NM Political Report has been in operation for more than two years and we’re proud of the investigative work we’ve done. Our readers and other news outlets know we are an independent, small, scrappy news organization.
We also know that our ties to ProgressNow New Mexico, which serves as our fiscal sponsor and helps find funding for our operations, stick out to some.
When ProgressNow NM’s executive director, Pat Davis, won an election in the fall of 2015 to the Albuquerque city council, we continued to report on city of Albuquerque issues, but always disclosed ProgressNow NM’s association with us whenever we mentioned or quoted Davis in one of our news stories.
The disclosure usually went along the lines of this:
Pat Davis is the executive director of ProgressNow New Mexico. ProgressNow New Mexico helps find funding for NM Political Report. No one at ProgressNow New Mexico, including Davis, has any input in the editorial process of this or any other story.
And this is still true. Editorial control lies fully with our editor Matthew Reichbach and other three members of the editorial staff.
We bring this up because earlier this week, New Mexico In Depth reporter Sandra Fish learned that Davis filed to run for U.S. Congress. That caught us off guard (though we did report his interest in the race after congresswoman Michelle Lujan Grisham opted to run for governor and leave the seat).
Our reporters and editor discussed how to handle his congressional run, including possibly hiring someone to cover the race independently. Ultimately, we’ve decided to abstain from covering the 1st Congressional District race for as long as Davis is in the race or as long as he is part of ProgressNow New Mexico. This isn’t something we take lightly, and we will continue to report on other races and other key stories in New Mexico.
