...KELO bloggers asleep at the wheel?

I know I said I wouldn't engage in too much blog-navel-gazing, but I made a promise on this one.

I still have fish to fry with Sibby and his fear of secular humanist one-worlders. But on local media, Sibby makes an observation that dumps a well-deserved bucket of cold water over my head.

Last week KELO ran a story saying the proposed cuts in the SD Highway Patrol budget were already impacting public safety, leading to fewer troopers on the roads during the Christmas snowstorm. Sibby wondered the same thing I did: "So how could next year's budget impact current year operations?"

A couple days later, KELO backtracked, with the HP chief himself, Colonel Dan Mosteller, coming on to say the trooper schedule for Christmas wasn't influenced by the proposed budget cuts but by the weather forecasts that didn't predict five inches of snow.

Sibby offers this conclusion:

So, Keloland got it wrong as they used factual incorrect reporting to give glory to Democrat Scott Hiedepriem. And I am the only blogger who has pointed that out. That is what happens when there is a blogger/mainstream media partnership. Accountability goes out the window. And Pat Powers uses the platform to attack conservatives, instead of pointing out their pro-Democrat bias [emphasis mine; quote from Steve Sibson, "Keloland Backtracks on Heidepriem Setup," Sibby Online, 2007.12.28].

The Heidepriem-setup charge doesn't hold water -- Republican Senator Abdallah was getting as much press as Heidepriem over the budget cuts. And I'm staying out of the Sibby-PP stuff.

But Sibson is right about one thing: KELO screwed up, blatantly, on an obvious and easy point, and the rest of us bloggers didn't call it. Why on earth not?

For what it's worth, I can say that the thought process running through my head was not, "Oh, I'd better not criticize KELO or I might lose my precious spot on their Political Bloggregator." (And for what it's worth, Steve, I got more hits from one mention in the KELO forums than I have from any of my posts on the KELO blog... and PP is still the champion SD referral site.) The Christmas story just slipped from my mind, and I didn't follow up with my KELO reading through the week.

But the accusation still stings: While I was pitching snowballs at Sibson and Ellis for empowering the wealthy elites by focusing on red herrings, I missed a story about the wealthy media elite getting a story flat wrong. Why KELO got it wrong -- political conniving? too much nog for Ben Dunsmoor? -- I leave open for debate. Why I didn't cover KELO's getting it wrong -- well, even if it was just laziness and distraction on my part, it doesn't look good.

Steve, this morning, you have my apologies and my props for keeping an eye on the media. (And we'll talk plutocracy and secular humanism a little later! Happy New Year!)