(Dullard Mush) – Last week when a story broke about a judge ordering a UNR professor and his attorney to reimburse the state over $1.2 million in legal fees for a series of frivolous lawsuits, one of Reno’s television stations (I think it was KOLO-8) ran the piece with the requisite “What are local attorneys saying?” side.
Now God knows there are plenty of lawyers in Reno, just throw a stick in a downtown crowd and it will probably bounce off two or more, but for this piece they chose local attorney Ken McKenna. An attorney who happens to be running in the Democratic primary for Nevada’s Second Congressional District. He is up against local gadfly Sam Dehne and former University Regent Nancy Price.
Then, a couple days later KOLO ran a story about new Pampers diapers allegedly causing blisters with some babies. After interviewing the mom, reporter Terri Russell rolled the expert opinion footage. In this case, it was Dr. Patrick Colletti. And while I can personally vouch for his skills as a great doctor (he’s our pediatrician), again, he is also running for Nevada’s Second Congressional District on the GOP side.
Considering all the above candidates are long shots to unseat incumbent Republican Dean Heller, I guess one can’t begrudge them a little publicity (and neither mentioned anything political), but I have to wonder about the wisdom of those choices from a perceived bias standpoint. While I doubt it would involve any “equal time” issues, it just seems odd that of all the Reno “experts” a TV news team could tap, both happen to be running for Congress.
Oh, and if that isn’t politically complicated enough, the mom interviewed in the Pampers story is none other than the wife of Nevada State Senate GOP candidate Ben Kieckhefer. And, in the interest of fairness, his opponents are Republicans Ty Cobb, Todd “Taxpayer” Bailey, Frank L. Wright and the IAP’s M.K. Yochum.
(You can find the Dullard Mush blog at http://dullardmush.blogspot.com)