UPDATE: Is the Sioux Falls media going to give ‘Candidate’ TenHaken a FREE pass?
l3wis UPDATE: I see he had no trouble getting in front of the camera to talk about ice cream, just not controversial issues like panhandling. Nice mask by the way 🙁
Looks like they already have by letting his staff phone in his answer in a story last night about panhandling;
Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken’s office provided KELOLAND News the following statement from him on the topic:
I think this is unfair to his opponents for several reasons. This was clearly a story about what the ‘candidates’ think about the signs and Paul should have answered the question directly as a ‘candidate’ instead of tasking his paid by taxpayers staff and SFPD communications officer answering for him. This is ethically questionable since he is having paid city staff answer campaign questions. The only people who should have answered that question was Paul or someone from his campaign.
If the media doing this story had any integrity they would have NOT aired the story without a direct response from Paul and if they could not get one, run it with just his opponent’s response or NOT at all.
This was the little game he played when running last time, acting as though he didn’t have any competition and the media playing along and letting him sneak under the radar. In the future the media needs to start treating him like a candidate (since he does have 2 competitors now) especially when one of his opponents brings up a concern, and if he doesn’t want to respond as a candidate, then don’t run his canned response.
I also wonder if Stormland TV reached out to his other opponent for a response?
Paul is a declared candidate now and he has two declared opponents, he needs to be treated like a candidate and not a cruise control, phone in, part-time Mayor. If he has time to tell Dad jokes for 10 minutes on FB, he has time to answer an on camera question from the media.
EDITOR’S NOTE: I want to make it clear, this is NOT an attack on the journalist who did this story, just a critique of how this ONE article was handled. Overall I thought it was a good article, it was Paul’s lackluster response that tarnished it.
