Council candidate: Atlanta Progressive News ‘paid operative’ of incumbent Archibong

• Courtesy Christian Enterkin

An Atlanta City Council candidate has taken issue with the way she claims a local news website attacked her character, penned false stories, and worked on behalf of her opponent. In response, she’s fired back with her own lacerating article (because if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!).

Christian Enterkin, who’s challenging District 5 Councilwoman Natalyn Archibong in a crowded race to represent several southeast Atlanta neighborhoods, has penned a scathing editorial for East Atlanta Patch that accuses Atlanta Progressive News editor Matthew Cardinale of, among many things, working as a “paid operative” for the incumbent.

Cardinale, who has long covered and participated in City Hall’s happenings, has penned several articles endorsing Archibong throughout the past few months. Over the weekend, the APN editor published a story on his blog news service that raised questions about Enterkin’s employment as an executive for Landmark Dividend, a company that leases billboards and cell towers, and whether it would influence her work if elected to City Council. Cell phone towers have been a heated issue in East Atlanta in recent years.

Enterkin last night responded to the piece. In doing so, she also questioned Cardinale’s journalistic integrity and perceived bias in covering the Council race:

A blog that goes by Atlanta Progressive News has been running negative, unsubstantiated stories about my campaign and the company I work for. The blog’s creator, Matthew Charles Cardinale, is a fanatical supporter of Natalyn Archibong. He has misused his blog to make baseless attacks on my character. APN endorsed Natalyn Archibong before qualifying began and before I entered the race. He has never had a conversation with me or interviewed with me to be considered for an endorsement. As a matter of fact, I have never met Matthew Cardinale.

Mr. Cardinale has stated in his own blog that his top priority would be getting Archibong re-elected. With this level of support, voters of District 5 cannot expect impartial coverage, nor trust statements made by Mathew Cardinale - aka Atlanta Progressive News.

Cardinale this morning responded with a new post that accuses her of writing “baseless personal character attacks rather than simply state her positions” on particular issues. And he also asserts that cash he receives from candidate ads haven’t skewed his editorial remarks. He writes:

Enterkin notes that APN accepts advertising from campaigns and has a campaign ad from Archibong, implicitly asserting that advertising with APN constitutes APN’s News Editor being a paid operative.

To be sure, APN has extensive campaign advertising, both in our e-newsletter and on our website. Since the beginning of the campaign season, APN has had at least fifteen municipal candidate advertisements, and we are extremely proud of this fact because it shows how much the candidates value our readers, and how much the candidates desire to have the opportunity to connect with our readers directly through online graphic advertising.

With only a week to go until the election, other online news services have only a small handful of online candidate ads, while others have none.

For what it’s worth, Archibong has spent $1,400 in APN ads this year. Those expenses were noted on her campaign finance disclosures.