Thread by @jimstinson

The Indianapolis Star, owned by Gannett, has launched a despicable attack on Diego Morales, the Republican candidate for Indiana SoS. They admit he's a veteran, and still question if he is. #journalism

https://twitter.com/GreggDoyelStar/status/1571509159962750977

The Indianapolis Star has often hit new lows under @Gannett's ownership. I never thought they would reach this low -- questioning an immigrant's service when they admit he was honorably discharged.

I've also never seen a newspaper use the definition of veteran as qualifying for federal benefits as the main criterion as a "vet."

The main perpetrator of this attack is the Star's garbage Metro columnist @JamesEBriggs, a Mike Royko-wannabe. A lot of newspapers hire Democratic-leaning metro columnists in this manner. But they are not Royko-esque. They are simply anti-conservative.

To them, being a Republican or conservative is scandal enough. It makes up for their laziness in not digging through city records, so they cover politics. @cdiegomorales has not given the answers they demand on the 2020 election, so they have tried to destroy him from the start.

One tell you see from @JamesEBriggs is that he exposes his sources a bit, not a professional thing to do and a sign of defensiveness. "No Democrats sent me this info," he cries. Instead, Republicans did. Yes, establishment Republicans lost to Diego in June.

And the media only undermines Republican candidate veterans. The Star's newsroom, liberal-leaning even in 1988, chipped in against Dan Quayle in 1988. He was a Indiana National Guard member during Vietnam.

And who can forget Dan Rather's obsession with George W. Bush's Air National Guard service? Long a source of scuttlebutt, the issue led Rather and a producer to produce dubious records that Bush went AWOL. CBS News ran with the story before the 2004 election.

Rather moved on from CBS, and his producer Mary Mapes was fired. Today, Rather is still fawned over by young journalists and Cate Blanchett played Mapes in a very bad 2015 film.

Back to Diego Morales. He's a Central American immigrant, now a citizen. He's a vet -- I don't care if he doesn't get federal benefits. Anyone who joins the Army or Guard after 9-11 risked war zone deployment overseas. That's worthy of respect alone.

The real issue is the media is obsessed with getting the right answers from Diego Morales. He has questions about the 2020 election. But when democrats ran SoS candidates in 2006 to control election offices -- it brought little media attention.

The Democrats controlling secretary of state offices in 2008 was crucial in the recount of Al Franken in #MNSen. Franken went on to provide the key vote for Obamacare. SoS races matter. The last time the Democrats won an Indiana SoS race was 1990.

The Indiana Democrats see an opportunity in 2022. Diego Morales defeated an appointed SoS, a favorite of @GovHolcomb. Indy-based GOP moderates are fuming. They want to sabotage Morales by helping Democrats.

And let's face it, there is some subtle xenophobia being used here. It was used in the primary (a convention process) and it's being used now. The Democrats have a real military officer, Briggs says. Diego is sketchy. He may not even be a vet.

To be fair to the @indystar newsroom, Briggs filed his claims under Opinion, often a tactic used by Metro columnists to discuss the trashy slurs the newsroom doesn't want to touch.

The email for the Indy Star's "public engagement" editor is: OBoyd (at) gannett (dot) com. The exec editor is Bro Krift: fkrift (at) gannett (dot) com.

I have so many questions about this Election Season smear and trash they ran. I bet you do too.

I asked Gannett's editors at the Star why they granted anonymity to a person *defining veteran status.* That seems very odd. Also, Gannett doesn't even allow linking to competitor stories that have anon sources.

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