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Globe Gazette cuts ties with most-read columnist over Des Moines Register story on fatal pork plant debacle

The Price of Honesty …
Globe-Gazette abruptly Kills Blodgett’s Column

DAVID MAYBERRY VIA TWITTER

MASON CITY – Within 48 hours of a blockbuster story in The Des Moines Sunday Register about Mason City’s 2016 Prestage Plant fiasco, during which Eric Bookmeyer‘s bullying allegedly pushed late councilman Alex Kuhn to suicide, longtime political columnist Todd Blodgett was notified by Globe-Gazette editor David Mayberry that he will no longer publish Blodgett’s monthly political columns.

According to Blodgett, Mayberry offered no explanation. However, Mr. Blodgett told NIT that he feels “certain” it was in retaliation for his frank, truthful responses he provided to reporter Rekha Basu. Ms. Basu’s Front Page article on the Prestage plant and the suicide of Mason City’s late, at-Large City Council member Alex J. Kuhn was published on April 9, 2017. The Globe-Gazette wasn’t pleased with the expose’. Alex Kuhn served on the City Council of Mason City from 2011-16.

Clear Lake’s Todd Blodgett with President Ronald W. Reagan, 1981. Official WHITE HOUSE Photo.

As Mr. Blodgett told NorthIowaToday.com, “I never even mentioned the Globe-Gazette. As a boy, I had a Globe-Gazette paper route. That paper endorsed my dad for all of his campaigns. While growing up, my family was close with Mrs. Lee Loomis, and Don and Betty Harrer – who were then the biggest players in Lee Enterprises.” [Lee Enterprises, inc., owns the Globe-Gazette – ed.]. Blodgett also told NIT that during his years on President Reagan’s White House staff, he regularly made sure the Globe-Gazette was grouped among major publications like The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and The Wall Street Journal – so that Reagan would be certain to read it. Blodgett’s immediate boss, then-White House Press Secretary Larry Speakes, wasn’t pleased that the young staffer did that. “But Larry knew that the President liked me, and had known me since I was 15 years old” Blodgett said.

Alex Kuhn, who passed away last year

Kuhn, a Democrat, and Blodgett, a Republican, were close friends. In the last four months of his life, Kuhn explicitly shared his concerns with Blodgett over the fall-out from the community-splitting controversy. Just days before his shocking death, Kuhn stopped over at Blodgett’s home at the Outing club, on the south shore of Clear Lake. Kuhn’s father, who had served in the Iowa Legislature with Todd Blodgett’s father until 2001, encouraged Blodgett to respond to Ms. Basu’s requests for an interview.

HONEST, BLUNT, AND NOW – TERMINATED

Since 2011, Todd Blodgett’s columns have consistently proven to be the most-often-read columns that the Globe-Gazette publishes. His provocative style and fiery words incite his opponents and enthrall his supporters. The publicly available statistics on the Globe-Gazette’s own website consistently prove that Blodgett attracts more readers and bloggers than any other columnist, including nationally syndicated ones. While researching information for this story, NorthIowaToday.com learned that with ONE exception, each of Blodgett’s columns have hit the Globe’s #1 on both the ‘most read’ and the ‘most blogged’ categories on its website. The one Blodgett-authored column which didn’t hit #1 placed second in the ratings.

The publisher of NorthIowaToday.com, Matt Marquardt – who resigned from the Globe-Gazette in 2006 and later launched this publication and a successful Internet Marketing company – said he was not surprised by David Mayberry’s punitive act.

Matthew E. Marquardt NIT Publisher

“I never heard of David Mayberry in my life, until Wednesday, when I happened upon his juvenile Twitter rant. He blasted the Kuhn family, myself, the Des Moines Register, Max Weaver. Clearly, this man is unbalanced, potentially frustrated and angry at his paper’s woeful image in the community and likely demise. To jettison a magnetic personality like Mr. Blodgett just shows, this guy wanted to score some cheap points for himself no matter the price to his newspaper.  His employer should take notice of his selfish, rogue behavior.”

FAMILY’S HIGHLY PLACED CONTACTS

Gary Blodgett, Laura Bush, George Bush, Sandy Blodgett

Blodgett, whose ties to North Iowa run long and deep, is a member of one of the best-known Republican families in the state of Iowa. He has significant options at his disposal should he ever decide to force Mayberry’s hand. Blodgett’s father is retired orthodontist and businessman Dr. Gary B. Blodgett. He served as Deputy Majority Leader in the Iowa Legislature from 1992 to 2001. From 2001 to 2008, he was a federal Judge in Washington, D.C., after being appointed by President George W. Bush. Todd’s mother, Sandy Blodgett, has since the 1970s been appointed by Iowa Governors and others to serve on numerous Boards and Commissions. Sandy Blodgett also served two terms as a member of the Board of Directors of a Michigan-based hospital corporation, a subsidiary of which is Mason City’s Mercy Health Center. For about 40 of the last 50 years, Mrs. Blodgett has been extensively involved in north Iowa charitable philanthropic endeavors, always as a volunteer. Dr. and Mrs. Blodgett have long been among the most prominent of north Iowans, and two of their three children served on the White House staff.

WHAT IS MAYBERRY THINKING?

The Globe Gazette

“I’ve never even met David Mayberry”, Todd Blodgett told NIT, in a telephone interview. “But between the Globe’s big local advertisers – many of whom are good friends of mine – and some substantial stockholders who are also close buddies, I could have fun with this. I don’t need Lee Enterprises; they needed me.” Blodgett was referring to how Lee Enterprises, inc., the parent corporation of the Globe-Gazette, is in financial trouble, and has filed for bankruptcy. The company’s annual report shows that every newspaper owned by Lee has experienced tumbling circulation and declining newsstand sales. Lee’s publications have also lost paid subscribers and major advertising revenue in recent years. These losses were factors in Lee’s bankruptcy filings.

“I won’t waste the time,” Blodgett said. “Mr. Mayberry has shown himself to be a vindictive, small-minded, petty corporate bureaucrat. He’s not worth my efforts. I have bigger fish to fry.”

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON?

Todd Blodgett’s father had a run-in with the Globe’s management some 25 years ago. Gary Blodgett’s campaign manager, Mrs. Dee Byerly, in 1991 submitted a news release to the Globe-Gazette on behalf of Dr. Blodgett’s campaign committe. The then-publisher, Howard Query, deemed it un-newsworthy. Upon learning this, Dr. Blodgett contacted Mason Cityan Don ‘Grady’ Harrer – who was at the time the second-largest shareholder in Lee Enterprises. Harrer then called a corporate director, who in turn contacted an executive at the Lee corporate headquarters in Davenport, Iowa. Within hours, a senior Lee Enterprises executive countermanded the newspaper staff. Two days later, the Blodgett campaign’s news release, which had been rejected, was prominently featured as a news article in the Globe.

NorthIowaToday.com contacted a longtime, senior employee of the newspaper, who is familiar with how things operate within what’s left of the crumbling Lee Enterprises operation. “The members of Lee’s Board of Directors always pay close attention to stockholders. The same goes for any advertisers who spend big money with local papers. They’ve got huge influence with the Board members and with the corporate office,” the former Lee employee told NIT. “If someone with Todd Blodgett’s contacts raises a stink about this, a Board member could force Mayberry to try to justify terminating Blodgett’s column. If that happens, it won’t go well for Dave.”

IT’S ALL ABOUT MONEY; DOES MAYBERRY GET IT?

The directors are responsible to stockholders, and they control management, from Lee Enterprises CEO Kevin Mowbray on down. Even those who disagree with Blodgett’s right-wing politics know his columns are lightning rods for controversy. His work brings in readers and bloggers, and generates letters to the editor in response to whatever he writes. The online activity generated by Mr. Blodgett’s columns represents ‘clicks’ – which equates to income to an ailing news corporation in dire need of it.

Todd Blodgett

The retired Globe-Gazette employee also told NorthIowaToday.com that, “If Blodgett wants the Globe to reinstate his column, he’ll be back in, believe me. The directors simply cannot afford to ignore the kind of financial pressure that Blodgett knows how to apply, and not only from big, local advertisers. The stockholders won’t stand for this crap, either. They’re all about profits. Todd learned from his old man how things work, and doc taught him well. He did the same thing, and pulled it off. I was there, and saw it. In the case of old Doc and his son, I don’t think that the apple fell far from the tree.”

Advertising revenue is the lifeblood of any newspaper, and the stockholders elect the members of the Board of Directors. A local editor who pushes out a popular, well-known writer whose work consistently attracts readers and bloggers targets himself or herself for recrimination, should the writer decide to fire back, and lines up well-connected, influential advertisers to contact Board members, and the corporate offices. That is what the former Lee Enterprises employee told NIT that David Mayberry must fear, if Blodgett decides to go after him. But he doesn’t appear to be interested.

NOT JUST ANY COLUMNIST…

Todd Blodgett

Blodgett is no run-of-the-mill writer. He has been quoted extensively in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, NBC Nightly News, the Associated Press, the Huffington Post, the London Times, and hundreds of other publications in recent years in the USA and Europe. There is an impressive Wikipedia page featuring Mr. Blodgett’s biographical information. As a former White House aide to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, and as a former paid FBI informant, Blodgett is regularly called by reporters for comment on political issues, particularly those relating to Far Right white Supremacists. For nearly three years, Mr. Blodgett worked as a full-time, paid confidential informant for the FBI. The bureau assigned him to monitor the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nations, Holocaust deniers, and violent, racist Skinheads. An NIT reader who read about Blodgett’s fate at Mayberry’s hands contacted the NIT offices as this story was being written. This reader said, “While Dave worries about Blodgett’s high-level connections, maybe he should fear the low-lifes that Todd knows!”

Blodgett said that in replying to Mayberry’s email notifying him of his column’s termination, he told the editor he has no plans to turn up the heat on this matter. However, he told NorthIowaToday.com that if he does, “Mr. Mayberry may end up feeling about as comfortable as a one-legged Klansman at a Black Panthers rally. He just won’t run as fast, get as far, or last as long.”

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