WHAT THEY REPORT: WHO DECIDES? The Associated Press is reporting that a McClatchy newspaper in Kentucky, the Lexington Herald-Leader, is returning to the Center for Pubic Integrity Center for Investigative Reporting* a $37,500 grant the foundation made to the paper to finance a series of stories on the fundraising operation of Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, who famously opposed the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation.
The paper is returning the grant to the Center in response to allegations by McConnell's staff that the foundation has a liberal bias. However, it will still run the four-part series about McConnell -- considered the likely replacement for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.) -- for which it had awarded the grant.
Bias or no, the thing I find curious about the deal is why a for-profit media operation should require grants from non-profit foundations in order to do a bit of investigative journalism. Is this a harbinger of the future? Will big media only investigate that which is earmarked for outside, philanthropic financing? In the meantime, I concede that I look forward to reading what the Herald-Leader has dug up, on the Center's grant-turned-(interest-free?)-loan, about the crotchety Kentuckian.
UPDATE: *Whoops. A commenter points out this is the Center for Investigative Reporting rather than the Center for Public Integrity.
--Adele M. Stan
