Media Watch

06-20-08:
What the Citizen didn’t say in awarding a Citizen of the Week:
(by the way, it’s Alvin, not Albert)

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Accuracy: We in the media have an obligation to speak truth to spin. 04-01-08: Bad Reporting We agree that the law is not always the clearest of constructs, especially to the lay reader. It is frequently convoluted, confusing and crabbed, both in word and deed. But there is a basic responsibility the media has to its public, to make sure that the information they publish is not taken from inaccurate word-of-mouth media releases from only one side. There is also an obligation to assure that the facts presented are accurate. The media also has a responsibility to understand at least some of the basic concepts they are writing about, particularly when it involves the Mayor being sued for an action that many in the town wonder about– her veto of Alderwoman- elect Pat Matsukis to replace resigned Ald. Charlotte Buchanan. We would point out that The Patriots’ Herald’s Jean Merritt has followed the precepts for hard news treatment of this touchy issue. She has put forth the Mayor’s position, as well as that from plaintiffs’ attorney, Charles Kester. She has gotten her facts right. On the other hand, we have Vernon Tucker of the Lovely County Citizen , E. Alan Long of the Carroll County News (CCN), and Alvin Byrd and sundry others on on a public bulletin board, neglecting the basic principles of reporting, to get the facts right. Most noticeably, the wayward media have neglected to name the lead plaintiff in the case, Ald.-Elect Pat Matsukis. Why Does It Matter? The omission is significant because of a legal point called standing. The courts will not hear a case if one or more of the parties does not have standing. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that one has standing only if one can show:

(1) injury in fact, which means an invasion of a legally protected interest that is (a) concrete and particularized, and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical; (2) a causal relationship between the injury and the challenged conduct, which means that the injury fairly can be traced to the challenged action of the defendant, and has not resulted from the independent action of some third party not before the court; and (3) a likelihood that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision, which means that the prospect of obtaining relief from the injury as a result of a favorable ruling is not too speculative.

One of the most frequent legal maneuvers it to have a case dismissed because the parties to it lack standing. So here we are with two of the local papers omitting the one person, Matsukis herself, who most likely would have legal standing to bring the case. The local bulletin board we dismiss out of hand for its impossibly erroneous posts, for the most part from the swiftboating lunatic fringe of the city. So why rob the public of the one person who probably has the best standing of all to sue? It boggles the mind. On Hard News, on Commentary and on Getting Different Sides to a Hard News Story In writing up hard news, as distinct from editorials or commentary, it is expected that different sides to an issue will be represented. Not so with CCN reporter E. Alan Long, whose article speaks only out of the Mayor’s mouth. There is no counter, either from the legal papers Long repeatedly cites, or from plaintiff attorney Charles Kester or plaintiffs themselves. Where is the counter, for example, to Joy’s statement Long cites, that she had given the matter a lot of thought? That would be an interesting comment particularly in light of Joy’s veto of Matsukis’ election immediately after the vote before any time for reflection or thought. Joy had her veto ready and waiting, meaning she had not in fact considered the testimony that was given, the thought that others had put into the matter. Or where is the counter to Joy’s list of supporting figures Long gives us, more of them specializing in politics than in the legal profession? ES Folk, a newspaper that is mostly based on commentary, summarizes the different parties to an issue in its hard news articles. We have also made efforts to make our commentaries, where we do not always summarize different sides, absolutely clear by adding a special section up top, Commentary, in addition to the label we use to indicate “Commentary,” Another of our special sections (where this article appears) is Media Watch, which by its very nature and name is commentary, not a hard news section, on the uplifts and downdrafts of the local media. It is opinion pure and simple, different from the hard news with its different requirements. But to the lawsuit concerning the Mayor’s veto of Alderwoman- elect Pat Matsukis’ election to Council. Getting It Right Long’s headline announces that Joy was “served with papers to seat Matsukis.” Not by a long shot. The court was asked to issue a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction. It is to the court, and the court alone, that the seating Matsukis will be given. In short, the law may be complex, but it is fairly simple to get the kinds of things we speak of right– the parties to a suit, the offer by plaintiffs’ attorney, and some representation of different sides on the issue. The difference is to the citizenry of Eureka Springs, whose intelligence a reporter should not insult. **************************************************************************** 02-06-08: Insult, Injury and Downright Stupidity What’s this? The Lovely County Citizen has gone and stolen a trademark name and bestowed in on some of the less honorable in town. Charlotte Buchanan is, and always will be, The Town Wrangler. Now we see people being called “Wrangler” who are in no way related to Buchanan’s efforts in town. As a matter of fact, it is downright despicable to have let Alvin Byrd claim that he is a “Wrangler” given his shoddy, lying and falsifying, treatment of Buchanan. We don’t think much of the others who copped the name either. They are active in City politics, they knew the name they were stealing. That would be Melissa Greene and Enid Swartz. Why not Name Names? In another spot, we hear of a truck recklessly reeling down White Street as if in an inebriation of frenzy, pulling a sled dangerously behind. Let’s see now, isn’t that the truck of one of the Brammers? Why didn’t the Citizen identify the Brammer boys in such foolhardy play? Or at least one of them, the one who serves on Council and calls himself a “boy toy” publicly during Council comments? You know, the one who is our elected representative who keeps a lockstep to the Mayor’s tread? His name rhymes with hammer, as in what he’d do to the opposition for the Mayor. Maybe it’s gotten so difficult he has to break out like this. But it does make you wonder about the quality of our representatives and the integrity of a newspaper that takes a trademark name of one of the City’s worthiest, and bestows it on the least worthy, while keeping the lid on dangerous slides down the streets of our town.

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12-27-07: Patriot’s Herald Moving In The Patriot’s Herald has just moved into Pine Mountain Village. We don’t have all of the story yet, just this little bit. We’ll get back when we know more. 12-08-07: Ouch! That’s Really Gotta Hurt When you come down really, really, hard on both sides of the fence, and do it both sides at the same time, it’s really gotta hurt, splitting yourself right up the middle that way. That’s what happened recently over at the Citizen, when Editor Vernon Tucker stomped down hard on the one side, on previous Alderwoman Charlotte Buchanan for her service on City Council; then split himself right up his middle by coming down just as hard on the other side, praising Buchanan for her service as a creative presence in our town. Ouch! That’s gotta hurt, Vernon. And hurt it did. Both the paper and Tucker’s credibility have suffered something terrible for that, particularly on the name-calling, invalidating, badmouthing side. It’s not an illegitimate stance to take, saying Buchanan didn’t serve her City well as an alderwoman. There are those of use who would heartily disagree, but it is a legitimate position. What’s wrong is the name-calling, bad-mouthing and invalidation that take place in an absolute vacuum of facts, events, or votes. Is it too much to ask for substance? Proof? We don’t like to see anyone reduced by the peter principle Tucker uses. Just as bad, Tucker validates the Swiftboater’s “gang of four,” reducing it it to a totally unfunny “tripod of three.” I can’t tell what’s worse, the unfunny or the validation of a gang that doesn’t exist. I’ll opt for the validation of the non-existent gang although it’s a close one. As we’ve pointed out, the “gang of four” doesn’t exist. No group of four has voted consistently enough times to count for anything– 11 “together” votes out of 256 hardly constitutes a “gang vote.” Of course, if Tucker hadn’t told me he reads ES Folk, then he might at least have had the excuse of not keeping up. As is….

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11-25-07

Go Figure!

The Mayoralists and the Media Have Been Complicit in Making Up the “Gang of Four” No more! Not one more time! We’ve heard week in and week out about an evil empire called “the Gang of Four” who conspire together to bring the City to wrack and ruin. The alleged gang consists of Alds. Rae Hahn, Kathy Harrison, Eric Scheunemann and former Ald. Charlotte Buchanan. We’ve checked out the facts and figures, which we give below, to show that there is absolutely no gang who vote together to any meaningful degree– if you assume, as we do, that 4% of the total number of votes cast doesn’t amount to very much at all in the way of an actual gang, gang-vote conspiracy. In this fictive embrace of political pile-ons, there is of course a heroine who will keep us from the depredations of the gang. She is the Mayor, along with the Pink Mafia and other hangers-on who hench for her, making it essential to send the dons out when 4 members of Council vote together 4% of the time, oh yes! We’ll call this merry band of brave shills The Mayoralists. The Print Media Has Been Captured by the Mayoralists The print media follows along, one and the same with the Mayoralists– duplicitous, insidious, invidious in their coverage of the news. No matter if it was from Mike Ellis or Dale McCurry; or now comes from Terry Shirley or Vernon Tucker (who as the newer editor has a responsibility to keep opinion and commentary out of the hard news) over at the Citizen. Or Phyl Shimaka or Al Pryor at the Patriots’ Herald. It’s as bad as the national media patsying along with Our Leader and Decider, except it’s happening in the here and now of Eureka Springs. We can only hope that the new Citizen reporter on the Council beat, Don Lee, can escape the net of influence that has so smothered the paper. We have confidence in Don, having known him from a poetry workshop he used to hold in his house. It’s the high tops that give us the scares. Now Is the Time for Public Journalism It’s just such a time as this that we need public journalism, muckraking and watchdogging. We believe in a hearty and strong journalism of opinion– when it is based on fact. The media should hold itself to certain journalistic standards, of course, separating the hard news from commentary. The print media most often dedicates a separate section to commentary, leaving the rest to hard or soft (society) news. That would be just fine, if that’s what the local print media were doing. But they’re not. They are editorializing the hard news, and making unsubstantiated statements as if they were fact in both commentary and hard news. A good journalism also means holding to standards of accuracy and honesty insofar as one is able. If mistakes are made, they are corrected. Since it would be difficult if not impossible for the Citizen to correct entire past issues on the grounds noted above; and since the Herald is still quite literally hell-raising (and no longer has Jean Merritt to cover the hard news), we thought we’d offer some corrections on their behalf– in the spirit of public journalism. It’s about that notorious “gang of four,” and some inaccuracies of ill will floating about. It’s important because of considerations the public should make before weighing in on who should replace Charlotte Buchanan on Council. The So-Called Gang of Four Doesn’t Vote as a Block The gang of four aldermen and women accused of conspiring and voting together as a block doesn’t exist. Let’s look at an actual count, through the most current minutes available, Oct. 22, 2007. We were totally blown away– so much so that we recounted all of the 256 votes four times because we ourselves had been misled by the media into thinking this gang of four really existed, and more often than not voted as a block. It just isn’t true. Lookie here:

Total Votes from Jan. 8, 2007 - Oct. 22, 2007: 256 Total Gang of Four Block Votes: 11 Percentage of Gang Votes of Total: 4.29%

Alds. Joyce Zeller and Patrick Brammer have voted with the alleged gang of four more often than the so-called “gang” have voted together as a block. Ald. Harrison (dubbed “queenie,” the leader of the gang who tells everyone else how to vote, according to the misinformants on Geekfest) has voted differently from the other three of “the gang” more often than she has voted with them. An actual count shows Harrison voting differently from the other three in the alleged gang 19 times. Since there is no such thing as a voting block gang of four, it is difficult to accuse it of anything anyhoo!– much less of conspiring. And Queenie– well, Queenie has made a fool of the misinformants. Once again. Down one for the Mayoralists. It’s not the Gang of Four Who Delay Matters I was speaking yesterday with a friend about Council. We sometimes disagree so when she said she wished Council would do their homework, quit putting things off and get to work, I thought I’d check out who actually postpones and delays. I for one had actually thought the alleged gang had postured and postponed and put things off, so effective had been the Mayoralists. I even lectured three Council members separately at three different times, and told them to quit postponing and get on the move. But then while checking out the number of block votes by the alleged gang, I happened across a statement attributed to Melissa Greene in the Council minutes. Greene had said she was “tired of Council continually tabling items.” I’d believed her way back in April even though I knew our politics diverged dramatically. Not this time, not now. I’d have to go back and count again, I said—well, make that count three times because, once again, I couldn’t believe what I came up with. For Postponing: First out of the gate is our argumentative City Attorney, Tim Weaver. Out of 29 delays or postponements, Tim Weaver has been responsible for 11, or 38%. Always ready to dispute a Council member who doesn’t have the same position as the Mayor or Roenigk and limo attorney Wade Williams, he is only infrequently ready when asked to do something like write an ordinance, follow through on some legal research, or contact an appropriate person—e.g., Levi Phillips on piggybacking referenda on the judicial election; or the Municipal League’s David Schoen. Granted, it may not be easy to contact Carroll County Elections Commissioner Levi Phillips but you can leave him a message, and he will get back. I know. I’ve done it. As for Scheon—we’re told he gets back by return email. Second is the Mayor’s boy on Council, Ald. Patrick Brammer. Brammer has asked for 8 of the 29 postponements, or 27.5%. Which of these are postponements for political reasons we may never know. We are aware of the fact that Brammer postponed action on vacating a street in the Roenigk development several times, and that looked pretty political to us. Who knows what else? We do know that Robert’s Rules of Order says you’re not supposed to use postponement that way. Ald. Scheunemann had asked for three postponements, not counting the “gateways” project on Hwy 62. We did not count those because they were, in almost all cases except one that we could see, the result of bringing together a group of people who didn’t meet according to Council’s schedule. “Queenie” Harrison accounted for three postponements; Rae Hahn for three. The Mayor asked for one. Add ‘em all up, and what do you get? The City Attorney is responsible for 11 postponements; the Mayor’s boy for 8. All the rest combined only add up to 10. Is it too much to say it’s City Attorney Tim Weaver who isn’t doing his homework? Go figure! All we have to say at present about the Mayoralists and the local print media is “Go figure!” We mean it with all the irony and sarcasm available. We also mean they should count when they slander. In short, the Mayoralists have distorted and distended the truth, and the local print media have followed. Stand firm in picking a successor to Charlotte Buchanan. Stand strong. Don’t be so polite they run all over ya’! ********************** 11-17-07: Goodbye, Jean Merritt The Patriots’ Herald, and the community, lost one of the very best of reporters when Jean Merritt quit. She was fun, she was lively, she was intelligent, she was always on the move, getting that story– and getting it right. She and I often differed on the politics of a situation, but she was always professional, treating those who differed with her with the utmost respect. She is a deeply spiritual woman, something which I do not share. That didn’t matter to Jean. Nor did she let the fact that she worked for a paper whose owner was a right-wing bigot of the Big Lie about what happened with the assault of the Christian bikers at Basin Park, or who refused an ad from DiversityPride, influence the way she covered the news. She covered it all, and she covered it well. Jean always treated others with the utmost respect, as I’ve said, even those who differed from her in spirituality– or sexual orientation. (I came out to her three times, just to make sure.) Jean wrote most of the news for the PH, and it was a wearying job. She told me a couple of months ago that she was getting just plain physically tired. There was too much to cover, she said, and I know that’s true. I told her that I don’t cover half of what she does, and I can’t get it all done. The PH abused Jean and her talents although I’m sure she would be the last to say so. She would say, as she did in her statement, that it was God’s time for her to move on. Goodspeed, Jean. Your resignation will leave a very big, very empty, news hole. ************************** 11-10-07: Sad to say, Diversity Weekend coverage was not up to par. No! Make that a WHOOPS! There wasn’t any positive coverage at all. The media left us invisible. The Patriots’ Herald remained true to Al Pryor’s bigotry. I say this, not because he is a bigot by religion, but because he is a bigot by untruth, painting his side better than it is, making the screaming intolerance and take-over of the Basin Park by Christian bikers into a peaceful protest that– from the pictures and numerous eye witnesses– beggars belief. That just will not do. As for the rest, there was dumb silence. The Citizen had neither picture nor story. The last-minute-before-publication call for pictures from the community just is not good enough. We understand the difficulty when one photographer quits and another comes on. But there was no story either. We did send some pix, no use boycotting the paper for an issue like this, we thought. A few pix– or total invisibility– suggested we’d best get something up. Both DiversityPride and EurekaPride joined in, too, and we’re glad they did. But the Citizen is no community paper when it leaves Diversity out. What’s puzzling is that no one has called the Citizen to task. Tsk! Tsk! They should have, and they didn’t, cover. Reminds me of the day when The Progressive, one of the nation’s most politically progressive zines, didn’t cover a woman’s protest. All the guys– that is, all of anybody who worked for the zine at the time– were sitting in the office drinking wine. Now the Progressive features Kate Clinton and Barbara Ehrenreich; Ruth Conniff is their political editor; and they cover what women do. But it didn’t happen by progressives covering up for what they didn’t once upon a time think the zine didn’t have to cover. The Progressive was called to task, the guys gave a few weak excuses, but lo! they really did change in the course of a very few months. Like that, the Citizen should be held to account, no excuses. Rendering us equally invisible was the notice sent out on doings for the month by the Chamber. Nothing at all about Diversity. Question: Isn’t it getting invisible enough for some action? It’s not enough to say we won’t pick up a paper. There needs to be lots of visibility on this invisibility issue. If our visibility doesn’t work, the money stream needs to stop– ads, subscriptions, memberships, and phone calls saying we’re not going to be adding to the money stream. — That, along with more visibility saying we won’t be rendered invisible. Where are all those who talk so loud and long about Lesbian/Gay rights? Getcha out!

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11-08-07: We might disagree with an emphasis from time to time, but by gosh and by golly! the two local papers are learning to cover hard news the way they oughta. The Patriots’ Herald has Jean Merritt who, as we’ve frequently said, is fair and honest. It’s a welcome difference from owner Al Pryor whose support of hate against those whose morality he does not share is– well– straight out (ahem) immoral. The Citizen looks like it’s going to be coming up to standard now, too, with two new reporters on staff, Becky Gillette and Chris Fischer. The coverage is detailed and accurate (we’ll give ‘em a factual error or two, or a bit of a misunderstanding here and there, like happens to all of us, nothing that serious). We hope these two stay on at the Citizen, and get paid half-way decently. Along with Kate Lucariello, they’ll make quite a team– maybe force the Herald into some higher standards itself. But hooray! and alleluia! the Citizen is no longer the mouthpiece of Mayor Joy, and the Herald– so far– is not the mouthpiece of the reactionary Christian right in its hard news reporting.

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11-01-07: The Patriots’ Herald has refused an ad from DiversityPride. It makes me want to get all rhetorical, and wax indignant. I will not. I will only say that the ad, left, is the best thing we have seen so far. Unlike the listing of events in the Citizen, it does not sexualize what it lists– and that in male terms– but generically addresses LGBTIs one and all. It does not name a very select few– two?– businesses as the Citizen does in its list, but reaches out on behalf of all businesses. But that, you might say, is the fault of those who submitted the material, not the newspaper. And you would be right. The kind of listing we saw in the Citizen should not be submitted for a welcoming Diversity promo. All the more reason, then, that we should look to the positive and up-beat, broadly-encompassing, DiversityPride ad, and register our disappointment with the Herald. Although we knew Rev. Pryor had opposed the domestic partners registry, we had looked to his paper to be broader than his singular take on matters. We had been told that he was looking to extend the reach of the Herald. We had seen that reporter Jean Merritt had done a fair and accurate job of reporting the hard news. We knew that Shimaka is an out Lesbian who frequently writes on diversity issues in her column for the paper, even though we have often disagreed strongly with her. But Rev. Pryor negated these accomplishments in one fell act. He and his board decided to reject the ad, he wrote in an email, because it was not in keeping with the paper’s emphasis on “traditional family values.” We are saddened to see such a narrow interpretation of values. We urge Rev. Pryor to speak once again with his God on the deeper meaning of “family.”

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