The ABC 15 reporter blasts John Dougherty, the New Times reporter turned Senate candidate, for posting unsubstantiated rumors about Jan Brewer’s health.

That’s fair comment; but I was struck by this remark, emphasis added:

For weeks now, we’ve been hearing Gov. Jan Brewer was suffering from some unnamed health problem that was limiting her schedule. The rumor was circulating among numerous reporters to be sure, but none would go with the story without something to substantiate it. That’s called responsible reporting, especially knowing the tendency of campaigns to float hearsay in order to derail their opponents.

What I don’t understand about the Phoenix reporter corps is why, hearing the rumors, someone just didn’t make a formal query to Jan Brewer’s staff.

Reporters don’t have to say why they are asking anything. They can just call the office up, and ask, “How is the governor’s health? Does she get regular physicals? Does she have any medical condition that voters should know about?”

If, as you’d expect, the office said the governor was fine, the reporter could conclude there was nothing to the story, absent any hard evidence to the contrary. At the same time, the reporter had the governor’s office on the record on the matter should anything contrary come out in the future.

And right now, someone like Irwin could be saying that ABC news had looked into the rumor and had concluded there was nothing to it, rather than just attacking Dougherty.

No one deserves to be harried by false rumors, of course, but chatter during a political campaign is there for a reason.

Brewer is trying to get elected to office by keeping her profile as low as possible, agreeing to just one debate, barely making herself available to reporters and refusing to answer questions when she’s caught in public. The local media should be fighting back against these tactics.