Certain events in the 2012 campaign make you ask how would the media respond if a particular story was about Mitt Romney rather than President Obama. Take this past Friday, when President Obama was introduced at an Ohio rally by a man accused to stealing trade secrets from his former employer.
According to a local CBS affiliate in Cleveland, Ohio, Daniel Potkanowicz has been ordered to pay $500,000 to his former employer after a judge ruled that Potkanowicz had stolen trade secrets.
Apart from this local CBS affiliate and Politico's Maggie Haberman dismissing it as a mere "vetting slip," it appears that no national news organization has covered this story at all. One would think Obama being introduced at a campaign event by a man who violated trade secrets from his former employer and now owes him half a million dollars would be news-worthy, but apparently not. 
Of course, it should be noted that MSNBC frequently gives free air time to a former Obama administration car czar who had his share of legal troubles.
In November 2010, Steven Rattner, a frequent contributor on MSNBC's Morning Joe, was banned from Wall Street trading for two years after admitting he received kickbacks from firms that were included in New York State's pension fund.
“Rattner delivered special favors and conducted sham transactions that corrupted the retirement fund’s investment process,” Bloomberg News quoted David Rosenfeld, of the federal Securities and Exchange Commission's office in New York.
In December of 2010, Rattner reached a settlement with outgoing New York Attorney General and Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo where he agreed to pay $10 million as well as being "banned from appearing 'in any capacity' before any public pension fund in the state for five years," reported Bloomberg News.
Image credit: Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit.
