by David Safier
Q: How do you render the ultimate compliment to reporters who expose your weaknesses?
A: You move to have their articles stricken from a case you're fighting in court.
In a Trib article written by Michelle Reese, one of the two investigative reporters who wrote the investigative series, Rigged Privilege, she reports:
Green v. Garriott was filed in September 2006 after lawmakers expanded an individual tax credit to corporations. The Arizona School Boards Association and the American Civil Liberties Union filed the suit against the program.
The Institute for Justice and lead counsel Tim Keller represent the Arizona School Choice Trust, a charity that gives scholarships to private school students, and parents who support the tax credit program.
Sitting on the board of Arizona School Choice Trust, by the way, are Clint Bolick, Chair, and Matthew Ladner, both of the Goldwater Institute.
I have to think Reese thoroughly enjoyed writing an article that implies her reporting struck fear in the hearts of tuition tax credit advocates. It also gave her a chance to refute their arguments.
For instance, Keller argued that, based on state records, "at least half of the 28,000 scholarships issued in 2008 went to needy students." But Reese pointed out, students can receive multiple scholarships, which the state records don't indicate. "One private school estimated as many as 30 percent of its students received aid from multiple STOs," Reese writes. That means the data is insufficient for them to reach their conclusions.
[Which leads me to a digression. Ladner and the rest of the folks at G.I. love to say, as Byron Schlomach wrote in this morning's Daily Email, the average tax credit scholarship is $2,300, to point out what a bargain it is. They purposely ignore the pesky fact that multiple scholarships to a single student make that figure much higher. {And while I'm digressing, why did Schlomach write this? "Arizona spends more than $4,000 per public school student to fund education." I've never heard anyone use that figure before. Did he mean to type $9,000 (To hit the $ key, you use the cap for the "4" key. Wanna bet he mistakenly hit the key twice?)? Otherwise, I'll have to accuse Byron of going rogue.}]
Good investigative reporting should be a thorn in the side of those who are defending the indefensible. We need more of it, done less for partisan advantage than to expose problems and wrongdoing. That's definitely the case with the Trib articles, which seem to be growing in importance daily.
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