Now the Arizona Republic has a new warning label for all of their coverage of the Fiesta Bowl fiasco:
"John Zidich, CEO and publisher of The Arizona Republic, has been on the Fiesta Bowl's 25-member board of directors since 2005. He joined the bowl's five-member executive committee in 2010. The Arizona Republic is a Fiesta Bowl sponsor."
If you missed last week's article about the Republic's lack of transparency and the calls for Zidich to quit either the Republic or Fiesta Bowl, click here.
The new warning label has been retroactively slapped on all the online Fiesta Bowl articles, a week after the fact.
This isn't the first time the Republic has been a little late to be transparent during Fiestagate either.
A few hours after New Times noted that the Republic managed to bury statements about Zidich's role 1,645 words into a 2,126-word article, they regurgitated the same information in a standalone online post.
"When I decided to go on the executive committee in 2010, I did it for one reason," Zidich is quoted as saying. "That was to make sure that what we were hearing about in the community, and on the pages of our newspaper, about possible problems, was dealt with with completeness and transparency. "
Whoops.
Now you can't help but wonder whether Zidich's roles in both organizations are influencing the Republic's coverage -- like the glowing review of the Fiesta Bowl published Sunday.
Until then, let the warning label be your notice that what you're reading may be fishy.
