Trip Jennings, Journalist, Executive Director of NM In Depth

Air Dates: October 18-22, 2014

This week's guest on REPORT FROM SANTA FE is veteran journalist Trip Jennings, executive director of the multimedia news outlet, New Mexico In Depth. Trip discusses the election and the current campaign for governor of New Mexico. He deplores the lack of substance in the debates between the candidates and their total failure to discuss the real issues and crucial problems facing New Mexicans.

Jennings is an award-winning veteran journalist who has worked at newspapers across the nation, including in California, Connecticut and Georgia. Besides working at the Albuquerque Journal and Santa Fe New Mexican, Jennings was part of a team that started the New Mexico Independent, an influential online newspaper.

Jennings discusses his “Open Letter to Gov. Susana Martinez and Attorney General Gary King,” which opens with “I’ll be blunt: the 2014 campaign for governor feels like canned reality TV.” Trip continues, “New Mexico needs a leader with a strong vision, an ability to communicate it in simple, inspiring terms that unifies, not divides, and the know-how to make it happen. All I see is politics as usual.”

The veteran journalist continues, “If you ask me, however, New Mexico deserves better than politics as usual...New Mexico needs a leader who thinks deeply, profoundly and long-term; in other words, a rarity in today’s toxic political environment – someone who knows how to govern as well as play partisan politics." Jennings laments that “political games trump serious conversation.”

Discussing the $7.5 Million dollars that have been spent by New Mexico candidates on TV advertising (as if September 26), resulting in over 19,000 ads aired round the clock, Jennings explores issues around campaign finance reform. Other hot topics include New Mexico's need for an ethics commission, the behavioral health scandal, and EmailGate.

Quote:In his “Open Letter to Gov. Susana Martinez and Attorney General Gary King,” he wrote, “I’ll be blunt: the 2014 campaign for governor feels like canned reality TV.”