Chronicle metro/state editorialist and gossip columnist Rick Casey is up to his usual antics today:
NOBODY is saying state Rep. Joe Nixon improperly pressured Farmers Insurance Group two years ago to pay him more than he had coming in a settlement over severe mold damage to his home.
Nobody is saying it, but the Chronicle‘s gossip columnist is just throwing it out for fun.
On the metro/state news pages.
Even though the Chronicle previously reported that prosecutors found “no evidence of criminal conduct.”
Because that’s the sort of journalism that serious newspapers place on their hard news pages.
Casey blasted Nixon similarly two years ago. So did Austin Bureau Chief Clay Robison, albeit in his “I’m not the Bureau Chief on Sunday” editorial column (and in another Sunday editorial, in passing).
If the Chronicle executive editorial leadership wants to mix news and opinion as Casey and Robison frequently do, that’s certainly their prerogative. But other editors really shouldn’t expect us to take seriously their comments on “the division between the opinion pages and the news pages.”
