This story by a @DeseretNews writer reads like campaign literature, not serious journalism. https://www.deseret.com/indepth/2020/4/5/21195600/coronavirus-trump-covid-19-approval-rating-president-white-house-stephen-moore-kirstie-alley

It has a couple of quotes from a person identified in the story merely as "a self-employed mother of four in the suburbs of Minneapolis."

This caught my eye...

Because, why would a Utah-based writer be quoting some random person from Minnesota? What's the connection? How did the writer happen to contact them and get quotes?

Quick Google search on the quoted individual reveals a political connection that should have been disclosed.

The person quoted has a Twitter profile that identifies herself as a Republican National Committee delegate and party vice chair for her congressional district.

That's not just a random mom-of-four from Minneapolis, but a party official.

If a simple Google search instantly turns up that information, why was it not disclosed in the article?

Did the writer not do her due diligence?

Or did the writer conceal that information deliberately?

And that doesn't answer the question of how the writer came to quote her.

Do the writer and the quoted individual know each other personally? That should be disclosed.

Did the writer initiate the contact, or did the quoted individual, or did an intermediary?

Was this a Trump campaign- or RNC-orchestrated messaging exercise?

I don't have enough information at hand to know the answers to these questions. But something seems off to me.

This is not intended as a broadside against the Deseret News. I grew up with it in my home and though I feel its journalism has gone soft, I have affection for it.

But the mission of a newspaper is to inform its readers, and this seems like an occasion when its readers were not adequately informed about the possible motivations and official connections giving context to one of the sources for the story.

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