Wrong for New Mexico

How opposition researchers mingle with press, an 'oppo' ad about my dog, and what my newspaper might do if I were arrested

It’s October, three weeks before the election, and time for opposition researchers and producers of campaign ads to shine. For this billion-dollar industry, it is the equivalent of Christmastime for retailers.

This is why your streaming television, internet browser and physical mailbox are all stuffed with ads featuring distorted photos of your local candidates: filtered to sap out natural warm colors and detail, encase them in grainy silvertone as they might appear on security camera footage, and endow them with a vaguely sinister look.

In tribute to this dark media art, I took photos of our family’s Golden retriever, Belle, and gave her the filter treatment as she might appear in an opposition political ad:

‘Newly uncovered’

A few days ago, Santa Fe New Mexican reporter Daniel J. Chacon posted on X, “A newly uncovered police report alleges (U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez) threatened to ‘kill’ and ‘bury’ a fellow student at New Mexico State University in 2005.”

It was uncovered, all right, but not by some enterprising reporter scouring historical records for newsworthy stories about a New Mexico politician’s background.

I know because I got the same hit from the National Republican Congressional Committee, highlighting a post on their own website reacting to “a shocking article” on the Fox News website and “flagging” it for New Mexico reporters. I presume we all got it: The Bulletin, the Sun-News, the Journal, the Observer, all of us.

The nut is: Vasquez, a freshman Democrat in Congress currently polling nine points ahead of his Republican challenger a few weeks before Election Day, was named in a 2005 police report from when Vasquez was a college student. A fellow student complained that Vasquez had called him up, cussed him out in Spanish and threatened him after a mutual classmate suffered alcohol poisoning. Vasquez’s words are not quoted verbatim but the report says the future congressman “stated in Spanish that he was going to kill him and bury him.” The matter appears to have been swiftly closed when police said Vasquez promised not to contact the other student again.

Nineteen years later, he’s in Congress and I’m reading a crooked photocopy of this report, assessing whether this is a news story or an October-surprisy hit job, part of an effort to use the press to raise an aura of criminality and suspicion around a young Hispanic politician.

Here is how this works, more or less:

There are opposition research firms, large and small, employed by Democratic and Republican national organizations and PACs to dig up dirt on rival politicians. Campaigns will also pay for oppo research on their own candidate to see what dirt is out there and assess weaknesses. The good firms are quite resourceful and dig impressively deep.

Here is the CEO of one such firm, Benjamin Jones of Jones Mandel, in an interview for a media consultant’s blog, describing one of his firm’s hits – a term freely used in the quote below – with emphasis added by me:

“On a Senate race, my research team figured out that our Republican opponent was a member of an exclusive golf club in Florida that did not admit Blacks or Jews. We followed a tip from one of our donors who caught wind of this possibility. We located the golf club name and sent a staffer to Florida to look for local property records including a deed and mortgage documents near the course to show his residency nearby. We set up the opponent by obtaining three key public records: 1) the mortgage deed of his house on the golf course; 2) the restrictive covenant that was part of the mortgage documents and 3) contact with someone at the club who took a photo of his name in the membership directory. We handed the hit off to an AP reporter to develop so the story would show up in papers all across the state. When confronted, the candidate denied being a member of the club. (Then) he said he didn’t have many ties to the club, after being forced to admit he was a member. Then had to defend owning a house on the course which had a restrictive covenant that said the house could not be sold to Blacks. The entire episode was a four-day story that was laid out over time.”

The news industry is contending with diminishing circulation, slashed budgets and reduced staff, pushing seasoned reporters out for younger reporters newer to the beat, and fewer of them; there is pressure to find stories that perform well online; and in that endless Monday, someone calls not only with a hot tip but receipts. A dossier! It lands with a plop. The oppo has now been handed off.

So there it is: Verify the documents, ask for reactions, and write it up, right? It could be a worthwhile story regardless of a tipster’s intent, right? And maybe you get lucky, your story finds some legs and keeps you high in the search results for a while.

Decent news tips as well as mudslinging garbage come from anonymous sources with various interests in seeing a certain matter publicized. Their motive might be public safety and welfare, blowing a whistle on fraud or abuse, or perhaps to tear someone down. Motivations can be mixed.

In the example of the Florida Senate candidate above, the tip came from a political donor; initial reporting was undertaken by researchers working for partisan operatives; then it was successfully handed off to reporters and editors who, presumably, took an interest, vetted it and found the story checked out. Whether it’s a good story or a hit, once it’s on a reputable news site, the easier it is for candidates, PACs and political parties to amplify it for their purposes.

Ethical reporters and editors generally are on the lookout for good, solid stories that hold power to account and disseminate useful information of interest to readers. There are also rewards for us in scoring a hot scoop or producing a story that draws attention. And if something seems to be getting “traction” online, even if it starts on some obscure website and gets shared a lot on social apps, there is pressure to treat it like a scoop and get in on that traffic.

News is a business. The competition and deadline pressures are intense, and the time and resources for good investigative reporting are scarce for local newspapers like mine. Political marketers and oppo researchers are well aware of these conditions and make good use of them.

The oppo folks work hard, to be sure; and today they have many avenues to win coverage and influence voters, all while staying behind the scenes.

Help, my boss is in jail

The strange story of the Albuquerque Journal’s editor-in-chief being jailed for shoplifting raised lots of questions, but here is one I did not see addressed head on: Is it embarrassing that the state’s largest newspaper appeared not to know its own chief had been arrested and sentenced to jail until a full month after he was caught cheating at a self-checkout?

A couple of lawmakers even asked, via social media, whether there might be a double-standard behind the Journal’s lack of reporting on the incident until he had had his day in court and been sentenced to 10 days.

Although I am friendly with several Journal staffers and alumni, I have no inside info here; but I have my guesses why it took a while.

To recap: On August 24, Patrick Ethridge, the Journal’s top editor, was charged with petty misdemeanor shoplifting at a Rio Rancho Walmart. By the time this was reported by the Journal on September 26, Ethridge had pleaded guilty, been sentenced to serve 10 days at the Sandoval County Detention Center and was already sitting in jail. It appeared he did not disclose his predicament to the Journal’s publisher or staff. (Ethridge was placed on administrative leave after his sentencing and he resigned days later, dropping out of public view after lawyering up, changing his plea to “no contest” and being released early.)

If I were arrested for shoplifting, I don’t assume it would be statewide news, but it would draw some attention, as I am the editor of the Las Cruces Bulletin. The question would be how quickly our staff reporter would find out if I tried to hide it.

So I asked Justin what would happen if I were arrested.

While he regularly scans dockets for our local district and magistrate courts, and would notice my name if it came up, he does not go through municipal court dockets. Ethridge’s case was heard in Rio Rancho Municipal Court. Absent a tip, there is little reason for a Journal reporter to be scanning that court’s records online, and I don’t know of any newspaper that can assign a reporter to hang around municipal court looking for scoops.

Las Cruces muni court doesn’t even post its records online: You have to go look at dockets in person. Justin’s not doing that.

On the other hand, Justin told me that among his sources in the local courts, cops and legal community, he was positive my arrest would be tipped off to him within a few hours. (Probably with some glee.) And I needn’t fear: He would happily write the story, he said. What a relief.

In turn, I assured him he need not worry about me getting picked up under similar circumstances, as I famously hate self-checkout.

The biggest surprise here might be that no one on the law enforcement side of this thought to let a Journal reporter know their boss got busted; or tip off the Journal’s competition, for that matter.

But when the story finally came out, it was a doozy.