The Trib vs The P-G

Yesterday, Richard Mellon Scaife's editorial board at the Pittsburgh Tribune Review got whipped themselves into a lather over something Dennis Roddy wrote at the P-G.

But curiously, they didn't mention Roddy by name. Nor did they ever actually get around to say that anything Roddy wrote was, you know, wrong.

AND they left out a big big BIG part of the story - and a hat tip to "Referee" over at the voyforum for pointing it out.

First Roddy:

A committee organized to welcome the world to Pittsburgh for the September G-20 economic summit has received a donation from a foundation that has, in the past, given millions of dollars to anti-immigration organizations including two listed as hate groups.

The Colcom Foundation, founded by Cordelia Scaife May, a now-deceased heir to the Mellon fortune, has been one of the major contributors to a web of groups founded by John Tanton, a Petoskey, Mich., ophthalmologist who has long been at the forefront of efforts to restrict immigration into the United States.

During Ms. May's lifetime, the foundation also underwrote the work of Samuel Francis, a self-described "white nationalist" who edited a newsletter for the Council of Conservative Citizens, a group that has advocated racial separation. Mr. Francis also was a regular speaker at conferences sponsored by American Renaissance, an annual gathering of academics who theorize on racially based differences in intelligence, contending that black people have lower intelligence than whites and Asians.

And so on. And now the Trib. After calling the piece "reprehensible" they explain themselves:

The Group of 20 economics summit is coming to Pittsburgh in late September. Although many of the costs associated with this event will be covered by the federal government — much of the necessarily large security apparatus topping the list — a city in state receivership requires private-sector aid to help it put on its best face.

Many private organizations, freely fulfilling what they feel is their civic duty, have stepped up to the plate. Among them is the Colcom Foundation, founded by Cordelia Scaife May, the late sister of this newspaper's owner.

Yet, hell-bent on letting no good deed go unpunished (if not to shamelessly smear the name of a dead woman), the Post-Gazette has published a screed in which it went out of its way to try to discredit Colcom's support of the community's G-20 preparations.

Before looking at the next paragraph, let's all remember that it was Dennis Roddy who did all that delicious reporting on Richard Mellon Scaife's divorce. Keeping that in mind, here's the Trib's next paragraph:

The apparent motivation for this smear is Colcom's past philanthropy to causes with which P-G co-publisher and editor-in-chief John Robinson Block personally disagrees.

Of course it's just not possible for Scaife, who once a long long long time ago lashed out at a reporter when she asked about his rightwing political donations by calling her a "communist cunt," to be annoyed at Dennis Roddy for writing about his divorce. Nope, not possible.

And what of this Sam Francis person? Over at the voyforum, a poster using the pseudonym "referee" sheds some light on Mr Francis. USUALLY I wouldn't give much credence to someone posting under a pseudonym (even though I used to blog under a pseudonym myself), but when the info in that post actually checks out...

The poster pointed out that Sam Francis' column used to be published by The Tribune Review. Turns out that's true. His column got dropped when he wrote a column about the Nicolette Sheridan/Tyrell Owens Monday Night Football ad.

Curious what the Trib leaves out, isn't it?