Baltimore Sun Notes Spending by Democratic 'Super PAC' But Doesn't Seek Comment From Its Donors

October 20th, 2010 5:59 PM

When it comes to so-called Super PACs spending money on TV ads targeting swing House districts, the Baltimore Sun seems to care a lot more about who's behind Republican ones than Democratic operations.

Yesterday I noted how Sun staffer Paul West wrote about a PAC running ads against freshman Democratic Rep. Frank Kratovil (Md.).

West portrayed the PAC's ads as a clever end-run around campaign contribution limits for Baltimore-area businessman Daniel Schuster.

Yet in a blog post yesterday afternoon entitled "Democratic 'Super PAC' dropping $400K hit on Andy Harris,"  West was decidedly uncurious about the motives animating donors behind America's Families First Action Fund, which is running ads opposing Kratovil's Republican opponent, Dr. Andy Harris.

West simply characterized the donors behind the so-called Super PAC as "wealthy Democrats, who have chipped in at least $1.225 million" along with "the International Association of Firefighters, which gave a half-million."

The Sun reporter failed to mention that none of the dozen individual donors listed in the FEC report are from Maryland, nor did he apparently contact any of them to see what beef they have with Harris or what stake they have in backing Kratovil.