The latest story by the UT continues to reveal that their priority is furthering a political agenda rather than providing professional journalism. On October 8, 2018, I had a working campaign lunch with my staff off-site and on our own time, totaling $146.29 at a restaurant named Cannonball, which happens to be owned by Belmont Park Entertainment. A copy of my receipt can be viewed below. This item was fully disclosed and made available to the Federal Elections Commission (FEC). Rather than taking the time to determine if Belmont Park Entertainment actually included restaurants, they have at least three, the UT chose to run a story with the headline Hunter Report Spending Hundreds at Amusement Park with a picture of people riding a roller coaster. This story was then carried by another LA news outlet, this time with the headline Hunter Campaign Reports Spending $2K at Amusement Park. Fake news at its finest.
The Los Angeles Times, which shares the same ownership as the UT, has now repeated this story in a recent puff piece profiling the opponent I recently defeated. It’s important to remember that this story was written by the same reporter who claimed I visited bars 300 times, characterizing any place that sold alcohol as a bar, including the Capitol Hill Club which every single Republican utilizes in DC because it is illegal to do campaign work in our Capitol offices. The Democrats have their own place called the National Democratic Club, also located on the Capitol Hill complex. This is the same publication that claimed my dad was cheating on his property taxes when all he did was pay in full the bill that arrived at his house from the County of San Diego. The UT never retracted that story; they will not retract this one.
There is an agenda, it is not imagined, it is #FakeNews for all to see. There are plenty of areas on which to report, both in DC and here in my district. I have no problem with differing views on policy or politics, but professional journalists have a public mandate to report facts and to make the effort to verify these facts before reporting. Contacting my office at the 11th hour for a comment on a story the UT has already written does not fulfill this obligation and their readers deserve better.
