Newspaper in cahoots on private prison deal, concealed it more than a year

This is pretty damned outrageous: Grits earlier mentioned that the city of McAllen put out a request for proposals to construct a 1,000 bed private prison facility they hope to lease to federal clients. As it turns out, though, the local newspaper knew about the deal for more than a year and agreed to cover it up until the RFP was issued. According to the McAllen Monitor ("McAllen mulls 1,000 bed private prison," July2), "Last spring, The Monitor learned about McAllen’s discussions with GEO Group, the private prison company based in Boca Raton, Fla. At the city’s request, The Monitor didn’t report the news to avoid tipping off potential competitors and skunking the deal."

Is that really a newspaper's role, to cover up news to avoid "skunking the deal"? If simply reporting publicly on a deal involving taxpayer dollars would "skunk" it, maybe it's a crappy deal in the first place!

What other news is the Monitor withholding from its readers so private investors can profit from government projects? What criteria does the paper employ in deciding whether their readers deserve such information or need to be kept in the dark?

Seriously, that's f'ed up.

Via the Grassroots Leadership blog.