In the aftermath of the weekend UT San Diego story on the “Carl DeMaio research project,” the head of the effort’s Wikipedia page has been updated.
I was prompted today to take a look at the contents of Fred Maas’ wiki bio, or see if one existed, after Twitter remarks that someone needed to update the page. It appears the unknown someone was quick to comply…
Gay-Baiting Scandal
During the 2012 election cycle, Maas spent more than $33,000 in an effort to personally smear then-mayoral candidate Carl DeMaio. Maas’ involvement in the effort became the subject of an ethics investigation when he “raised money for the project and failed to disclose its financial backers or spending activity”.[13]
While the case was eventually settled without a violation in exchange for properly disclosing all activities, a lawyer for the San Diego Ethics Commission, the body responsible for monitoring political finance in the City, maintained he was “confident that [Maas] violated campaign laws”. [14]
The body of Maas’ research work was widely distributed to reporters during the election cycle, but was ignored by every credible journalist since the issues did not focus on DeMaio directly and “because many in the media considered it old, irrelevant and an untoward attempt to draw attention to DeMaio’s homosexuality during the race.”[15]
Voice of San Diego editor Scott Lewis referred to Maas’ attempts to disguise his campaigning as journalism as “pathetic” and went on to call Maas a “Gay baiting asshole”.[16]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Maas
Comments 2
There are so many neutrality issues with that post.
Assuming you mean the wiki post. If so, I agree that is the case. My blog posting above just notes the fact that someone updated the wiki page (again, that is a fact). No surprise at all if this Rostra post results in the wiki page being revised.