Top Dem Calls Out SCDN For Election Coverage
Scioto County’s head Democrat had a lot to say on Thursday, including taking aim at the Scioto County Daily News’ political coverage.
Democratic Party Chair Collin Docterman started a firestorm after making a post congratulating County Commissioner Cathy Coleman on her early retirement. Coleman then immediately announced her plan to run for re-election, and Republicans accused Docterman of spreading rumors.
Docterman reached out to SCDN publisher Mark Craycraft to say he was not satisfied with the news organization’s coverage of the recent election. In an email to the publisher, he said, “I need to get some clarity from you on some things. We’ve discussed some of it but the answers were not satisfactory to me. That’s not to say that you have to do diddly squat in response to this. It’s your enterprise. It’s just a matter of whether or not I can use your services or reasonably tell future candidates to use your services.”
Docterman complained that members of the Scioto County Daily News Facebook Group were allowed to share posts relating to politics in the run-up to the election. That includes members sharing from politicians’ pages and politicians themselves sharing posts as long as they are members of the group.
Docterman said, “Far be it from me to guess at your motivations, but the effect is the same. Allowing posts to be shared from candidates’ accounts, regardless of whether or not it is political, has the effect of giving them free press. I understand that you need to cover the commissioner’s office whether it’s an election year or not but allowing people to share their posts that are unrelated to their role in the county is free exposure. My recommended remedy is a 30-day hiatus leading up to election day of any such sharing or posting from or about candidates that is not paid for. Obviously, I would not expect that to extend to releases from Scioto County Daily News about anything coming out of the commissioner’s office. I wouldn’t want you to tie your journalistic hands.”
Publisher Mark Craycraft says there’s a difference between the Scioto County Daily News website and the Facebook group. “The SCDN website is the home of our news-gathering enterprise. Posts to the site are written by our newsgathering staff and reviewed by the publisher. The Facebook group is a community group where people can freely converse on a variety of topics, including politics. Since we are a group and not a page, we do not have ads and do not monetize the group in any way. He said the SCDN group is monitored by volunteer moderators. “Anyone with any political viewpoint is welcome to post.”
Docterman also accused SCDN of “stripping the message from the messenger” in regards to an article published earlier in the year where Commissioner Davis disputed Lawson’s idea that recovering addicts could be leveraged as an asset to the community. He felt the article gave Davis too much of a platform in an election year.
However, the Davis article was in response to an article and full-length video interview with Lawson where he discussed the issue. Docterman also complained about an article detailing Davis’s unhappiness with citizen complaints about the 5/3 building swap. That article was taken directly from comments made at a commissioners’ meeting.
Docterman also felt that his posts regarding Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife and the January 6th riot at the Capitol had disappeared.
Craycraft said that in most cases, when comments or posts about hot topics disappear, it’s due to Facebook suppressing them and not actions by the SCDN group’s moderators. “Facebook’s little Zucker-bots do what they want,” Craycraft said. “They apply the rules seemingly randomly and quite unevenly.”
Craycraft went on to point out that he’s always open to sharing candidates’ points of view on any topic.
Doctorman received “preapproved status” on the Facebook platform, and SCDN offered to publish unedited news releases for the candidates. Craycraft said he would like to publicly extend an offer to Docterman to write a weekly opinion piece for the website.
As the head of the Democratic Party, Doctorman seems to have the unwillingness to address any questions about Scioto Couty Auditor David Green. Green is the next major local Democrat that will be up for reelection in the next election cycle.
When asked by the Scioto County Young Republicans whether incumbent Auditor David Green, a Democrat, plans on serving his entire term, Docterman declined to comment and promptly deleted both posts.