Tom Benning, PD, make presidential security threat an opportunity to slam bloggers
Fri, Aug 8, 2008
So let’s get this straight.
An accredited member of the press pool at a presidential event, who happens to be a registered Republican, on contract with Bloomberg News, stands up from a secure area which has less security screening than for the general public, disrupts the event with a known smear, refuses to identify himself to anyone, attempts to leave without doing so, even to police, and the story the PD runs is how bloggers got his phone number wrong.
First things first. I got his phone number wrong, and I’m sorry. I tried my hardest to identify the right phone number, and screwed up. We got everything else right, his address, his voter registration, and his employer. So, my apologies to the other Jonathan Quinn.
However.
I am not going to apologize for attempting to publish the real John Quinn’s phone number. Not at all. This man created a security threat, and thought he would get away with it. He didn’t. In fact, had I not followed him out of the building, neither the police nor the Secret Service would have asked this man a single question. In this environment, where it is clearly obvious that people like the PD have zero interest in covering the endless smears against a presidential candidate that make John Quinn’s actions, unbelievably, acceptable to them, in an environment where Barack Obama takes a risk with his life every single time he steps out in public…well….I’ve decided I won’t play the game the PD plays.
As for the PD’s story about bloggers getting the phone number wrong…um….the PD first reported John Quinn’s name. That, and this story about bloggers getting his phone number wrong, are the first, and last words the PD has uttered on the subject.
Not one word about John Quinn’s Republican voter registration. Not one word about his employer Bloomberg News. Not one word about the fact that he was interrogated by Secret Service. Not one word about how he now claims he’s this big Obama supporter, and something just came over him.
In addition, I spoke with the Baldwin Wallace College public relations director, who confirms that the security in the press area was less onerous than that for the general public, and confirms that there was serious concern when John Quinn stood up.
All of which is about A THOUSAND times more reporting on John Quinn than Tom Benning did, which amounts to having his editor see an opportunity to take a gratuitous shot at blogs, handing him the complaint to the Plain Dealer, and then Tom Benning emailing Eric Vessels and calling me.
In other words, the PD is covering a story they had a part in creating, blaming it on bloggers, and a story about SOME GUY WHO WASN’T THE SECURITY THREAT. Great nose for news, fellas. I’m surprised they didn’t put my criminal record next to my name. The PD sets itself into fits over the chance to smack bloggers, that is not news, but to do so while ignoring news, well, that’s a new low.
The Plain Dealer ought to be the one ashamed of itself here, not me, or Eric, or “bloggers.” If you wanted to get news about this security threat named John Quinn, you went to bloggers first, not the PD. If you want to get gratuitous shots at bloggers regarding some guy who isn’t actually news at all, the PD is your source.
Help yourselves.
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Tags: berea, heckler, john quinn, pd
August 8th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
So you got a phone number wrong? Big deal. Mistakes happen all the time in the newspaper business. Heck, I recently saw that a newspaper in New England misprinted its own name on its front page.
But the real story here — who was behind Quinn attending the event — isn’t event explored by Ohio’s largest newspaper. I shouldn’t be surprised that this is the case in a culture where Rachel Ray is a national celebrity and Barbara Walters can make patronizing and insulting statements about Sarkozy’s wife on national television, but it nonetheless sickens me every time I see how little the media business even tries to cover the real story.
Though I’m sure part of this coverage of Quinn is due to the PD’s ongoing fear of bloggers — I can’t help but feel that the paper is simply giving people what they want. That we now live in a nation where people fail to think critically — or care to find out the truth — but want to blissfully exist in a pipedream of superficial stories about reality spoon fed to them by a whorish media, hungry for ad revenue.
August 9th, 2008 at 5:08 am
Ahhhh haaa haaa.
The quack was not a security thrat you loon. You are just making crap up to make yourself look like a hero. You are an idiot.
What you did is wrong regardless of the circumstance of the event. Fall on your sword and take it like a man. You caused another person to be harrassed because you didn’t do your homework.
August 9th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Since no one reads your pathetic blog, will you be man enough to call the Parma John Quinn & personally apologize for your sloppy “investigative” work?
And the idiot (i.e. “true”) John Quinn was not a security threat. Jerk, maybe, but not a security threat. And continuing to maintain that he was somehow a security threat makes you appear unhinged.
August 9th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Sex offender and now retarded blogger. You have a great resume Russo. Good thing you have this blog so we can remind you of what an ass hole you really are.
August 10th, 2008 at 12:47 am
Cry some more why don’t you. As for “trying your hardest” to make sure the number was right, your hardest wasn’t good enough and that is why you write a blog instead of getting published by a real newspaper.
You claim some guy yelling and being a douche at a “Security Threat” but the truth of the matter is that getting heckled is part of the game for politicians, but _your_ negligence incited other retards to harass an innocent person.