Posted on 09/09/2015 6:04:12 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
A Gannett reporter who writes for both the Appleton Post-Crescent and USA Today covering local and Wisconsin politics, including Gov. Scott Walker’s presidential bid, signed a petition in 2011 to recall Walker from office.
Madeleine Behr is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin Madison, and she wrote for a number of publications before joining Gannett earlier this year.
Her first story for the Post-Crescent appeared online on July 2, and since then she’s published 35 stories, including four that focus on Walker’s presidential bid, and others that cover the political aspirations and maneuvers of high profile Democratic candidates.
In 2012, then-Post-Crescent publisher Genia Lovett disclosed that 25 Gannett journalists, including nine at the Post-Crescent, signed Walker recall petitions, but none of them were assigned to the political beat. “It was wrong, and those who signed were in breach of Gannett’s Principles of Ethical Conduct for Newsrooms,” Lovett wrote.
There’s no mistaking Behr’s contribution to both the Post-Crescent’s and USA Today’s political coverage. On Twitter, Behr claims she is, “Covering Wisconsin politics for @USATODAY. Local government @postcrescent.”
On November 18, 2011, Behr signed a petition to recall Walker from office. The address she lists is a UW Madison residence hall.
Joel Christopher, vice president of news for Gannett Wisconsin Media, responded to a Media Trackers inquiry about Behr’s assignment to cover Walker, saying, “We indeed are aware that Madeleine signed the Gov. Scott Walker recall election petition in 2011 because Madeleine made it a priority to tell us before she even interviewed for a reporting position with us.”
Christopher further explained that, “With Madeleine and every Gannett Wisconsin journalist whose work we put in front of the public, we invite people to read with a critical eye because we’re confident they will discover strong journalism reported fairly and accurately in a nonpartisan fashion in service of the public interest.”
“Scott Walker had his own email controversy,” blares the headline of Behr’s July 30 story about Walker, which claims that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s e-mail controversy involving classified information and secret personal servers is similar to a private e-mail network established by Walker aides when he was Milwaukee County Executive.
“While Clinton has been scrutinized for her use of private email for public purposes, Walker’s county executive office once faced questions, and even a criminal investigation, over its use of a private email system to do campaign work on public time,” Behr wrote. Her story went on to quote Jay Heck of Common Cause Wisconsin, a far-left group, and a former Democratic attorney general of Wisconsin who downplayed Clinton’s actions and played up what they thought was wrong-doing on the part of Walker.
Unlike a similar Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story, Behr never mentions that it was Democrats who first compared the Clinton e-mail situation to Walker’s aides’ actions.
Other stories Behr has written for Gannett about Walker include a column musing about the importance of Iowa to Walker’s presidential prospects, his poll numbers in Wisconsin, his plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare, and his performance in the first GOP presidential debate of the cycle.
Prior to joining the Post-Crescent / USA Today, Behr wrote for the leftwing Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, a non-profit that receives public support via its offices at a University of Wisconsin facility. A piece she wrote for the group criticizing Walker’s Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) was published by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
In college, Behr wrote for The Badger Herald, the UW Madison student newspaper. While there she penned a sympathetic portrait of a pro-union protester, wrongly claiming he was a member of the press. In another story she took up the Left’s anti-ALEC crusade, rehashing state Rep. Chris Taylor’s (D) points about the number of Wisconsin lawmakers who have attended or otherwise participated in the right-of-center legislative exchange. She also wrote about Walker.
According to her LinkedIn profile, Behr was an intern at the ultra-leftwing Center for Media and Democracy before leaving college.
See post 18, we both remember.
So much for the objectivity of USA Today. Of course, you won’t hear a peep from his slumbering campaign about this laughable situation…if he still has a campaign.
You should be commended for being his biggest supporter around here, you haven’t jumped in the hot tub for a Trumpgasm, and you’ve been respectful of people who don’t like Walker, but at some point Cruz is going to need you.
USA Today is still in print???
Evidently there was something illegal going on or there wouldn’t have been six convictions.
That aside, it is what has come from Walker’s own mouth that has gotten him into trouble, especially since the debate.
You are implying something that is not true. I am calling you out on this. Present sources that show Walker or his staff had a private email server located on government property. If you cannot, then stop using this lie.
Remember, a wifi booster/repeater is not a private email server. Totally different thing.
Reporter signed a petition in 2011 to recall Walker from office?
He just broke the contract they are required to sign that applies to reporters, news anchors et al NEVER to disclose their political leanings.
I’ve never posted against Cruz (had to push back against some anti-Walker Cruz posters a few times) and I voted and supported Cruz in Texas.
But I believe that Walker is the guy we need. I hope you’ll be there when he needs you.
: )
You also know that it was a router installed by an aide, that the allegation involved campaigning using gov’t resources, that a long drawn-out political investigation was conducted and the guilty were held to account, that Gov. Walker was exonerated and never even charged with any wrongdoing, that he fully cooperated with the investigation, and that this happened when he was the executive in charge of one COUNTY not as Secretary of State for an entire COUNTRY.
I guess you are too “conservative” to be bothered with little details like that.
Or do you have some other motive?
A separate router used in the office for doing campaign work which should not have been happening on the taxpayer’s clock was the problem. This was a simple problem to avoid, just don’t install a router for campaigning at work.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
This is why Walker is a failure. When a rouge state employee was ordering SWAT teams to innocent people’s houses, Walker didn’t say anything. When a rouge judge overturned the state constitution, he proclaimed it “the law of the land.” He’ll fight for the Chamber of Cronies against (some of) the unions, but he won’t fight for natural law and liberty against naked tyranny. He’s a one trick pony. He took on public sector unions. Great. Let’s make him head of the Labor Dept. What America needs as president is a champion of liberty who knows Who our liberty comes from. That’s Ted Cruz. Anyone else and we can’t return from the abyss.
Boo Hoo.
The router that his assistant used was installed just feet from Walker’s desk. He communicated by email with his campaign using the router. How Clintonian of you to parse words.
So you are admitting that they did not use a private email server? Only a “private” wifi repeater?
And right there, is why the media is discredited.
You’re probably posting on FR on your boss’s dime. I know I am.
Walker is hardly a Washington insider.
About a few months ago I attended a convention in Milwaukee and Walker showed up and gave a speech and it was damn impressive.
I am not from the state so I had limited past exposure to Walker. On TV he looked kind of slow to me. But live he was very exciting.
So I assumed I misjudged him. But it seems on TV Walker comes out flat and lifeless and in live events he is very engaging. I would have no problem voting for Walker as president.
It was illegal and Walker was complicit as the emails showed. It was the router that opened the investigation, at least that stage of it. And, no, documents and statement by investigators say that Walker was not as cooperative as he should have been and never turned over much of what was requested. His lack of cooperation is what made them press on.
I’m sure you can also justify Walker’s attempt to repeal Wisconsin’s Open Records laws by slipping that into the budget deal just before he announced. Slick Willie did that in Arkansas, and we know he had a lot to hide.
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