But Fecke did nothing wrong with his coverage of Aplikowski. In fact, he bent over backward to avoid making the story a hatchet job pull quoting Aplikowski’s more outrageous quotes. What’s to follow up on, when Aplikowski went on the record with his quotes – in writing. Fecke was using a primary source.

Also “fecal” Fecke? Grow up.

Perhaps one can be too open minded. Do you think that’s possible?

And perhaps we can dispense with the glamorous “news story” label too and call it what it actually was: a blog posting.

*shakes head* Give some people a few pennies and it goes to their head.

“despite incredulity at some of Aplikowski’s answers, wrote it as a straight news story anyway”

Remember that old saying, “if it’s too good to be true, it is”.

Thanks for your interest in MinMon and our coverage. However, we do take our code of ethics and our work on the site very seriously, and do not, as you somewhat falsely imply, “ignore those ‘ethics’ on almost a daily basis.”

Name-calling against Jeff Fecke doesn’t make your argument that we should have known Aplikowski’s responses were a joke any stronger. Quite the contrary. If Mr. Aplikowski (and his friends, apparently) wanted his responses to be treated as a joke, he either should have made it clear he wasn’t taking the interview seriously or not done the interview at all. But Jeff went into it with an open mind, and despite incredulity at some of Aplikowski’s answers, wrote it as a straight news story anyway.

As for your concerns that there was no research, I’m not sure which claims you wanted us to research. “I’m not sure about your boy Obama” perhaps? Wondering about how Bill Clinton would sneak “nappy-headed hos” into the White House under “Shrillary’s” nose? These aren’t researchable topics, and were given in the context of an interview with someone we considered interview-worthy for his firebrand reputation and continual activism for the Republican Party of Minnesota.

However, we’ll be sure to take your concerns into account in our future coverage. Thanks!