Today, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel published their Politifact column and gave candidate Jeff Stone a “true” on a softball question. They may as well have done an analysis of whether Stone likes puppies.

Stone said, “I’m the only candidate for Milwaukee County executive that has voted against increasing government pensions.” But is this really true?

The problem with this question is that it is misleading. It creates a doubt in the voters mind making them think that all of the other candidates have voted FOR increasing government pensions. That’s just not true.

So why would the Journal-Sentinel encourage this sneaky deception and then rate the statement “true”?

Earlier this week we pointed out that Journal Communications is the parent company of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, WTMJ AM620 radio and WTMJ Channel 4 (television). Each of the 3 sources appears to reinforce each other. None of them will criticize one of their sibling media sources. After all, Journal Communications is a business and criticizing one, discredits all.

For years it has been obvious that WTMJ AM620 has been a shill for the Republican party. It is now becoming clear that the Journal-Sentinel is now whoring their columns out to the GOP just as their radio station has been for years.

By lobbing this softball question to Stone, and letting him manipulate the wording in order to earn a “true”, the JS has discredited themselves.

In the Sullivan ad, candidate Jim Sullivan introduces himself and lays out who he is and why he believes, and is committed to, public service. He hits on his background as a Navy reservist and small business owner. Sullivan has identified himself as a candidate who wants to restore our parks and transit system while at the same time making it clear that he believes former County Executive Scott Walker has neglected core services. This is a smart move for a primary ad since it seeks to pick up voters who won’t be voting for a Republican anyway.

Chris Abele continues his ads with this one explaining why he thinks County government is broken. He talks about “perks” such as cell phones and cars. Unfortunately for Abele he appears to be out of touch with how businesses and government works. Nearly everyone today owns a cell phone — even many seniors. Cell phones allow high level workers to communicate with their staff. Abele unfortunately doesn’t understand there are not many department heads that have “company cars”. It’s really disappointing because Abele is normally a smart guy who is deserving of respect, but he is clearly pandering to voters who want to think the worst about County government and the fear-monger voters have already lined up behind Jeff Stone. Abele is unlikely to pry those voters away from Stone and it is safe to say that his strategy of trying to win the hearts of Republicans isn’t a smart primary strategy.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel bungled another rating. They applied a higher standard to Milwaukee County Executive candidate Chris Abele than they did to our current Governor, Scott Walker.

Abele’s website states, “Chris will grant a short-term property tax exemption for new small business startups based on new net jobs created in Milwaukee County.”

The JS honed in on what is legal versus what is possible.

Technically the JS is not wrong, but in practice they blew it. It would not have taken too much work for the columnist to find another recent example of a tax break that was not legal but was enacted shortly after it was proposed. Former County Executive, now Governor, Scott Walker announced that he would issue pension obligation bonds to pay for Milwaukee County’s pension liability. It was illegal at the time but Walker pushed it through anyway. Both the Wisconsin legislature as well as Governor Jim Doyle approved legislation that would allow Walker to borrow money to pay for present day expenses.

So is it fair to hold Abele to a higher standard than the man who was in the seat Abele hopes to win? We rate this a double standard.

It is times like this that it is helpful to remember that one entity, Journal Communications, dominates our local news. They own the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, WTMJ AM620 radio and the WTMJ television station. Every once in a while they go on a feeding frenzy, discrediting people who have done no crime and who have made no effort to grab the media spotlight.

This is the case of a recent story the Journal-Sentinel ran “Ament backs Sullivan in County Exec Race”.

Our problem is not so much the substance of the story, which is simply misleading, but the way that they chose to portray the long time former County Exec. Columnist Daniel Bice starts out the column with “F. Thomas Ament, the disgraced former Milwaukee County executive”…

We rate this story “deceptive”.

A journalist cannot start out their column with the premise of a lie and expect following that lie to be given credence. Ament was not disgraced. He committed no crime. He was never charged with a crime. Ament’s first mistake, and this is the one that led to the rest of the pension scandal, was to be a democrat. Journal Communications Republican talk radio show host Charlie Sykes (WTMJ) railed non-stop against Ament in order to drum up support to recall Ament. Journal Communications reporters and editors (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel) ran stories supporting their own guys (Sykes) positions and restating an accusation of a generous benefits package that could have never benefited the exec in the amounts they claimed in the first place because it would have been illegal. Journal Communications television (WTMJ Channel 4) supported the whole thing by running non-stop anti-Ament stories. Fox6 also got in on the act since Fox pretty much always oppose Democrats, leaving only 2 other mainstream television sources who jumped in on the action because it seemed like it was thing thing to do.

It was a classic case of the tail wagging the watchdog.

Now, nearly 9 years after the feeding frenzy, and millions of dollars earned by Journal Communication which unethically manufactured the frenzy, they’re taking cheap shots at Ament again.

The substance of Bice’s story is that Ament wrote a check to candidate and former State Senator Jim Sullivan. Sullivan, who was Ament’s State Senator, and before that Ament’s Alderman, gave Sullivan $200. Sullivan is facing philanthropist Chris Abele who is already running television ads and can afford to drop a million dollars of his own money into the campaign if he chooses, and State Representative Jeff Stone who has the benefit of a virtually non-stop pro-Stone radio station promoting his campaign. And who owns that radio station? You guessed it — Journal Communication’s very own WTMJ.

So the big story here, and Journal Communications would prefer it not be laid out this simply, is that Sullivan took a $200 campaign donation from a former County Exec who served the people of Milwaukee County for over 30 years. Meanwhile, Journal Communications, whose radio station will be providing what would otherwise cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in free advertising, is supporting another candidate with their donation of free air time.

While the story about Sullivan is a stretch, the premise of the story and the portrayal of Ament is certainly deceptive.

Yesterday we introduced our new ratings to Watchdog Politifact. Today we announce that we’ll be using those same ratings, and even expanding them, to include candidate’s campaign statements.

This will be interesting as the political races unfold in the coming weeks.

Over the past year the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has presented itself as an objective news source that, as a public service, has rated the comments of public officials. Sadly, these ratings, presented under the name “Politifact”, have at times been misleading and have even displayed a double standard when it comes to the ratings of candidates who are actively engaged in political races.

This is why today, we at Watchdog Milwaukee will be introducing our own fact checking — WATCHDOG FACTCHECK. We will be rating those who do the ratings. Our ratings will be less about the candidates themselves, but more about how the mainstream media presents issues and candidate positions.

We appreciate the fact that several years after creating Watchdog Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel created their own Watchdog Reports. What we don’t appreciate is that they have not doled out their brand of watchdogging with the same balance and level of objectivity that we have used here. Now we understand, and know that our critics will not bother to read this whole paragraph, that we are not the pinnacle of objectivity. We certainly have our point of view and there is no question that we approach issues with a thorough and complex understanding of issues that cannot be summed up in a short slogan or campaign bumper sticker. But what we do pursue, and we do it fairly well, is to provide needed analysis and in some cases expertise where others bring only an agenda. Sometimes our critics agenda is partisan, and sometimes it is commercial.

This is our foray into watchdogging those who claim to be the watchdog.

Therefore we will provide the ratings, especially in cases when we find egregious and flagrant abuses in journalism, to the public. Our ratings are not meant to be the sole and final decision for readers to adopt. What they are meant to do is to create an understanding and dialogue of often complex issues which do not always make their way into the public discussion. We will call upon past experience and insight to provide insight and understanding. We will also open up the comment section so others, who have opposing views can respond as they see fit. What we won’t entertain in our forums, is personal attacks or profanity. Our forums are not meant to be a ring for a vicious dog fight, but rather a way for our readers to sniff out the facts and bark out their own point of view.

We will start out with the pinnacle of reporting. “Accurate” is what every reporter and columnist should strive for. The accurate report provides information which gives the reader real insight and provides a public service. We believe the reporters or columnists who consistently put out “accurate” information are those who espouse the principles of the man who has inspired Watchdog Milwaukee — Edward R. Murrow.

“A stretch” is reserved for reports or assessments which have an element of truth but don’t really provide an accurate portrayal of events, opinions or comments.

“Strained” shows a lack of objectivity and either an inability or unwillingness for the reporter to do their homework. A strained column may be the result of a reporter not having the time necessary to do an accurate and in-depth analysis due to a variety of reasons ranging from attempting to file their story with inadequate time due to an impending deadline, or simple laziness.

“Deceptive” is usually reserved for the worst of the worst. We will attempt to use this rating sparingly because it is our opinion that most reporters and columnists attempt to do the right thing. We call on our readers and even those who have been tarred with unfair labels by the media, to contact us with their side of how “Politifact” just blew the story. We will not give out the “deceptive” label lightly. Deceptive reporting is all that we are not, and sadly, is the most closely espoused by another Wisconsinite, former Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Finally, we will give the rating “double standard” to politifact and its reporters who treat different candidates so utterly different that their bias is glaring upon analysis. For instance, if Politifact analyzes the statement of one candidate in order to entrap them into making a statement which they may not have all the facts on, and then asks their opponent a different question which is clearly a softball question, we will call them on it.

An example would be, if Politifact asks Candidate A “Do you like puppies” and Candidate A replies “yes” and rewards that candidate with a “True” and then asks Candidate B “why didn’t you get your dog vaccinated in 1978″, those questions are no where near the same and we would rate that a “double standard” along with an explanation of why that rating was assessed.