Hatch lashes out at Star Tribune for story not yet published

07/24/2006

Pam Louwagie, Star Tribune
Last update: July 24, 2006 – 5:02 PM

Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch sent a letter to the Minnesota News Council on Monday complaining that questions asked by Star Tribune reporters were evidence of “malice” against him.
The questions were following up on allegations surrounding opposition research done on Hatch by fellow DFLer and former Attorney General candidate Matt Entenza.

The 4 1/2 page complaint letter comes less than two weeks after the Star Tribune confirmed that Entenza had hired a Chicago opposition-research firm to investigate Hatch.

Hatch’s complaints to the council focused on an e-mail from Star Tribune reporters Dane Smith and Mike Kaszuba asking for more details about a parking ticket Hatch had received, about communications between Hatch and Entenza and other questions.

Hatch wrote that the Star Tribune’s e-mail, which he presumes was sent at the request of political editor Doug Tice, make Entenza’s opposition research “look tame.”

“I ask the Minnesota News Council if it has any standard of decency as it applies to a public official’s family?” Hatch wrote.

Star Tribune Editor Anders Gyllenhaal said Hatch’s complaint makes accusations about reporters and editors who were just doing their jobs.

“The paper is doing its job, which is to ask all kinds of questions and try to sort out what is a very confusing case involving two top politicians,” Gyllenhaal said. “Every year we look into hundreds of stories that never make it into the paper. That’s what this was until it became a news council complaint.”

The news council, an independent nonprofit agency founded in 1970 that acts as a watchdog of Minnesota news outlets, considers only complaints about published material, Executive Director Gary Gilson said.

Gilson said he told Hatch “that if after something is published, he has a complaint we’ll receive it and forward it to any news organization he wants us to forward it to.”