Joe Schoenmann, Again

It's not surprising, given the enormity of the interest in my posts about the Las Vegas Sun's Joe Schoenmann and his 535-word correction last week that more people would be coming out of the woodwork to observe his work.

I've heard nothing from either Joe or Managing Editor Mike Kelley explaining how that epic correction happened or whether anyone would be disciplined in any way, as most credible newspapers would do in a situation such as this. Evidently, they don't believe that their readers deserve to know what's being done to prevent such a mammoth system failure in the future. I find this funny because this newspaper has shamed a variety of sources with big front-page groans when they don't get responses or access as it wishes. (In addition to the Bill Richardson one last fall that I pointed to in a different post, other readers reminded me they pulled that trick on former Lt. Gov. candidate Barbara Lee Woollen not once but twice in 2006.)

But I did hear from a current Greenspun Media Group journalist (GMG owns the Sun and also owns two publications I write for) who is outraged that nothing has happened to Schoenmann given that "if it were almost anyone else, there would've been some sort of penalty." This employee, to whom I spoke by phone to confirm he/she actually sent this note to me and was who I thought he/she was, made some pretty valid points. Here's a piece of the note:

"To answer your question about whether Joe has been disciplined, I need only to point you to yet another lazy, abysmal front-page piece by him in Saturday's paper. Take a good look at it. You'll notice that it's a love letter to Mayor Goodman, whom Joe routinely sucks up to, in which he seems to claim that because the mayor hired some woman to handle homeless affairs, he's really a good guy on the topic. The only people quoted in the piece are -- you guessed it! -- the mayor and his lackey. Did Joe get off his ass and go interview homeless people or homeless activists? No! That would take some effort."

Yikes. Take a look yourself. It's all true. It's as lazy a piece as the Summerlin one, less the anonymous Web comments to make it journalistic malpractice. This reporter doesn't seem to like to get out and talk to ordinary people much at all, something City Hall scribes really need to be willing to do lest their work end up being sonorous insider pieces about dullsville governmental processes.

Oh, and one more thing noted by this letter-writer: The epic Summerlin correction wasn't the only one Joe was responsible for that week. He also had to correct his Feb. 28 piece on the potential loss of an historic theater in Vegas. If you go to that story, you'll notice that there's a correction quietly appended to the bottom -- so it's easy to miss, unlike sticking it atop the piece where it might be obvious -- that reads: "An error in this story, saying that the Huntridge had a role in several movies, has been removed."

Now how does an error like that happen? And, more interestingly, how does an error like that get corrected? I mean, if the original piece said the place was in the movies, who's going to ring up the paper and say, 'Uh, nut-uh"?

I'd call up and ask, but I suspect I'd get the same stony silence I've gotten so far. They probably think "some blog" isn't worth responding to.

Richardson Screws It Up -- Again.

I don't usually deal with issues this off-topic on this blog, but I feel the need this time because I'm so amazed at the hamhandedness at work here.

Gov. Bill Richardson will be in Vegas tomorrow. He's mixing his public appearances with an inexplicably private meeting at the Las Vegas Gay and Lesbian Community Center with a collection of handpicked gays and lesbians. This is supposed to be the event that will help him "make up" to our gays after he screwed himself earlier this month by telling Melissa Etheridge in the first-ever televised gay-issues forum that being gay is a choice. Since his campaign hinges on a decent showing in Nevada early in the process, the fact that he alienated an important Democratic voting bloc - and their friends - is of critical concern.

This event actually was my idea to begin with, but it's being executed in such a pathetic manner that it actually makes the whole thing worse. The morning after that debate, I suggested something like this to both Richardson's openly gay Nevada staffer and a gay Vegas friend who was being asked by the campaign how to fix the damage. I'm not generally in the business of giving out political advice to candidates, but these friends of mine were posing the question to me of what he could possibly do to alter his tattered image with gays. I went on to write a piece in the Las Vegas Weekly this week that argued this point as well.

Rather than such a grand gesture, the immediate response the day after the debate from the Richardson camp was to have the guv call up handpicked gays -- high-profile bloggers and potential donors, mostly -- to apologize to them for his debate answer. None of this did any good in terms of tackling the real problem, which was that it was the image of him looking dour and irritable amongst the gays on that TV show that made his "choice" comments hurt him so much. It was the visual that harmed him far more than the remarks.

The real solution, it seemed to me, would be to put Richardson out in public in front of a diverse crowd of gays and answer their questions. He had screwed up on national TV; he can't fix it in private. If he wanted to make amends to the Vegas gays, he needed to come to them.

Instead, his camp decided to choose a "special" group of gays, do it at the Center as I imagined but close it to the public. That's what's up tomorrow.

I was invited to this meeting but was told I'd not be able to write about it if I attended. I didn't see the point of that, so I declined. When I asked why it was closed, among the answers I got was that some of the "participants" wanted it that way.

That's just weird, bordering on a lie.

Beyond the fact that they're not opening the thing up to all comers, they're saying they can't even find a group of gay people in Vegas who aren't embarrassed to be in the news? Or who aren't in politically sensitive circumstances -- declared supporters of other campaigns, I imagine -- that their presence at a coffee with Richardson would cause them discomfort?

That can't be it. Obviously, they don't trust their own candidate not to step in it again in public with the gays. That's why he only talks to special gays in special circumstances. I've heard the argument, too, that the campaign wants it closed so those present "feel free to speak their minds." Open it to the public and be assured some who show up will feel completely comfortable "speaking their minds."

I was also told that the governor wants this to be a "conversation." Huh? This isn't the queer re-education of Bill Richardson. He's not like George W. Bush in 2000, when the Texas guv met with the Log Cabin Republicans in private and listened for his first time to gay sob stories. Richardson already "gets it" with the gays. He knows many. His record shows he's the furthest thing from a homophobe and, intellectually, his uncertainty as to whether being gay is a choice is, if more eloquently delivered, the true answer. Science hasn't determined that yet. I believe it from my own experience, but is there an irrefutable body of evidence? No.

This is my political analysis: If this campaign really wants to make an honest attempt to repair this damage, they'll have to take a risk. They have to put this man who believes he should be president of the United States out there in public with the gays he offended and show everyone he can take the heat and is earnest about his contrition. If he does that well, he gets a photo op that may help erase the image of himself looking unhappy and crabby at the TV forum, not to mention he helps bring some attention to a Vegas gay center so underfunded that KNPR's Dave Berns asked me on the air last week whether it was a secret that it exists.

If Richardson can't do that, he has no business being president anyway.

Exclusive: Edwards Trashes Richardson At Private Fundraiser

I ran out on Susan, Gabby, Lynette and Edie last night (Bree ran out on us months ago, didn't she?) to drop in on a John Edwards '08 fundraiser at the fantabulous Vegas house of a California couple. I had been invited by a close friend and had exclusive access to the event.

Naturally, I wrote about it. My essay is up on NVToday.Com now.

But here are the fun nuggets:

* I asked him about the South Carolina debate in the 90 seconds I had to chat with him. He surprised me by panning the performance of New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. Said the Cutest Candidate of his Oval Opponent: "He just didn't seem to have it together, was sweating an awful lot. But the rest of us did fine. Some of us were a bit nervous."

* Even in this crowd, which raised $60,000 for the candidate, some folks were skeptical about supporting him and distracted by the flap over his $400 haircuts.

* Edwards mocked himself twice. Once he referenced the haircut thing in an abbreviated stump speech and then insisted he didn't know they cost so much and, running his fingers through the coif, quipped, "And it wasn't worth it." Then when he got to the line about his dad being a poor mill worker, he joked about how often he trots out that line.

He did pretty well, really. But the image problem caused by those haircuts is very, very serious.