Accountability Journalism

Leave it to the overseas press to do the work that local Minneapolis media can’t be bothered with.  President Obama flew to Minnesota this week to visit with a typical, struggling mom, “a 36-year-old working wife and mother of two preschool-age boys,” as reported by the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Only the U.K.-based Reuters news service did any actual reporting on the meeting, noticing that Obama’s luncheon partner’s

LinkedIn profile shows she was once a field organizer for Democratic Senator Patty Murray of Washington.

I noticed the same thing last night, but our local media was too thrilled to have the Great Man in their midst to do any due diligence on the White House’s carefully choreographed Minnesota campaign stop.  Wouldn’t want to spoil the mood.

Too bad, they missed what could have been a great story.  The Star Tribune did report,

President Obama began a two-day visit to Minneapolis on Thursday sharing cheeseburgers with a local working mother and bringing a middle-class message tailor-made to aid Democrats fearful of massive losses in the upcoming election.

Which Democrats?  Did the President choose Minnesota—of all states—for his visit because some of those fearful Democrats may be located in the North Star state?  Star struck local media were unable to form a question on that subject.

Even if our worried, local everymom did turn out to be a ringer, her concerns are real.  She “wrote of a weakened housing market hitting her family hard, causing her husband’s construction business to fold.”  Sorry, with this President, that’s a feature, not a bug.

As the Star Tribune’s editorial page gleefully declared this morning, “There will be no need for any additional single-family, large-lot houses.  Zero.”  This is this direct result of the President’s New Urbanist, no-growth policies.  Sorry husband of local working mother, you are just out of luck.

But don’t worry, the photo op turned out great.