Shaun Griswold, senior reporter for Source New Mexico, a nonprofit information group, was barred from coming into a political rally Sunday, however interviewed voters outdoors the venue. (Courtesy of Source New Mexico)
SANTA FE – Shaun Griswold – a veteran reporter who’s labored in Colorado and New Mexico for a decade – drove hours to Carlsbad this week to cowl Republican Mark Ronchetti’s political rally, one of many largest marketing campaign occasions of the yr.
He didn’t see a minute of the speeches.
The marketing campaign denied him a press credential. It additionally barred him from entry as a member of the general public after he had obtained a ticket the identical approach anybody else would.
Advertisement
The explanation: Ronchetti’s marketing campaign contends the publication Griswold now works for – Source New Mexico, a part of a nonprofit community of stories retailers – is a left-wing advocacy group, not a professional media group, citing, partly, its funding sources. The marketing campaign additionally took subject with a narrative the group revealed earlier this summer season.
The ejection of Griswold has injected into the gubernatorial marketing campaign a contemporary debate over press entry and who ought to qualify for press credentials.
The nonpartisan New Mexico Basis for Open Authorities has weighed in, calling it “a harmful precedent to let any public servant determine who’s and isn’t a ‘professional’ reporter.”
Melanie Majors, interim government director of the muse, mentioned the group was reluctant to wade right into a political battle. However she mentioned the muse couldn’t be silent in regards to the refusal to permit a specific reporter or group to attend a rally.
“Reporters are the eyes and ears of the general public,” she mentioned in a letter this week. “If they are often silenced by being denied entry to occasions of public curiosity, the members of the general public are the last word victims.”
Advertisement
Griswold, for his half, got here away with a narrative. He stood outdoors the civic heart in Carlsbad and talked to rally attendees leaving the occasion.
Monetary assist
The dispute facilities on Ronchetti’s rally in Carlsbad on Sunday with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a possible 2024 presidential candidate. It drew about 1,000 attendees – making it one of many largest occasions of its form this yr – as DeSantis slammed “woke” establishments and beliefs, encouraging voters to again Ronchetti’s marketing campaign for governor.
Ronchetti, a Republican and former tv meteorologist, is working in opposition to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat in search of a second time period, and Libertarian Karen Bedonie within the Nov. 8 election.
A author for the Albuquerque Journal was among the many tv and newspaper reporters granted credentials to cowl the Sunday rally, which featured about an hour of speeches.
Advertisement
Enrique Knell, a Ronchetti marketing campaign spokesman, mentioned Source New Mexico was denied a credential as a result of it isn’t a professional information outlet. He cited monetary assist its guardian community acquired from AFSCME, a union group, and different sources he characterised as “left wing.”
“Our marketing campaign credentials and admits all professional retailers and reporters,” Knell mentioned in a written assertion. “Source NM is a liberal advocacy group – not a professional information group. There was intensive reporting by different information retailers on the liberal teams that fund Source NM, exposing their liberal agenda.”
Source New Mexico is a part of a community of 29 publications linked to States Newsroom, a nonprofit group that discloses donations over $500.
The newsroom says on its web site that donations “assist our journalistic mission however don’t affect our editorial course. We preserve a strict separation between our funding and our journalism.”
It additionally added that the group doesn’t “settle for company donations or underwriting, nor can we settle for donations from international governments or nameless sources.”
Advertisement
Among the many roughly 110 donors listed on its web site are AFSCME, a union group for presidency workers; the Google Information Initiative Journalism Emergency Aid Fund; the Piedmont Environmental Council and Coalition for Smarter Progress; and a number of people, charitable funds and different organizations.
States Newsroom additionally mentioned it has acquired 25,000 contributions of $500 or much less.
A 2019 story revealed on Governing.com reported that the States Newsroom community was launched as a sponsored challenge of the Hopewell Fund, which it described as a left-leaning nonprofit group centered on “social change” tasks. Chris Fitzsimon, the writer and director at States Newsroom who as soon as based a left-leaning assume tank in North Carolina, mentioned Hopewell had supplied again finish assist, however not funding, in keeping with the Governing story.
Debate over media entry has flared periodically in New Mexico politics. The Santa Fe Reporter, a weekly newspaper, acquired a $360,000 settlement from the state of New Mexico after accusing then-Gov. Susana Martinez of violating the state Inspection of Public Information Act.
The settlement got here after the paper gained a courtroom ruling in 2017 that mentioned the Martinez administration had violated the data regulation. The Santa Fe Reporter, nonetheless, didn’t prevail on a separate declare, which alleged the administration had violated the “free press” clause of the state Structure by illegally denying entry to info that was supplied to different information retailers.
Advertisement
Lujan Grisham has additionally confronted some media entry questions. The balls within the night of her 2019 inauguration, for instance, have been closed to the press.
Full editorial management
Source Editor in Chief Marisa Demarco – a longtime journalist who has labored for KUNM, the Albuquerque Tribune and the Weekly Alibi – mentioned she has full editorial management over the publication, which operates an internet site and shares its work with newspapers and different media retailers.
“No one has ever informed me what to publish or what body the articles ought to take or something like that,” Demarco mentioned in an interview. “We’re a very impartial store.”
The group, she famous, has gained awards this yr, together with first place from the regional Society of Skilled Journalists for political information, for a narrative on errors in state price range laws.
Advertisement
Join our free Journal Election Information publication
The publication’s reporters, Demarco mentioned, adhere to the SPJ ethics code, which requires honest, correct reporting.
Demarco mentioned Griswold registered to attend the Ronchetti rally as a member of the general public whereas she additionally sought a press credential for the group to cowl it.
The night time earlier than the rally, Demarco mentioned, Knell mentioned he was denying a credential based mostly on their “previous interactions.” The one earlier grievance, Demarco mentioned, had been a couple of story centering on Ronchetti’s look on a radio present, the place the host requested him about his stance on the far-right militia group the Oath Keepers and others.
In any case, Griswold had a public ticket to Sunday’s rally and drove right down to cowl it. Personal safety on the door had an image of him and denied him entry.
Advertisement
Griswold – a member of the Native American Journalists Affiliation and winner this yr of awards from NAJA and SPJ – made an indication figuring out himself as a journalist and interviewed individuals as they left the rally.
$4.5 billion has been allocated for hundreds of projects throughout New Mexico, but it’s just sitting unspent. That’s the total state lawmakers discovered in their latest capital outlay quarterly report.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — $4.5 billion has been allocated for hundreds of projects throughout New Mexico, but it’s just sitting unspent. That’s the total state lawmakers discovered in their latest capital outlay quarterly report.
There are six pages of what’s called red-rated projects – plans with state money already set aside that have made almost no progress.
For example, in 2022, lawmakers approved $10 million for pedestrian improvements in Old Town and the Sawmill District in Albuquerque. None of that money has been spent.
Advertisement
Over at UNM, $2 million was dedicated to health care lab improvements in 2021. Only around half a million has been spent.
Lawmakers awarded $1 million to renovate Santa Fe’s Midtown Campus in 2021. Officials haven’t spent a dime. So what’s the problem?
“It’s 112 different people making 112 different decisions without a lot of planning or coordination,” said Kristina Fisher, the associate director of Think New Mexico.
Fisher says the state’s capital outlay process is unique and outdated.
“Big projects don’t get fully funded and so a lot of the time there is money sitting on the sidelines because it is for a project that needs $10 million and a legislator was able to give them $2 million,” Fisher said.
Advertisement
Fisher said paying for projects in layers adds up because construction costs grow every year, so they’re perpetually underfunded. On top of that, communication is another problem.
“Sometimes funding will go to projects that the local government didn’t know about, didn’t request, doesn’t want, so that can slow that down,” Fisher said.
Think New Mexico is one of the groups calling for changes to the way the state handles capital outlay. Instead of allocating money for each lawmaker to spend on projects in their districts, Fisher believes the state should pool the money together and then distribute it more evenly and efficiently.
“So you would have local governments and agencies saying, this is what we need for higher ed construction, this is what we need for roads, for water systems, and figure out, gosh, we have a high priority need for pipelines over here and over there, and let’s make sure those get fully funded and are on track to go right now,” Fisher said.
This past legislative session, the governor signed a bill ensuring there’s better tracking of those capital outlay funds being spent.
Advertisement
To see the capital outlay quarterly report and all of the red-rated projects, click here.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland withdrew more than 4,000 acres of federal land in New Mexico on Thursday from new mining and oil and gas drilling.
Following through on a proposal announced last year — and an effort that Haaland supported during her time in Congress — the agency is removing a large swath of land within the Placitas area in Sandoval County for a period of 50 years as part of a mineral withdrawal that would still recognize valid and existing rights.
“Indigenous communities have called the Placitas area home since time immemorial, with evidence of their presence found from nearly every settlement period of the past 10,000 years,” Haaland said in a statement released after she signed the order. “The site contains significant cultural ties to neighboring Pueblos and provides outdoor recreation opportunities to the local community.”
The Pueblos of San Felipe and Santa Ana have long sought protections for the Placitas area, according to the agency, saying they consider the lands ancestral and sacred. Interior said the land contains known archaeological resources that date back to the Paleoindian Period. The areas being withdrawn are also near the Albuquerque metro area and are popular for hiking, camping, sightseeing and hunting, according to Interior.
After years of arsenic contamination, New Mexico intervenes in Sunland Park’s water crisis.
Silvia Foster-Frau reports for The Washington Post.
In short:
Sunland Park, a majority Latino community, has faced dangerously high arsenic levels in its drinking water for over 16 years, with minimal effective intervention.
Local residents, including those suffering health effects, have repeatedly voiced their concerns at public meetings, questioning the utility’s commitment to resolving the issue.
The state has recently stepped up enforcement, issuing significant fines and demanding stringent compliance from the local water utility.
Key quote:
“People are dying from this. We’re paying for something that’s poisoning us.”
Advertisement
— Elvia Acevedo, local resident
Why this matters:
Access to safe drinking water remains a challenge in various parts of the United States, particularly affecting low-income and minority communities. Long-term exposure to arsenic can lead to severe health effects, including cancer, skin lesions, developmental effects, cardiovascular diseases, neurotoxicity, and diabetes.
The risks are pronounced in regions where groundwater is the primary source of drinking water and arsenic concentrations are high, and Southwest U.S. communities and Hispanics are most likely to have arsenic-laden water.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25073829/IMG_0618.jpg)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25382021/V4_Pro_Beta_PressKit_LaunchImage.jpg)
