Newspapers have a long history of providing critical information to voters. Two years ago last fall I was excited to be involved with our launch of Election Central, an online platform on the Newton Daily News website where we can feature Q&As with candidates and links to our election news.
Again this year with the primary election we invited candidates to participate. Just as we did in the fall of 2014, we emailed each candidate the online questionnaire as an invitation to participate.
Election Central went live on our website May 9 and was promoted on our Facebook and Twitter accounts. It has remained located in a front block on our website ever since. We began running print ads about Election Central May 12. On May 16 and 17 we published profiles on the candidates running for Jasper County Supervisor. On May 18 we published Iowa House District 29 candidate Wes Breckenridge's Q&A along with an editor's note explaining incumbent Rep. Dan Kelley did not respond to our invitations to participate.
That afternoon I received a call from the communications director for the Iowa House Democrats. He asked about Election Central and how Kelley could participate. I explained we emailed him the same information we sent all candidates, and even a second email when we didn’t receive Kelley’s response by deadline. I told him since we were well past the deadline there wasn’t much I could do.
Rep. Kelley later called our advertising director inquiring about an ad to promote his responses. He claimed the emails sent from our newsroom went to his junk folder. We opened up the online questionnaire for him at that time. Kelley’s Q&A has been posted on our website since May 19.
Today Q&As from both primary election candidate in Iowa House District 29 are publishing again. In our other featured races we published opponents’ viewpoints alongside each other so that is what we’re doing again today.
I understand the importance of this race and the importance of each voter having the information they need to make an educated decision at the voting booth. This is the sole reason we are publishing this information.
Do I feel it’s quite generous to Rep. Kelley? Yes. We’ve been emailing from the same domain name to Kelley’s same email address for six years without issue. When we did not receive his response we believed his apparent carelessness with our coverage of this race was simply a reflection of his ongoing lack of communication with the local paper. We were pushing Election Central for a week and a half before those involved in the Kelley campaign thought to take notice, cry foul and personally accuse me of refusing to publish his answers.
Please read Kelley’s Q&A — and Breckenridge’s. It’s an important part of making an informed vote. And that’s the only reason you’re seeing it here in print today.
Contact Abigail Pelzer
at apelzer@newtondailynews.com