Even under new ownership, the editorial page of the Owatonna People's Press remains relatively conservative. But the editor is standing by a story from July that was recently disputed by Republican gubernatorial candidate Jeff Johnson.
And Jeffrey Jackson delivers quite a spanking in No, Mr. Johnson, we did not misquote your running mate:
. . .What happened was this: When Mr. Johnson opened the floor up for questions, a woman in the audience asked about Highway 2 — a highway that traverses the state from Grand Forks to Duluth and passes through Crookston, just 10 miles northeast of Eldred. What the woman wanted to know was something about a comment that Mr. Johnson’s running mate, Bill Kuisle, made about Highway 2.
The comment was one that Mr. Kuisle made to the Owatonna People’s Press reporter Matt Hudson in an article that appeared in this paper in July (“Gov. running mate Kuisle talks roads cannabis, MNsure”). In their conversation, Mr. Kuisle told Matt that a section of Highway 2 — a section that cuts across the northern part of the state — is now a four-lane road but should have stayed two lanes.
The woman in Eldred wanted to know what Mr. Johnson thought of Mr. Kuisle’s comment that Highway 2 should have remained a two-lane road. Mr. Johnson’s response was to blame the People’s Press.
“The newspaper actually acknowledged they misquoted him,” Mr. Johnson said.
Uh, no, we never said any such thing. In fact, we have consistently stood by the story and made neither a retraction nor a correction to the story because that’s exactly what Mr. Kuisle said. . . .
Read the entire column at the OPP. Jackson concludes with a simple yet valuable ProTip:
Here’s a thought for anyone running for office: When you misspeak — and you’re going to misspeak because you’re only human and humans misspeak from time to time — acknowledge the mistake and move on. Don’t blame the messenger just because he’s repeated your message.
Photo: Eldred, where Jeff Johnson misspoke about his running mate's misspeaking.
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