Timmie Wins Again!!

On Monday the Havre Daily News announced that for the second year in a row HDN Reporter Tim Leeds had one the award for Investigative Reporting by the Inland Press Association for newspapers with a circulation of less than 10,000.  Our congratulations to Tim, not just for his award-winning investigative journalism skills, but for all the great fodder over the last two years!  It has been great. 

So what did Ole Timmie write about that was so fascinating you might ask?  Those pesky Republicans in the Monana Legislature of course.  You remember the last session, right?  Branding Irons, Marijuana and Spears, oh my!  Ok, let's face it the 2011 Montana Legislative Session was altogether a  little kooky, with the GOP taking their brand new shiny veto proof majorirty in the House out for a spin and who could forget the Governor's Wild West inspired bill branding ceremony on the front steps of the Capitol building!  Neither party deserves the credit for the most showy standoff, but the Havre Daily News "investigated" the heck out of that story.  Go check it out if you don't recall this wonderful headline:   National Media Focuses on Montana Legislature  

You see the beauty of pieces like Timmie's was that it took the focus off the fact that the majority in the Legislature was actually trying to accomplish something, whether one agreed with the agenda or not, at least something was being done.  So to trip them up the press collectively decided that they'd focus on about a half-dozen bills that are really out there and shade the entire session as nothing more than a three ring circus, and you know what?  They succeeded in large part because people eat that stuff up like chocolate pudding.  In the end even some Republicans and some on this blog were teed off about the actions or lackthereof of the majority in Helena.  Real or preceived, it worked and with yet another heated campaign season on the horizon, fasten those seatbelts, the race to Helena is about to begin again in earnest and Timmie's pen is primed and ready. 

Was all that really necessary?  Heck yeah, it is award winning journalism afterall.  The truth is though the kooks remained and the sky didn't fall, Montana is still here and we've lived to see Timmie bring home another one for the team.  Congratulations Tim, keep up the good work, all of us here at the HDC wish you the very best!