Baerren, who lives in Mount Pleasant, is covering CMU for the Midland Daily News. An article by him about the university's tuition increase was published Sunday.

The Midland Daily News has always been conservative or at least conservative-leaning.

Baerren was the news editor of the Mt. Pleasant Morning Sun before taking over MichiganLiberal.com.

When he is blogging in his boxers, Baerren writes an occasional left-wing column for the Morning Sun.

It's unknown why the Midland Daily News hired him, though the paper's weekend editor, Ian Gray, used to work for Baerren until his candidacy for school board forced him out of his reporting gig at the Morning Sun.

While Baerren was a journalist, he's now a partisan. He's not objective and uses MichiganLiberal to advance his left-wing agenda.

If he wants to be a columnist, that's fine. But he shouldn't be a reporter.

I e-mailed a complaint to the Midland Daily News publisher with my objections. I stressed that his work was seldom fair-and-balanced and that he wasn't a proper journalist.

The publisher didn't reply back, but Gray - who is in charge of part-time reporters - did. Here's his reply:

From: Ian Gray <igray@mdn.net>

Subject: Freelance writer Eric Baerren complaint

To: [redacted]

Cc: "Jack Telfer" <jtelferii@mdn.net>

Mrs. [Redacted],

I am the editor in charge of the freelance writers (or stringers) for the Midland Daily News.

I received your e-mail from my editor, Jack Telfer, and with regard to your concerns about our freelance writer Eric Baerren, I am aware of Mr. Baerren's political leanings and involvement with Michigan Liberal and his blog, Among the Trees,  but have not yet received any complaints regarding his reporting for us.

 

Are there specific issues you have with his coverage of the CMU Board of Trustees meeting? Or any other story of his that we have published? If you could e-mail me a list of your specific objections so I could investigate them, I would appreciate it. In the interim, I will reread his past articles for us with an eye toward any biased reporting.

We edit every story from each of our stringers carefully to remove any editorial comments and if there are any issues we have missed we would welcome the information.  Our stringers come from a wide variety of backgrounds and political affiliations and we strive to maintain neutral, unbiased reporting.

Absent any specific objections, our policy on stringers is their outside blogs, columns, political views, etc., should not affect or negate their contractual work for us.  We will maintain a vigilant eye on all of our stringers work, however, to avoid the possibilities you raise.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Ian Gray

So apparently Baerren is a "stringer," which means  he only writes breaking news or other stories that the paper can't send a regular reporter to cover.

That makes me feel a little bit better, however, it still doesn't address why a partisan - someone who earns a living blogging thanks to George Soros and Jon Stryker paying him - is "reporting" for a credible newspaper, let alone a conservative newspaper.

It looks like Gray hired his old boss, Baerren, who is probably short of cash for beer after giving it to Barack Obama and other left-wing candidates and causes.

I'm hoping RightMichigan.com readers will e-mail Midland Daily News publisher Jenny Anderson (janderson@hearstnp.com) and tell her to fire Baerren.