The Union Leader’s Shameful Throwback

William Loeb once penned an editorial in the Union Leader in which he spoke out against the growth of New Hampshire’s minority population. The state has undergone much change since then. Apparently the state’s largest newspaper has not.

Same-sex marriage became legal in New Hampshire on January 1, 2010. This week, the Union Leader refused to print a wedding announcement for a gay couple getting married in Portsmouth and released this statement:

This newspaper has never published wedding or engagement announcements from homosexual couples. It would be hypocritical of us to do so, given our belief that marriage is and needs to remain a social and civil structure between men and women, and our opposition to the recent state law legalizing gay marriage.

Quote of the Day: Union Leader & Journalism Ethics

New Hampshire Union Leader Publisher Joe McQuaid and a photographer are in Afghanistan to chronicle New Hampshire National Guard Co. C, 3rd Battalion, 172nd Infantry. Telling the local troops’ story is certainly laudable, but the fact that the Union Leader says its series “is made possible in part through the assistance of BAE Systems, Next Step Orthotics and DEKA Research” seems a little problematic. Yes, two of those firms have products designed to help amputees, but how do you cover a war objectively when you’re indebted to Pentagon contractors?

—John P. Gregg, Valley News political editor

On Blogging and Journalism

Jonathan Cohn:

Does the world really need another blog on politics and policy? There was a time when that question made sense. A year and a half ago, when I started a blog about health care reform, I distinctly remember thinking it would be a nice little diversion from my longer articles—a way to keep in touch with readers and, once in a while, to amplify a point I couldn’t make within the confines of the print magazine. I turned out to be very wrong. The blog became the focus of my work—the place where I reported and analyzed the news, in real time. 

For better and for worse, that’s pretty much the direction journalism is going these days. And while blogging will never substitute for longer writing—I, for one, have no intention of giving up the latter—I’ve come to appreciate that blogging is not an alternative to journalism. It is journalism, only faster and with more room for experimentation. Or, at least, it can be.

Death of a Campaign

Bob Giuda’s campaign for Congress crashed and burned Monday afternoon, brought down by a 600-word blog post. Actual cause of death was the candidate’s own intemperate words and dismissive attitude, but it was the reporting by a college student on summer break that nailed the coffin shut.

Giuda, the former Marine pilot and FBI agent, met his match in Eliza Kern, a rising junior at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Kern is covering the NH-02 Congressional race this summer in her blog, Primary Wire. She accompanied Giuda to Rivier College in Nashua where he spoke to high school students attending a leadership seminar. And she nailed it:

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