Reading the establishment press these days, one senses a longing for the old days. You know, the days when emergency shelters could remain close to empty for no good reason, plan commissions could rubber stamp developments without doing any financial review, policy could get made on the golf course, bids could get waived illegally, a business that gets major support from the county for its annual aviation show could inflate its attendance at will without any fear of press investigation, developers could avoid or put off paying taxes, and no one had to worry about pesky online "snipers" or "back alley journalists" asking questions about any of this nonsense.
As it stands, all of that nonsense still goes on to a disturbing extent (perhaps even worse than the old days), but the genie has been let out of the bottle. There are some questions being asked. Not enough questions, but at least some. Finally.
So now when it comes to the 100 block of North Main St. those nostalgic for the old days of journalism want us to fixate on whether Cheryl Hentz or other "snipers" should call Ben Ganther before reporting tax data from a city web site. Then we can simply forget or ignore the big questions, like: how do developments like this happen in the first place? And once they have happened, how do we ensure more accountability especially when the same developers show up as partners in other costly projects?
You see, the nostalgic gents want it to be just like the old days. Anyone remember April of 2001? Remember when a few of us pre-blogging era "gadflies" (that's the print era term for sniper) insisted that there needed to be more open, public discussion of the Council's plans for the 100 block?
Remember when the Northwestern editorialists wrote this: "While we are sure the Common Council will want to peer into all of the nooks and crannies of the proposals, which is prudent, it cannot afford protracted, frivolous deliberations." The fact that Stew and Ben refer to each other as "Stew" and "Ben" in friendly email exchanges has nothing to do with that editorial position, of course, since ONLY THE SNIPERS allow personal feelings to be interjected into reporting and editorializing.
You see, in the old days if you disagreed with the privileged view you were being "frivolous." When the City Council was investigated for a possible open meetings law violation related to the process for choosing the Ganther proposals, then Councilor Kevin McGee said the council used "a flawed procedure to make a flawed decision about a flawed development that's probably not going to occur." Well, he was wrong about the development not occurring, but flawed procedures and flawed decisions?
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7 comments:
Amen.
...want us to fixate on whether Cheryl Hentz or other "snipers" should call Ben Ganther before reporting tax data
Are you saying people there in Oshkosh - the paper? is trying to suggest he should be asked for permission or what? This was public info, and why would a reporter undercut their own efforts, or want to give a guy a chance to do damage control before the info is even published. I'm confused.
Would the public interst have been better served if Woodward and Bernstein had let Tricky Dick know they were chatting with Deep Throat? Well, gosh you shoulda called Colson and Haldeman first???!
Not gettin' it.
As to the old Journalisitc Objectivity Lie. Thank God, oddly enough, for things like Fox News, that show that to be so false in the extreme but yet help educate us as to what to look for on a more subtle level.
One of my favorite articles is by
Charles W. Moore and is on this illusion of objectivity issue.
Moore says -
'One such assumption would be the notion of "journalistic objectivity," a topic on which I have debated Michael Munger in the past. It's not that I want to be held to a lower standard (as a "self-made journalist") than other wordsmiths, but rather that I do not believe that journalistic objectivity is possible.'
He goes on to say -
'One of the best and most insightful commentaries on this topic I have encountered is by John Fraser, from his book “Saturday Night Lives: Selected Diaries” (MacLelland and Stewart). Fraser was editor of Canada's Saturday Night magazine for seven years in the '80s and early '90s. Prior to that, he was a reporter and foreign correspondent for the Toronto Globe & Mail for 17 years. In his book, Fraser delivers a withering critique of journalism as it is currently practiced, and is especially caustic about the "journalistic objectivity" cult -- calling it “one of the vainest goals a humble craft ever set itself.”
“There is no such thing as a strictly objective story,” declares Fraser. “It isn’t possible. Everything -- from the structure of an article to the choice of facts is filtered through a particular outlook and a prejudiced mind.... The most you can hope for... is relative honesty. And the very best (ie: the most honest) journalists always let their readers know their specific prejudices and the general nature of the intellectual equipment through which they distill their stories.”
This excellent article can still be found at -
http://www.applelinks.com/mooresviews/objectivity.shtml
(nice job - I liked this post)
Because justice requires innocence until proven guilty and it is only fair to let people tell their side of the story. I imagine if the rulebreaker had been someone Cheryl DOES like, and the Northwestern DIDN'T interview said person, Cheryl and Tony would be up in arms.....Cheryl and Tony like to have it both ways.
Day one of J-school:
Get a comment/no comment. Gee, how hard it that.
Dear Anonymous,
"Innocence until proven guilty" implies that someone was accused of a crime. There have been no accusations of criminal activity in any web post on this topic.
It's not ever clear to me from Cheryl's posts on this topic that she held Ganther solely responsible for the tax situation. While it is true that her original post on the topic focused almost exclusively on Ganther's tax problems, her open letter to the Common Council refers repeatedly to "Ben Ganther and his partners." She talks about the debt that THEY owe, not just him.
Regardless of the self-serving spin now flowing from Mr. Ganther's enablers in the corporate press, what Cheryl reported remains factually true: Ganther and his partners did not pay their taxes according to the schedule that Ganther HIMSELF set in his 2005 interview with Miles Maguire.
A crime? No. And actually, the problem with much development in Oshkosh and most other cities our size and larger is NOT law breaking, but what's LEGAL. The ease with which elected bodies can go into closed session with a developer; the fact that they can go into closed session and not even have to record the meeting or keep notes; the fact that a developer can make a "business decision" not to pay taxes on time--these and other questionable practices are all LEGAL and generally aided and abetted by the corporate press. When we finally start to see some responsible reporting--like what we are fortunate to get from Cheryl Hentz, Gary Jepson, and others--the attempt is made to undermine their credibility by charging them with not employing proper journalistic standards. The charge is hogwash on many different levels--some of which have been suggested by Jody Thompson and others that I may write or blog about at some later point.
Dear Anonymous at 11:05 p.m.,
You wanted Ben Ganther's side of the story told? Wonderful, and he could have done just that by going to my web site when he heard I was reporting on his property's delinquency, and telling his story in his own words. It would have posted immediately rather than having to wait for the newspaper to come out a day or two later.
While Mr. Ganther took the time to write his buddy Stew Rieckman over at the Northwestern, he easily could have posted nearly the same response on my web site and the public would then have had his explanation for his consistent tax delinquency and repeated failure to keep his promises to pay.
But he chose not to do so. Instead, he told his tale of woe only to the Northwestern. It really sounds much like last year when Mr. Ganther made another conscious decision to only make his tax delinquency known to SOME of the city council members and SOME of the candidates.
Do I feel slighted that I was not on his calling tree last year. Nope, though if you want to talk about fairness, then he should have given everyone on the council and all those running for it the same heads up. But he chose to play favorites and now seems to have his nose out of joint, along with Stew Rieckman, that he was't called about this.
Incidentally, where was Stew and his calls for full disclosure and fairness last year when Mr. Ganther selectively called people to discuss his finances?
Finally, for the record, to the best of my knowlege, I don't associate with people who break rules (or fail to pay their taxes). The people I choose to associate with have respect for the law and for the rules people in society are supposed to play by. They also understand the importance of each person paying their fair share, including their taxes when due. It's too bad Ben Ganther does have the same compass for choosing who he associates with.
(Boy, do I hear that - she busted my 'nads for little cussin', but on to the task at hand.)
'"Shooting the messenger"
is a phrase describing the act of lashing out at the (blameless) bearer of bad news.
In ancient times, messages were delivered in person by a human messenger. Sometimes in times of war, the messenger would be from the enemy. An easily-provoked recipient would take out his anger on the person delivering the message, literally killing the messenger. In modern usage, the expression refers to any kind of punishment of the person bringing bad news.
Alternative expressions:
"Killing the messenger"
"Attacking the messenger"
"Blaming the bearer of bad tidings"
Shooting the messenger is a time-honored, but counterproductive, way of dealing with problems.
The advice "Don't shoot the messenger" was first expressed by Sophocles as far back as 442 B.C. and much later by Shakespeare in Henry IV, part 2 (1598) and in Antony and Cleopatra (1606-07).
"Attacking the messenger" is also the colloquial name of the ad hominem logical falacy.
A syntactically similar expression is "Don't shoot the piano-player; he's doing the best he can". It originated around 1860 in the Wild West of the United States. During his 1883 tour of the United States, Oscar Wilde saw this saying on a notice in a Leadville, Colorado, saloon. This phrase (like many witty sayings of that era) is sometimes attributed to Mark Twain, but neither Wilde nor Twain ever claimed authorship'
--Wikipedia
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