Scoop droop: Maine’s daily newspapers, television stations, and news services all missed the story. Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Richardson’s campaign was in big trouble over allegedly fraudulent contributions, and Richardson was planning to drop out of the race.

Maine Public Broadcasting Network’s A.J. Higgins was, as usual, on the case, but couldn’t quite nail down the details in his April 16 report. According to State House sources, Higgins continued to pursue the story, but wasn’t able to find anyone to go on the record about the problems Richardson was facing.

The Kennebec Journal’s Susan Cover did one of those nothing-to-see-here-folks pieces on April 21 that gave no hint of the underlying turmoil, merely noting that it was taking the state Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices a long time to certify Richardson for public funding.

Fraud? Corruption? Move along, people, move along.

For the real story, voters – and reporters – had to turn to the blog Pine Tree Politics. On April 24, PTP’s Matthew Gagnon (a Republican political consultant currently working in Washington, D.C.) posted a story citing unnamed sources that claimed something illegal was going on and that Richardson was considering pulling out of the race.

Later that day, Gagnon came up with more details – again, from anonymous sources – on the exact nature of the problems.

In spite of Gagnon’s efforts, the next day’s Maine Sunday Telegram and Lewiston Sun Journal were silent on the growing controversy, but hey, they’d only had a day or so to get motivated.

Gagnon wasn’t done. His Sunday piece said Richardson would call it quits on April 26.

That finally caught somebody’s attention. The April 26 Bangor Daily News had a detailed story by staff writer Kevin Miller and Capitol News Service’s Mal Leary confirming – with documentation and on-the-record interviews – virtually everything Gagnon had previously reported.

Solid work. But a little late. The documents in question could have been dug up by an enterprising reporter as early as April 22, when the ethics commission sent a long letter to the Richardson campaign detailing the problems it had discovered with his Clean Election application.

At least the Bangor paper played a decent game of catch-up. The Portland Press Herald ran a brief item on April 26, citing Gagnon’s blog as saying Richardson would drop out that day.

No mention of the campaign-finance irregularities or possible indictments. Why upset people with bad news?

TV coverage? Are you kidding? They were way too busy covering that gun rally in Portland.

If the Richardson story were an anomaly, the Maine media could be excused for being beaten by a blogger based 700 miles away. But it appears to be the norm. To date, the MaineToday Media papers (the Press Herald, KJ and Morning Sentinel) have contented themselves with running lengthy Sunday pieces, each devoted to a single issue such as education.

These stories allow the candidates to lay out their stands, such as they are, but lack any journalistic follow-up. For instance, when Republican Bill Beardsley promised to fund 55 percent of local school costs with state money, nobody bothered to ask how that fit in with his plan to cut taxes. When Democrat Libby Mitchell made the same 55-percent pledge, the reporters didn’t inquire as to whether that meant she supported a tax increase.

The MTM papers have also covered some debates, although rarely providing any information that might help voters differentiate one candidate from another. Instead, reporter Cover tends to focus on irrelevant arguments and inconsequential answers.

Is one of the candidates a significantly better debater than the others? Does a single contender tend to attract more audience support at these events? Are there candidates that don’t handle the debate format well?

It apparently hasn’t occurred to an editor at MTM to ask these questions or a reporter to answer them.

The papers did manage to cover the decision by the five Democratic candidates to refuse to buy advertising on WGME-TV in Portland because of the station’s ongoing labor dispute with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represents about four dozen off-air employees at Channel 13.

(That story was most significant not in terms of its impact on the gubernatorial race, but because, until then, the MTM papers had ignored that union-management struggle. MTM has a content-sharing agreement with WGME, but top management at the papers told The Bollard, a Portland monthly, that the lack of coverage was simply an oversight and not a concession to a business partner.)

The Bangor Daily News has done a fair job of reporting on day-to-day activities in the governor’s race. In addition to debate coverage of only slightly more usefulness than Cover’s, the Bangor paper has provided pieces on candidates’ announcements of policy initiatives and publicity stunts.

Nothing on issues. Nothing on qualifications. Nothing to help with comparison shopping.

Still, that’s an improvement over the Sun Journal, which has produced nothing meaningful on the campaign, possibly because its State House reporter was busy covering a music festival at a ski resort.

To date, the Lewiston paper has depended on the Associated Press and its story-sharing agreement with other Maine dailies to handle the political beat.

One final note about the coverage – and it’s a disturbing one.

As I’ve noted before, the Press Herald and its sister papers have devoted far more effort to covering independent Eliot Cutler than would seem merited at this point in the campaign, since Cutler’s name won’t appear on the ballot until November. That’s produced speculation that Cutler is getting favorable treatment because he grew up in Bangor with MTM publisher Richard Connor, and his campaign treasurer is Robert C.S. Monks, an investor and board member of the newspaper company.

Those connections may be having no effect on news decisions, but a skeptical observer could be excused for concluding otherwise. On April 24, Cutler’s announcement that he’d submitted enough signatures to qualify for the ballot merited a full story that ran on the front page of the Morning Sentinel and on page one of the Press Herald’s local section. No other candidate’s signature submission earned anything close to similar coverage. In fact, most of them got no coverage at all.

The Bangor paper gave the Cutler filing an AP brief inside its state section.

The Lewiston paper didn’t mention it at all.

An argument could be made that the Cutler story deserved more play because he was, as Cover claimed, “the first independent candidate for governor to qualify for the November ballot.”

Except he wasn’t.

Independent Shawn Moody turned in his signatures a day earlier than Cutler. Moody’s below-the-radar campaign has thus far escaped the notice of the daily papers (although it’s generated some coverage on public radio and online).

That could be because he hasn’t completed his filing with the Secretary of State’s Office to become an official candidate and has refused substantive interviews. Still, it seems as if Moody’s efforts deserved a sentence or two, even if he doesn’t have friends in high place in the media.

Of course, Moody’s presence on the ballot might detract from Cutler’s candidacy. But that blatantly political consideration could have nothing to do with his being ignored by MTM.

After all, the whole race for governor is getting far less attention than it deserves.

Welcome back to the 1950s: Headline on an “Inside Maine” column by Douglas Rooks in the April 25 Lewiston Sun Journal:

“Just like old times for new congressman”

The “new congressman” in question is U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine’s 1st District, who was elected nearly two years ago and is female.

Welcome to the new calendar: From a story by staff writer David Hart in the April 21 Original Irregular, a weekly newspaper published in Kingfield:

“Coming off a six-month budget that helped transition from a calendar fiscal year to a June 1 to July 30 fiscal year, administrative assistant Doug Marble said the process is going smoothly.”

Already, they’ve disposed of ten unnecessary months.

Al Diamon can be e-mailed at aldiamon@herniahill.net

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