Petrelis Files

Bangor Daily News Chair Gave to GOP Sen. Susan Collins

(GOP Maine Sen. Susan Collins, in red jacket, watching her good pal George Bush sign a bill into law.)

Over at the liberal DailyKos blog yesterday, diarist Maineiac caused a stir with a diary about GOP Sen. Susan Collins and how she manages to attract the most positive coverage from the Bangor Daily News.

From Maineiac's diary:

Senator Susan Collins gets amazing press from the Bangor Daily News. AMAZING. Her press release's complaints that she was being taped by the Allen campaign - while, gasp, marching in a parade - got the BDN to do a front page story and to run an editorial tut-tutting over it as bad for civil discourse in Maine. [...]

They are her biggest fans, excusing away every pro-war and pro-Bush vote. They help keep the myth alive that she is a thoughtful moderate.

Well, what almost no one knows is that the Executive Editor of the BDN (Mark Woodward)'s wife (Bridget Woodward) is on Senator Collins' Bangor staff. This is a clear conflict of interest. [...]

For a bunch of folks who are SO concerned with potential problems in how campaigns are run, the BDN is living in a big glass house.

As you can see, something is missing from Maineiac diary. What is it?

The Federal Election Commission files showing two Bangor Daily News employees donated in to previous campaigns of Sen. Collins. To be fair, FEC files also show the paper's employees have donated to Maine's other GOP Senator, Ms. Olympia Snowe, and the most recent donation from someone at the Bangor Daily News, um, the editor, contributed money to the DNC.

Of course, there's nothing illegal about reporters and newspaper employees giving money to politicians and PACs, but I do have a problem with news outlets not making such donations perpetually known to readers, no matter how long ago the donations were made.

And while the two contributions from Bangor Daily News employees to Sen. Collins were for previous elections, including a check from the deceased chairwoman Joanne Van Namee, the fact that the bulk of these donations went to GOP candidates indicates there may be a Republican bias at the paper, a bias probably still operational today.

These donations should be part of the information widely shared with Maine voters, and bloggers concerned with bringing much-needed transparency to corporate-owned mainstream news media outlets.

The Bangor Daily News donations, as posted at the FEC web site:

KELLETER, ROBERT
GOULDSBORO, ME 04607
BANGOR DAILY NEWS/EDITOR

DNC SERVICES CORPORATION
	10/13/2004	500.00

STAIRS, SHIRLEY
HAMPDEN, ME 04444
BANGOR DAILY NEWS

COLLINS, SUSAN M VIA COLLINS FOR SENATOR
	02/26/2001	200.00

VAN NAMEE, JOANNE
BANGOR, ME 04401
BANGOR DAILY NEWS

SNOWE, OLYMPIA J VIA SNOWE FOR SENATE
	08/16/1999	250.00
	09/28/2000	200.00

VAN NAMEE, JOANNE
BANGOR, ME 04401
BANGOR DAILY NEWS/CHAIR, BOARD

SNOWE, OLYMPIA J VIA SNOWE FOR SENATE
	08/01/2005	500.00

VAN NAMEE, JOANNE J
BANGOR, ME 04402
BANGOR DAILY NEWS

COLLINS, SUSAN M VIA COLLINS FOR SENATOR
	09/15/1998	250.00

WARREN, RICHARD
BANGOR, ME 04401
BANGOR DAILY NEWS

SNOWE, OLYMPIA J VIA SNOWE FOR SENATE
	01/11/2000	250.00

Total Contributions: 2150.00