cameras and submitting yourself to another round of media scrutiny on your way to the GOP nomination. And while he would have been anointed the front-runner, that doesn’t mean he would have won.

If former Gov. Jim Brickley was still with us, he could testify to that. He was the front-runner to replace Gov. Bill Milliken and ended up losing to Dick Headlee.

The Brookster knows he has a great job, a great family including all those grandkids who adore him. He also knows he’d have to leave both to really run for governor.

He did not want to do that, so he won’t.

We’re Number One
Michigan is finally number one in something that counts. We have lots of number ones that don’t, i.e. jobless rate, out-migration of families, urban schools on the ropes, and let’s not forget the auto industry, which is obviously not number one.

But with the recent signing of legislation, the state emerges as the most lucrative state offering hefty tax breaks for companies trying to design and build batteries for cars. If the governor has her wish, Michigan will stay there, as other states are far behind in the battery race.

“There’s been a lot of vision here,” U.S. Senator Carl Levin beamed at the bill signing ceremony. In fact, Michigan anticipated this sweepstakes three years ago, long before anyone else thought battery technology would be the wave of the future.

Now to be sure, Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s record on this subject is shaky. She glommed onto ethanol at the get-go, only to see the price of corn skyrocket, which cut into whatever energy cost savings there were from that.

But she has on her smiley face as she touts $500 million in tax credits to lure battery folks to Michigan and, indeed, next week some major announcements on that front will be released.

“We are ahead of the curve,” chimes in Greg Main, the new job czar for the Granholm administration. He and she have their eyes on $2 billion in federal battery grants that the Obama administration has teed up for distribution later this spring — and Michigan is at the front of the line for that, too.

But look out for those lawmakers in Congress from the south who have it in for Michigan. Asked if there was some way they could screw this thing up, Congressman Sandy Levin shouted out, “No,” while big brother Carl added, “It will not be for lack of trying.”