| August 02, 2012 The following article, which appeared on July 26 on The Rhino Times website – rhinotimes.com – prompted the column from News & Record Editor Jeff Gauger in the Sunday, July 29 News & Record. We thought our readers who are not internet savvy might like to read the article that inspired Gauger's column.
It's early for political tricks, but it appears the News & Record is at it again. The front-page articles on Wednesday, July 25 and Thursday, July 26 – about alleged push polling done in the state Senate District 27 race and accusing Republican state Senate District 27 candidate and Greensboro City Councilmember Trudy Wade of being responsible – is baffling. Wade said she wasn't push polling and it is an absurd time of year for anyone in a state Senate race to be doing much of anything.
The accusation made by the News & Record is that it has to be Wade or someone working for Wade because the reports that they have from mainly anonymous callers have been that the poller was making detrimental comments about Wade's opponent, Myra Slone. So who has benefited from their name being on the front page of the News & Record two days in a row? Is Wade, who has excellent name recognition and has been on the front page of the News & Record countless times, or Slone, who has no name recognition and likely has never been on the front page of the News & Record?
Push polling is when a person posing as a pollster calls and starts asking questions about a candidate, but the way the questions are asked is more to convey information rather than find out what the person supposedly being polled is thinking.
An example of a push poll type question would be, "Do you think Jane Doe's conviction for aggravated assault on a police officer and DWI is going to hurt her chances of being elected?" Push polls are usually used by a campaign to convey what is thought to be detrimental information about their opponent.
The story about the push poll appeared in The Inside Scoop blog on Tuesday, July 24, and then July 25 it was on the front page with one named source. Former News & Record reporter Eric Townsend, who now works for Elon University, reportedly told News & Record reporter Joe Killian he was push polled.
Townsend is the same reporter that, during the controversy surrounding former Greensboro Police Chief David Wray, reported that someone working for Wray had taped conversations with black community leaders without their knowledge. It was a big story and it caused a lot of controversy, but there was a problem with the story – it wasn't true. No one was taped. The Greensboro Police Department cannot produce a single tape of any black community leader who was taped without their knowledge while Wray was chief.
But so much that the News & Record reported about the entire Wray administration was wrong, it's hard to pick one to single out. New York Times best-selling author Jerry Bledsoe went into some length about the mistakes and misrepresentations made by the News & Record in his 92-part Cops in Black & White series, which is available at rhinotimes.com.
Townsend also tried to stir things up in Wade's City Council race against long-time incumbent Sandy Carmany in 2007. Townsend wrote a story indicating that "the most tension" at a candidates' forum was between Wade and Carmany. Carmany wrote that there wasn't any tension; that they all got along pretty well and agreed on some questions. Wade said there wasn't any tension, and even a blogger who was there said that he didn't detect any animosity between the two.
So Townsend can interpret things differently from other people. Who knows what he heard or didn't hear on the phone.
Wade said she was at the money-raising stage of her campaign and that she has never push polled in any of her political races.
Wade in this case is the front-runner because the Republican legislature drew the district to be a Republican district, but also because Wade has won a county-wide race for the Guilford County Board of Commissioners and has been elected to the Greensboro City Council three times. She has served on the Guilford County Board of Social Services and the Guilford County Board of Health and her name recognition is excellent. Her opponent, Slone, is a relative unknown, but with a few more front-page stories by the News & Record she won't be quite as unknown.
The second front page story in the News & Record caused Wade to send the following letter to Gary Bartlett, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections on Thursday, July 26.
Dear Mr. Bartlett,
I am a candidate for NC State Senate District 27. It has come to my attention that anonymous "push polling" calls are being made to voters within the district. Not only do these calls wrongly disparage my opponent, they are creating voter confusion because some have wrongly assumed that my campaign is making the calls.
My campaign has not authorized or condoned these disreputable calls, and I request that your office either investigate the matter or refer the matter for immediate criminal or civil action. I am attaching two articles from the News & Record, which identifies people who reportedly received these calls, as well as the News & Record reporter who researched the calls.
I view this as an urgent matter, and appreciate your office's prompt attention to this matter. I would appreciate confirmation of your receipt of this complaint.
Sincerely yours,
Dr. Trudy Wade
Candidate for NC Senate District 27
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