Hatch faults Star Tribune in News Council complaint

The DFL candidate for governor complained that questions from political reporters crossed the line. No article resulted.

By Pam Louwagie, Star Tribune

Last update: August 11, 2006 - 10:04 AM

Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch is accusing the Star Tribune of asking "sleazy" questions after it was revealed that a political rival had hired an investigator to conduct research on Hatch.

The inquiry didn't result in a story being published, but Hatch sent a letter Monday complaining about the news-gathering to the Minnesota News Council, which hears complaints against media outlets.

The reporters' inquiries last week about a parking ticket and Hatch's daughters constituted "malice" and an effort to "throw dirt," he wrote.

"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 only trying to sort out the facts.

"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 reporters' questions were following up on questions surrounding opposition research done on Hatch by a firm hired by fellow DFLer and former Attorney General candidate Matt Entenza.

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.

"And please don't take offense if aspects of these scenarios are partly or completely false," Smith and Kaszuba wrote in the e-mail, sent after Hatch, the DFL-endorsed candidate for governor, canceled a scheduled interview with the reporters. "We are seeking your response because we want to identify the truth."

Hatch wrote that the Star Tribune's questions make Entenza's opposition research "look tame." The newspaper is not publishing the specific questions because they contained information and allegations that could not be verified. The nonprofit News Council considers only complaints about published material, Executive Director Gary Gilson said.

Gilson said he told Hatch's office "that if after something is published, he has a complaint we'll receive it and forward it to the news organization in question."

Dan Hofrenning, professor of political science at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn., said he doesn't think voters will remember much about the issue come November.

"I think it does reveal Mike Hatch to be a hard-charging, aggressive politician," Hofrenning said.

Hatch felt that the questions about his relationship to his family "crossed a line," Hatch spokeswoman Leslie Sandberg said Monday.

"We are going to take some time and think about what the next step might be," she said.

Pam Louwagie • 612-673-7102

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