Eric Schutt, campaign manager for U.S. Senate candidate and car dealer Russ Darrow, sounded eager to share his good news with us. According to Schutt, conservative media pundit J.J. Blonien had started his new job as the campaign’s full-time communications director that very day, January 19, and they were set to publicly announce the hire.
That all changed when we asked about a recent plagiarism allegation against Blonien. Faster than you can say persona non grata, Schutt began distancing the campaign from Blonien.
Blonien is best known as the notorious loose cannon on Mark Belling’s television show, “Belling & Co.,” where he appeared regularly until 2001. Once dubbing Bill Clinton a “commie” and saying local Judge John Franke “should be taken out back and shot,” Blonien was so extreme that he made even blowhard Belling seem mellow.
Until recently, Blonien wrote a point-counterpoint column titled “Face Off” with liberal Joel McNally for Waukesha’s Freeman newspaper. In early December, reader Jim Bouman sent a harshly worded e-mail to the Freeman, accusing Blonien of plagiarism. “This clown has passed off material written by others as his own work,” wrote Bouman. “I trust I’ll never see anything by him in the Freeman again.”
He won’t. Freeman Publisher Jeff Hovind sacked Blonien after editors investigated his work and found a series of attribution problems. “Mr. Blonien wasn’t adhering to the journalistic standards of the newspaper,” says Hovind. “It had to do with his use of attribution and quotes.”
This aptly fits the description of plagiarism, which can ruin a journalist’s credibility.
Turns out Darrow’s campaign manager knew nothing about Blonien’s messy departure from the Freeman. After we clued him in, Schutt promptly began damage control, knowing full well that such an allegation could disrupt the campaign. Four days later, he denied that Blonien was hired at all.
“I spoke a bit prematurely,” says Schutt. “We were seriously considering him. We weren’t able to finalize the contract terms.”
Now you see him, now you don’t.
Blonien, it seems, thought the job was a lock. While penning the Freeman column, he also served as editor of the print and online publication Wisconsin Conservative Digest. Bob Dohnal, Digest publisher, says Blonien told him he was considering a job as spokesman for Darrow.
“I said post the change when you know what you’re going to do,” says Dohnal. In January, Blonien announced on the Digest Web site that he had left his position as editor and “joined the Russ Darrow for U.S. Senate campaign as communications director.”
Blonien now parrots Schutt’s claim that word of the hire was “premature.” Note their shrewd use of this expression, which helps both sides save face. Blonien can’t be dumped from a job he never officially had and the Darrow campaign can’t be criticized for a hire it never officially made.
“That was premature,” says Blonien. “I wasn’t 100 percent sure, and they weren’t 100 percent sure.” He instead accepted a lead role in a different political campaign – the battle for a Wisconsin Taxpayer Bill of Rights.
As for the plagiarism allegation, Blonien calls it unsubstantiated and spearheaded by people who disagree with his right-wing political views. “It’s absolutely untrue. It was politically motivated,” he says. “I suspect there was a lot of pressure on the Freeman to pull the column.”
Not surprisingly, he flatly denies any connection between this allegation and his, well, premature evacuation from the Darrow campaign. “There’s absolutely no correlation there,” says Blonien.
Did Darrow simply get cold feet because Blonien is a magnet for trouble, the last thing a candidate wants before vying in the Republican primary this September for a shot at incumbent U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold? Isn’t a communications director supposed to put out fires, not start them?
Schutt: “I can’t control what people will think about this sort of thing.”
COPY CATS
Plagiarism charges can have an equally damaging impact at the college journalism level. Marquette University’s Tribune newspaper this winter fired Associate Sports Editor Sarah Sherman, daughter of Green Bay Packers coach Mike Sherman, for plagiarizing an ESPN.com story on – get this – NFL football.
“We really wanted to make it clear that this is something we didn’t tolerate,” says Libby Fry, Tribune editor.
