By PHIL DRAKE -
Wow, I’ve either made the Big Leagues or been relegated to the dog house.
On Friday, Gov. Brian Schweitzer was on “Voices of Montana” and was asked by Northern Broadcasting reporter Aaron Flint about a story I did on corporate tax payments and the state budget.
And then the opening salvo was launched …
“Let me tell you about Phil Drake …” said the governor, who sounds like a close personal friend.
The governor – who I have met 3-4 times at news conferences and who has always been friendly and cordial with me –  goes on to describe me as working for a “conservative blog.” He then says he doesn’t know if I am not good with numbers or if I wasn’t paying attention, etc.
Well, if I am a journalist it’s a pretty good hint that I am not good with numbers. I’ve had fellow reporters ask me “What’s 5 plus 7?” Luckily, I was able to provide an answer, but worried I would run out of fingers and toes as I counted. Are bloggers better with numbers than journalists?
Let me tell you about Phil Drake: I’ve worked at seven newspapers and one wire service. In the course of my job I darn near got trampled by a buffalo, I’ve interviewed a president (George H.W. Bush) and once had a pro-life person come into my newsroom and announce she was going to kill me (she then pulled a stapler out of her backpack. To this day staplers give me the shudders).
In terms of working for a conservative blog; I’ll let you be the judge. Michael Noyes and I have strived to turn in stories that are objective, whether they are posted on Montanawatchdog.org or our sister Web site, Montanapolicy.org. Bloggers (God love ‘em) tend to pepper stories with opinions. We at Montanawatchdog.org have avoided mainstream media stories for the most part and tried to find interesting, quirky, ‘gee whiz I didn’t know that’ kind of stories that look at government spending and transparency. We are part of a breed of online journalists.
Trust me, there are a lot more on the way – and they won’t be nearly as good looking.
The governor held a news conference April 5 to discuss state budget cuts. Here, if anyone cares, is what happened from my point of view: One of the major things that caught my attention was when he said corporate tax collections had a record month in 10 years. But just a few days before, this Web site ran a story by Michael that corporate tax payments were down, not just a few points, but a huge whopping percentage (58.2 percent or $60.6 million).
The governor and David Ewer, the state budget guru, came up to me after the press conference and the governor asked me what I thought about the “good” news. I know I looked confused, but I stammered something about the corporate tax having a record month in 10 years when we just reported the collections were down.
The governor reiterated the corporate tax collections were the best March in a decade and he and Ewer were gone in the blink of an eye.
So it made me curious to find out what was going on. I knew the other media there were going to cover the budget announcement and the release of grant funds as a main focus. I wanted to answer this corporate tax question that was bugging me. If we were wrong we owed it to readers to clear up the confusion.
Had the governor seen our story on corporate tax collections being down? Was he striking back? And if he hadn’t seen it, were we wrong?
I called Terry Johnson, the principal fiscal analyst, who told me the corporate tax payment was indeed down and March was something of an anomaly and was mostly because a business was catching up on its payments. He said it likely wouldn’t happen again. And in my story I did say the rosy corporate tax outlook as “part of the reason” the governor release some funds.
I filed my story. I don’t know what media picked it up, but I learned in spades that Aaron Flint of Northern Broadcasting saw it.
As far as the governor’s criticism: I’ve had worse and I’ve had better. I’m a big boy and he has the right to complain. And I am listening to what he has to say. But I just couldn’t turn my back on our story.
Blogger or journalist, it wouldn’t have been right.

Voices of Montana interview

Readers: This is a transcript as best as I could type it from the governor’s April 9 interview on “Voices of Montana” with Aaron Flint of Northern Broadcasting. AF is Aaron Flint and BS is Brian Schweitzer. – Phil Drake.

AF – … One of the things that was reported on as part of your decision to release this grant money was the rise in corporate tax for the month of March, but then it was reported by Phil Drake of the Montana Policy Institute …

BS – That’s not actually news. That’s a conservative blog. And let me tell you about Phil Drake. He went to the press conference and he watched while I showed corporate income tax and I explained that’s not a big part of it, but withholding from payroll, that’s a big one. That’s 55 million versus 10 million. He walked out of that thing thinking, “Let’s see, corporate 10 million normally versus 55 million for payroll. That must be the most important thing that I saw there.” I don’t know if he doesn’t pay attention or not good with numbers. But I thought it was a real interesting conclusion that he went on to explain “Oh it wasn’t that good, it was good, but not that good.”

AF – I think the question that he brought up from Terry Johnson, the fiscal analyst, was that it was kind of a … onetime payment from this company …

BS - Actually, Terry Johnson was wrong about that, we also had extraordinary opportunities for corporations to receive some tax credits so it went both ways. We had some big numbers bumping up and some big numbers bumping down. You know, these fiscal analysts, they’re always looking in the rearview mirror and it is very difficult for them to project what the future will be. But those of us who have been in business we understand there will be an end to the recession and when the recession ends the revenues next month, six months from now and one year are going to be better than they were last month, six months ago and one year. That’s what happens when you come out of a recession.