In all fairness to Eric, I understand that he does not get to select which stories he covers, and he must follow up when his editors ask him to provide additional information/clarification. He was the unlucky one who had to deal directly with an upset me.
Here's the essence of what I unloaded on him: It was utterly ridiculous that Wednesday's huge front page spread highlighted the change in location of the polygraph testing when the city council had spent so much time that very day conducting the public's business which received little coverage.The very same day this "musical chairs event" occurred, I had spent two-and-a-half hours in a Committee C review of the Finance and Administrative Services Department (no reporters present at all). The city council had debated the fall bond referendum in excess of an hour (perfunctory media coverage). There was a three-and-a-half hours regular city council meeting where a number of key zoning cases (including a huge new shopping center for the South Elm-Eugene Street/I-85 area) and the adoption of next year's CDBG programming were acted on (received little mention). That adds up to 7+ city council hours spent in ONE day on city business that were glossed over.
In addition, Councilmember Florence Gatten and I have been meeting with the GTA/SCAT task force weekly since March, and the three council budget committees began meeting weekly back in April for 2+ hours at a time. How many media reports of those meetings or discussions have you seen or heard? We council members have been working our butts off taking care of business and performing our duties as usual, but that doesn't seem to warrant coverage. It was obviously horrible timing on my part to have to cut back on my own blogging/reporting and leave you totally in the dark, but that's just the way it has to be for now.
No wonder the general public has the ERRONEOUS impression the city council has lost its focus! You have only seen what has been sensationalized -- a disservice to both the city council and to you, the public. We council members ARE indeed focusing on the important business of this city and I'd love to see the correct focus on THAT news.
20 comments:
Sandy, I understand your frustration. But one aspect of news is unusualness. People expect their government to work. The cliche in journalism is that you don't see any stories when the trains run on time. So, when the city council decides to take the unusual step of submitting to polygraphs, you have to know that it's going to be covered extensively.
As for the other issues that got overshadowed, please let Eric know what we missed. Honestly, the amount of time council -- or any group -- spend discussing an issue doesn't necessarily equal importance. There are many discussions and decisions in meetings that we call "turn of the screw" meaning the action causes an incremental change, if any.
You have to understand that we think council members submitting to polygraph tests and council members accusing another member of leaking a report is significant news. Eric kept asking you about the "exit strategy" with the polygraph results because we were surprised that the council would take this step without discussing how the results would be disseminated and what would come next. And as council members decided on their own whether to talk about the results or not, the waters seemed to get muddier, not clearer. So we felt we had to keep asking.
We know council members work hard. We also think there is reader/citizen interest in the polygraphs.
JR,
I certainly realize that the polygraphs were "news" and they would be reported, but prominent front page headlines four days in a row seems like overkill to me. Come on!
Am I interpreting your explanation correctly that "taking care of business in the way it's supposed to be done isn't exciting enough to be reported as news?" That only the "unusual" is newsworthy? That "If they're doing it right, forget about it, we won't tell you about it unless it's a slow news day?" Focus on the sensational and forget the rest?
If that's the case, no wonder the public has such a distorted view of how their city operates on a daily basis!
I guess it all boils down to is the newspaper's mission "to provide an accurate accounting of the happenings in our city?" Or is it "to sell as much advertising and as many newspapers as possible?" Community service or sales?
And that's what is frustrating to me!
"...taking care of business..." is a given. That is what you are SUPPOSED to be doing. It is when something is different, unusual, out of the ordinary, that it becomes newsworthy. Certainly the issues, all of them, surrounding the happenings in the department charged with our public safety, AND its ancillary issues are important for the community to know.
I agree with JR that the issues surrounding the polygraph were not explored completely beforehand. You should have considered the consequences BEFORE you undertook this unusual way of taking care of business. It was not carefully thought through.
Hi Sandy,
How were the results reported from the examiner? Were they verbal to each individual member? Verbal in aggregate to an individual or individuals? Was anything provided in writing?
I think you know that we cover the city's operation pretty closely. We have a reporter at every council meeting and the next day the council story is usually on A1 or B1. And we write stories on other municipal topics throughout the week. We even publish a regular column by the city's PR department on happenings in city government.
The reason there were four days of front page stories is that the council took three days to take the polygraph. That, coupled with some members telling us their results, others not telling us their results, and no one seeming to know what they were going to do after the results were in gave us plenty to write about and forced the stories to be strung out over the whole week.
The mission of a newspaper is not an either/or equation, any more than saying the city is either efficient or inefficient. Yes, we want to sell advertising and papers. Given the amount of city taxes the paper pays and the number of people we employ, I would think you would, too. (In any case, writing about the polygraphs is not a big circulation driver, I assure you.)
We'll write plenty about the bond referendum, I assure you. We'll continue covering meetings, rezonings and developments.
Roch,
At the end of my session, the examiner verbally told me I had passed the polygraph. I was not given anything in writing. I was not told anything about other councilmember's results, only my own.
Thanks, Sandy, although you might agree with me that that's kind of ironic -- that the results reported by the mayor were apparently told to him by the people who were the subjects of the tests. Maybe the mayor got more information than we are aware of but it appears as if what the mayor's press release should have said was "Everybody told me they passed." Too funny. Not $5,000 worth of funny, but pretty funny.
Roch,
That's a question you would have to ask of the mayor. I do not know if he received any sort of briefing or report from the examiner.
Roch, we've pressed the issue and been told that nothing was given in writing. Seems odd, I agree.
Sandy,
I'm told that the Troublemaker is banned from your comments, and I'm wondering if I am too. I see Roch is still allowed, so maybe I will be. Anyway, just checking.
Anonymous,
I haven't banned Troublemaker or anyone else from making comments on my blog. I did reject two of his comments yesterday where he shared his theories on "the leak" that he had previously published on his own blog. I've decided to let that particular topic "rest in peace" and focus more on the topics/issues that I and other council members are busy working on such as the budget, bond referendum, GTA/SCAT, etc.
A few days ago, you said that your moderation policy would be to only disallow spam or profanity. Rejecting comments because you've decided to drop the matter is a little different from what you oringinally said would guide you. Is there a better way for us to understand what comments you will or won't allow?
So then, you're not just moderating for profanity and spam, but also topics that you don't want discuss any longer?
Roch and jw,
1) All our blogs seem to evolve and change over time depending on the style and/or whims of the blogger. This being a personal, not official, blog, I'm free to host it as I see fit just as everyone else does with their own.
2)I've been advised repeatedly, especially by you, jw, to "do my own thing" with this blog and set my own standards and rules. That means I make changes from time to time as I choose.
3) (The most applicable to my rejection of Troublemaker's recent comments)-- My whole "rant" on this particular posting was that the N&R was not focusing on the most important things I thought citizens should be aware of -- the normal, routine business that the council and myself are busily concentrating on. I decided to quit "feeding the beast" and "practice what I was preaching" by moving away from the very topic I've criticized the N&R for overly focusing on.
Of course one is free to blog as they see fit, however there are concerns when the blogger is an elected official who says,
"This blog is my attempt to have an ongoing dialog with citizens and keep you up to date on issues I deal with on the Greensboro City Council and other governmental bodies on which I serve."
I have always expressed concern about the way blogs would impact local politics.
Sandy,
I don't make anonymous comments and have no idea how the one above came to bear that moniker. Just want to make that known.
Jerry Bledsoe
Sandy, nobody questioned your right to operate your blog as you see fit. I'm just wondering, since comments here go to moderation and may or may not be displayed, if there is a way for us to tell whether we should even bother making a comment.
When you said that you were only going to exclude spam and profanity, that made it pretty easy to understand. Now that you are also censoring stuff based on content, I'm simply wondering if there is a way for us to know what comments will or won't be allowed.
If it's going to be based on when you decide to no londer discuss a topic, perhaps you can start posting a notice when you make such decisions, perhaps amend your posts with "Closed for discussion" or something like that.
Roch,
Thanks for the excellent advice with your suggestion about signaling "closed for discussion" if I make such choices in the future. I'll try to remember to do that if I make another unexpected turn.
So, then, my last comment was rejected? Will you let people know that or do we just assume after a period of time that we didn't pass muster?
Sorry, Jw,
Your previous comment "got lost in the shuffle" -- it's posted now.
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