By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff
Consider this the largest “correction” the Reader has ever published — and, horror of horrors, it’s because of something the editor (me) screwed up. (True fact: Rarely anyone edits the editor.)
On at least two occasions in recent months, I’ve reported that Dist. 1A Rep. Mark Sauter, R-Sandpoint, “voted in favor” of Idaho’s strict abortion laws, but later came to “regret” that vote when the wider ramifications became clear in the form of OB-GYNs and other providers of women’s reproductive health care fleeing the state due to a hostile political climate and fears of litigation.
I was wrong on those occasions. Sauter wasn’t even in the Legislature when the so-called abortion trigger laws were passed by lawmakers in early 2022. He didn’t take office until December 2022, long after that session ended, and since then has actually worked to include more exceptions to the near-total abortion ban to protect the health of Idaho mothers. That includes a bill he and Sen. Jim Woodward, R-Sagle, introduced at the end of the 2025 session.
The Reader has reported on those efforts as they’ve occurred over the past few sessions, as well as chronicling the political blowback Sauter has experienced from his own party for stances such as loosening the abortion ban, and endeavored to be as accurate and even-handed as possible in doing so.
I, and by extension “we,” dropped the ball on correctly contextualizing Sauter’s voting record and I, by extension “we,” apologize for those errors.
That’s not enough, though. We’re in the business of being accurate; and, whenever we make a mistake, it prompts an internal forensic audit of how we screwed up and why, so we don’t do it again.
In the interest of accountability and transparency, I’ll explain how we came to make the error(s), and it begins with a PBS News Hour piece aired on May 1, 2023 titled “Idaho’s strict abortion laws create uncertainty for OB-GYNs in the state.” From the transcript on pbs.org:
Sarah Varney (PBS): “State Representative Mark Sauter, a Republican, lives in Sandpoint. He says he hadn’t thought much about the abortion ban.”
Mark Sauter: “It really wasn’t high on my radar, other than I’m a pro-life guy, and I ran that way, but I didn’t see it as it had a real — having a real big community impact.”
SV: “Then he started talking with local doctors, including Amelia Huntsberger.
“What I’m wondering is, for you personally, did you think about abortion as it relates to obstetric care for pregnant women?”
MS: “No, I don’t think I — it’s like anything. You get exposed to something and, all of a sudden, you go, wow, there’s a different way to look at this. You know, what are we going to do about all this?”
That portion of the program drew the attention of late-night TV host John Oliver, of Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, who teed off on Sauter, saying on his Nov. 5, 2023 show: “This Idaho Republican voted for an extremely restrictive abortion ban and has since had second thoughts about how broad it actually is, but listen to him explain just how little thought he put into his original decision.”
Oliver went on to replay a snippet of Sauter’s interview, including the statement that, “It really wasn’t high up on my radar other than I’m a pro-life guy and I ran that way. But I didn’t see it having a real big community impact.”
Oliver added: “Look, part of me wants to welcome that man’s ability to recognize his own blind spots there, but are you really saying that you didn’t think about how your vote would affect literally half your constituents? You’re a fucking legislator.”
Oliver was wrong, but it trickled down to us, when we reprinted his remarks without vetting them. From there, it became part of the story.
Call this also a hard lesson in media literacy. I watched the PBS report and Oliver’s show, but didn’t perform the due diligence to ensure that the timelines matched with the claims being made by the latter. I assumed that Last Week Tonight would check facts, and so I didn’t do my own fact-checking. To be fair, PBS also didn’t do a great job contextualizing Sauter’s position in the Legislature at that time. But again, I didn’t use my own brain.
It’s my job to use my brain in order to be right as often as humanly possible, and every minor or major error that makes it onto the pages of this paper is ultimately my fault. I accept that responsibility, but I don’t want this lesson to be lost on others. That is: Never, ever, simply repost, reprint, repeat or report something you see or hear without at least taking a few minutes to check it out. And, for all our sake, if you end up being wrong, at least correct yourself before you wreck yourself. In the end, all we have is our integrity, and it’s a lot harder to earn than it is to lose.
