What's a Little Propaganda Between Friends?

Like his counterparts across the country, Mayor Mike Winder unabashedly promotes his community. But the style is unorthodox: He uses an alias and freelances upbeat articles about West Valley City, Utah.

Winder, mayor of the state's second-largest city, said he took the approach because the media spent too much time on crime coverage.

He unapologetically revealed himself this week, insisting the balance was needed.

"I thought about all the people just reading about crime in our city and nothing better," Winder said Friday. "I'm trying to stand up for us because we do get the short end of the stick — negative stories."

There are two things going on here. First is the repugnant fact that a politician resorted to sock-puppet journalism to plant stories that both lauded his crime-ridden town and praised the job that he was doing.

He used his pseudonym to plant propaganda pieces for things he favored, such as a bond issue:

Winder had seven articles published in the Oquirrh Times as Richard Burwash between September and December 2010. The news stories included a three-part series in October 2010 touting reasons voters should approve a $25 million bond measure for parks and trails.

Winder quotes himself in each of those stories and also uses anonymous city employees as sources. Opponents of the bond and their concerns were not mentioned in any of the stories. The bond ultimately failed.

Winder, like every other politician who is caught doing something wrong, fell back on the "lapse in judgement" excuse, conveniently glossing over the point that he was also planting stories as part of his side job with a lobbying group.

The point that is getting less traction is that the newspaper which ran the stories, the Deseret News, was relying on contributors like Winder because the newspaper cut back on its own staff of reporters. They set themselves up to be used by clowns by Winder.