Please define "newsworthy"

Today's dispatch from Steve Walsh's Missourinet blog is a really frustrating read. 

Basically, it focuses on two main points: (1) why the GOP's frivolous ethics complaint against Robin Carnahan was newsworthy, and (2) why so few of Roy Blunt's votes and actions and failures from this week were newsworthy.

On the first point, I agree that the MO GOP's desperate and transparent attempt to divert attention from other matters is newsworthy.  Reporters should show up when a party makes a major announcement.  At the same time, they should also be willing to report the actual substance of the complaint -- and this is where some of this week's coverage (and headlines) were woefully inadequate.

The facts of the complaint are quite clear, and not really in dispute: the MO GOP alleges that Carnahan did not disclose income from a business that never existed and never produced income. There's no evidence that there's income to disclose.  Or reason to suspect potential conflicts of interest regarding a business that doesn't exist.  There's just a fictitious name filing from 2006 for a potential business venture that never came to fruition. That's it.

So from where I sit, the story isn't that an ethics complaint was filed -- it's that an ethics complaint based on shoddy research was filed, and failed miserably.  Appropriately, KY3's Dave Catanese headlined his story on the complaint, "MoGOP Comes After Carnahan For Not Disclosing A Business Never Formed." And tellingly, the Republican voices at The Missouri Record boldly responded just moments after the first story was published about the press event, "Opposition Research FAIL." 

Why the silence on the merits of the complaint?
In today's post, it's worth noting how Walsh refuses to express any opinion on the merit of the complaint.  As anyone he reads his blog knows, he's more than willing to inject his opinion into stories and posts when it suits him.  Yet on this question, his editorial comment is conspicuously absent.

"The claim by a couple of the callers that this is a nuisance complaint might or might not be true," he writes.  True enough.  It also "might or might not be true" that I was born on Mars.

If he thinks the complaint should not be characterized as a nuisance, let's hear why. If he does think it's frivolous -- he's an independent journalist and columnist, after all -- then why is he suddenly so hesitant to share his thoughts?

Please define "newsworthy"
On the second point --- why nothing else that Roy Blunt did this week was "newsworthy" -- the post just doesn't make any sense. Blunt's hypocrisy on the war spending vote and failure to produce a real health care reform proposal were newsworthy -- just not to Steve Walsh. This newsworthiness is evidenced by the many news articles about those topics.  Here are just a few:

• Roll Call: Republicans Unveil Health Plan but Are Thin on Details
• ABC News: House GOP Leaders Outline Health Care Plan – Without Numbers or Details
• The Hill: McCain's tax not in GOP health plan
• Politico: GOP does about-face on troop talk

I don't think there's any question Walsh and I might have different perspectives on those news stories. But to say the unveiling of Roy Blunt's health care plan (He's the #1 GOP leader in the House on health care reform, remember?) and the dramatic about-face on war spending aren't newsworthy is just absurd. 

In his post, Walsh describes the inclusion of IMF funding in this week's war spending bill as a "poison pill," and concludes with the following:

But this is nothing more than "Inside the Beltway" political games being played ... and no one should be surprised that there is frustration because of the Missouri media's reluctance to play along.

This reluctance to "play along" is ironic, given the fact that the biggest story of this week's war spending debate was how the GOP used to call votes against war spending unpatriotic, and tantamount to surrender. 

Moreover, Missourinet found it "newsworthy" when Sen. Kit Bond voted for the exact same bill and the saving of 1,800 St. Louis jobs. The "poison pill" almost crippled the bill in the Senate wasn't a poison pill at all, and it passed 91-5 in the Senate. So why was Bond's support "newsworthy," but the House GOP's hypocritical opposition to the same bill wasn't interesting at all?

It's possible that I've forgotten previous posts on Missourinet apologizing for Democratic votes against Bush' budgets. Or uncritical Missourinet coverage of every partisan complaint, however ridiculous. But this looks like a pretty one-sided affair.

What do other folks think?