Toledo Blade Investigates, Fires Reporter who exposed Noe Connection

[OzarkDem]

Bizarre things going on over at the Toledo Blade. They investigated, then fired a reporter, George Tanber, who sent an anonymous letter to the Puliter board that was critical of the Blade's long-time political reporter Fritz Wenzel, who coincidentally had a son on the GOP payroll and who also was elected to the GOP county party central committee when Bernadette & Tom Noe were in charge.

Its a long story but well worth reading - showing how even a paper like the Blade can be compromised. Instead of firing, George Tanber should have gotten a promotion.

Other things Tanber revealed:

On May 17, 2005, the Monday after leaving The Blade to start his political consulting firm, Mr. Wenzel received the first of two $30,000 payments to handle media buys for the Cincinnati-area congressional campaign of Jean Schmidt.

While working at The Blade, Mr. Wenzel had an improperly close relationship with the Noes, and Mr. Noe offered to help Mr. Wenzel start his own consulting business.

George Tanber also alleged that Fritz Wenzel sat on the Noe Coingate story and the Blade didn't begin reporting it until after Fritz Wenzel left..

according to Noe's reporter friend Wentzel

"The letter claims the politics reporter met three times in 2004 with Joe Kidd, then director of the Lucas County Board of Elections, and was told by the GOP insider about a scheme by Mr. Noe, the Maumee coin dealer, to illegally launder money to the Bush-Cheney campaign.

Mr. Kidd said that he met with Mr. Wenzel in January, February, and September, 2004, and says that at each meeting he told Mr. Wenzel about the scheme.

Mr. Wenzel says he does not remember being told of the money laundering until the meeting in September, 2004. He says he did not believe Mr. Kidd because the former election director failed to give him evidence to back up the claims and because Mr. Kidd had been fired by Bernadette Noe.

“These rumors that Noe was involved in funneling money to the Bush campaign would occasionally come up, but nobody could substantiate them in any way,” Mr. Wenzel said."


http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060528/NEWS08/605280346

[nicknameless]

1. Interesting read, huh?

The first 2/3 of the article make Tanber sound like a nut case. But reading further, some major dirt is revealed.

K&R

[OzarkDem]

2. Agree, they smeared him a bit

Later on, it does seem as though he became a bit obsessed with sabotaging their Pulitzer nomination. There must have been a lot of bad blood and tension by then, but it seems it could have been avoided if the Blade hadn't given their GOP connected political reporter such free rein.

Makes you wonder about GOP connections and quid pro quo of other newspapers.

[nicknameless]

4. But how I read it, the Blade sat on the story

until after Noe was indicted. If that's the case, then I see why Tanber did what he did.

[OzarkDem]

5. I wonder

Is there more that the Blade knows about Noe's criminal activity than they were reporting?

Did they wait until after the case was made to have Noe take the fall, before they reported in order to help cover other Bush related ties?

Keep in mind, its a long time GOP operative and appointee who is overseeing the federal investigation of this case.

It would be very interesting to hear Mark Dann's take on all this. God I wish Ohio was still a democracy.

[nicknameless]

6. I'm not sure if there was more that they knew but weren't reporting.

But it sounds like Kidd was given the brush-off repeatedly by Wenzel.
Federal prosecutors believed Kidd and indicted Noe.
It seems wrong to give a Pulitzer to those who refused to report the story when they should have.

Ohio is a mess. So sorry for all your poor state is going through.

[nicknameless]

3. Like this part:

Did a reporter sit on the big story?

The biggest journalistic transgression alleged in Mr. Tanber’s anonymous letter is that Mr. Wenzel sat on a story — a huge story.

The letter claims the politics reporter met three times in 2004 with Joe Kidd, then director of the Lucas County Board of Elections, and was told by the GOP insider about a scheme by Mr. Noe, the Maumee coin dealer, to illegally launder money to the Bush-Cheney campaign.

Mr. Kidd said that he met with Mr. Wenzel in January, February, and September, 2004, and says that at each meeting he told Mr. Wenzel about the scheme.

Mr. Wenzel says he does not remember being told of the money laundering until the meeting in September, 2004. He says he did not believe Mr. Kidd because the former election director failed to give him evidence to back up the claims and because Mr. Kidd had been fired by Bernadette Noe.

“These rumors that Noe was involved in funneling money to the Bush campaign would occasionally come up, but nobody could substantiate them in any way,” Mr. Wenzel said.

Federal prosecutors believed Mr. Kidd, and in May, 2005, a grand jury in Toledo indicted Mr. Noe on three felony counts of laundering money to President Bush’s campaign.

<snip>

Did the Blade finally carry the story AFTER the Feds decided to indict Noe? That's what it sounds like.

[Major Hogwash]

7. That is a wild story,

Going to be interesting to see how this turns out.

[OzarkDem]

8. Hopefully the Blade will do their duty

and continue to cover the Noe trial in depth.

Ohioans also need to keep pressure on the other major papers and Ohio news outlets to cover it also. My guess is you won't be seeing much coverage from the GOP controlled papers.