State Rep. David Stover Has Been Located
The crack sleuths at WXIA (a TV station where I sometimes says wise and clever things) set out for State Representative David Stover, but couldn’t seem to find him. The story from reporter Kaitlyn Ross can be viewed at this link. But there’s a twist!
Rep. Stover is not really all that hard to reach after all. Stephen Fowler at GPB News saw the story and did a little digging on his own, to discover that the “missing” State Representative is pretty easy to find. Fowler reported on Twitter: “After doing some digging on… Rep. Stover’s website, I found his cell phone and his in-district address, so this story is likely to get walked back a ton.”
There is no truth to reports that news of Rep. Stover’s location was greeted with audible disappointment from various House leaders. Absolutely none.
And while a walkback of the story by Ms. Ross and WXIA has yet to be seen, Rep. Stover offered a lengthy pushback on his Facebook page.
Refuting what he says are “errors” in the “hit piece,” Stover concludes: “I recognize that as a public official we are subjected to increased scrutiny in our personal lives, but that doesn’t make the errors made in this 11 Alive hit piece true. I will continue to serve my community and welcome your questions.”
(There’s plenty of lively response in the comments below the post, so go participate if you’d like.)
There’s no telling what sparked a reporter’s interest in creating “A State Representative has gone missing!” story. And while cynics may wish that they would all disappear, the truth is that most elected officials are not hard to find -it’s just the good ones that seem to be rare.
Like accurate political reporting at 11-Alive News.
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Mike Hassinger
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My friend Mike Hassinger likes to make sport of attacking my female colleagues in TV news. My coworker Kaitlyn Ross is the latest. At least he didn’t attack her ethnicity, as he did Giovanna Drpic at WGCL earlier this year.
Kaitlyn tried to reach Rep. Stover repeatedly at the cell phone, email address and street address he lists on the web, and via Facebook messenger. He declined to respond. (We know this because Kaitlyn saw that her note to him on Facebook messenger was marked “read” but she received no response, several hours before her story aired.)
In messages, Kaitlyn tried to convey to Stover the nature of the story, and her approaching deadline. She heard crickets.
Stover waited until after the story aired to elevate his level of accessibility. Hassinger knows that critical reporting can sometimes change behavior. The GPB guy ought to know this, too. Kaitlyn’s reporting about the ethics complaint against him and his absences is accurate – as was her reporting on her attempts to reach him.
Hassinger’s gratuitous attack on the political reporting of 11Alive News is, of course, entertaining yet baseless. Perhaps he has a list of examples. Show me.
Love ya Mike. Why ya gotta be such a dipstick sometimes?
Sounds like her tryout to 20/20 investigates here didn’t go so well. In today’s age of instant fake news sounds like she should of waited a few days for him to get back to her. Sadly most of the minions that saw the report on the air will never hear a retraction.