Second flier misrepresents Sun material

Erin Neff

Monday, Sept. 4, 2000 | 9:53 a.m.

For the second time this election season a campaign mailer has misrepresented Las Vegas Sun material.

A mailer paid for by Friends for Stephanie Smith in Smith's race against County Commissioner Mary Kincaid includes a boxed section of copy alleging, "Mary caught lying about children's hospital vote on TV."

The flier, produced by consultant Tom Letizia, refers to the July 12 "POV Vegas" television news program, which is produced by the Las Vegas Sun.

"When asked about her vote, she said she didn't know what all the fuss was about, because 'the vote was actually made to study the issue'," the flier reads, referring to Kincaid's vote on a proposed children's hospital.

"But later, when it was pointed out by another guest that there were two votes, one to kill the hospital and another feel-good vote to study the issue, the host, Mark Shaffer, looked at Mary, and she agreed that she had not been honest before," the flier reads.

A review of the tape of that program shows that the claims made in the flier are not justified.

Paul Brown of the Southern Nevada Progressive Leadership Alliance, which studies campaign finance reform, was a guest on the program with Kincaid.

Brown said political fliers often walk a fine ethical line between truth and lies.

He then refers specifically to a negative flier about Kincaid's vote on the children's hospital.

"Technically it says she voted against this (the children's hospital) and she did vote to table it until Dario's committee looks into it a little bit more," Brown said, referring to County Commissioner Dario Herrera.

Shaffer looks at Kincaid and responds: "From my perspective as an informed voter, I would say you didn't vote against the hospital, you voted to sort of study the issue."

Kincaid nods her head and says: "Right."

But the new flier claims Kincaid was agreeing that she had lied in the past.

Sun Managing Editor Michael J. Kelley said the Sun will not allow its material to be misrepresented.

"This is a case of a campaign mischaracterizing and distorting material from POV, which is a show produced by the Sun," Kelley said. "And the Sun does not tolerate such misuse of its copyrighted material in political campaigns."

After viewing the POV show again, Letizia said, "I guess we kind of editorialized on that line. I think we're into semantics now."

After the Sun threatened to sue, the Committee to Elect Uri Clinton for State Senate issued an apology to the Sun last week for using copyrighted material from the newspaper without permission in a campaign flier against state Sen. Joe Neal. The Clinton flier also was produced by Letizia.