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12/15/2010 6:27 pm
tkihshbt wrote:
Good thing, too, because that's one of the stupidest ideas I've ever heard.
And that's not even factoring in the idea that youth sports is a festering cesspool. Can you imagine how much worse it would get if it got more attention in the local media?
About a dozen years ago, I had to cover a dispute with the local figure skating program. The newly-elected president of the board of directors announced a change in policy - solos at the big end-of-season show would be given out on merit, not age. Bascially, the chubby 12-year-old wearing double runners wasn't going to be guaranteed a solo anymore just because she was 12, if there was an 9-year-old who could land a double axel. About two dozen parents - presumably of the 12-year-olds in the program - showed up to a meeting and just ripped this guy for about an hour and a half. I reported both sides, but obviously the people on one side were louder and angrier, so they got most of the quotes.
The director of the figure skating program is now a confidant of the mayor who was elected last year and was appointed as the city's veterans' agent. He literally stopped the Veterans Day program in the middle last month because he saw me with a notebook in the audience and wanted to kick me out of the auditorium.
12/15/2010 3:39 pm
Good thing, too, because that's one of the stupidest ideas I've ever heard.
12/15/2010 2:56 pm
"This village has an annual budget around $100,000."
That's about what it costs to light the street lamps here for three months.
My previous post was probably influenced a bit by the fact the city council set the tax rates last night, which is a big deal here since people in this community go bonkers whenever their property taxes go up.
We do a lot of local government stuff here, probably more than we should. The advertising department is always nudging us toward "human interest stories," but I've done to death the 50-inch yarns about some beekeeper who harvests his own honey. It always amazes me how the non-editorial faction of our staff tries to point us in different directions. Our circulation manager suggested at a meeting last month that we ought to be sending our sports stringers to mite soccer games instead of high school football games, because, in his words "There are 600 kids in this city who play youth soccer, and there are only 50 kids on the football team."
Our managing editor responded, "If I leave a sugar cube in the middle of a meadow thinking Secretariat is going to come along, I'm more likely to end up with an army of ants."
I'm not sure that was an entirely appropriate analogy, but it ended the discussion.
12/15/2010 1:34 pm
Yeah, I thought that was weird that he would randomly dial up reporters.
"I've determined people read local newspapers for three things - local sports scores, obituaries and police logs. The city government stuff is usually only important when people's personal finances are at stake."
Yes. I think both things can be achieved, but that more focus should be on what city government is doing. Every month I go to school board meetings and every month the story I usually write is about the state's budget crisis or where the school's finances are. This probably seems repetitive, but it's also damn important.
Last year I felt silly for reporting that the village I cover spent $2,000 to purchase a lawn mower. Then i went back and thought about it and realized it had value. This village has an annual budget around $100,000. They used two percent of it to purchase a valuable piece of equipment.
12/15/2010 12:52 pm
I've determined people read local newspapers for three things - local sports scores, obituaries and police logs. The city government stuff is usually only important when people's personal finances are at stake.
The article was interesting, and thanks for posting the link, but I think if some Pulitzer Prize-winning hotshot from the New York Times randomly called me an asked me a condescending question like "How many votes does it take for a jury to convict?" I'd throw it right back at him with questions about whether the trial is criminal or civil, or a directed verdict for that matter, or if there's a jury-of-six or a jury-of-12, and which state is involved because there are a couple that don't require unanimous verdicts in certain cases. Then I'd call him a supercilious asshole and hang up on him.
12/15/2010 12:35 pm
That IS abuse, Max. Did that get picked up by any bigger outlets?
Not to my knowledge. The only big market nearby is Seattle, and they have their own issues. Besides, my hunch is that stuff like this is quite common. Maybe not quite that flagrant. But I'llll give you another example of something that stinks to high hell, and looks like a very familiar con in Indonesia.
A guy gets a loan for about $60 million to build a factory for manufactured homes in an industrial park I pass everyday. The thing gets built, never quite gets up to full speed, then shuts it doors after about 24 months. Meanwhile, all that time, across the street is a sign that says, "future home of the so-and-so seed company". The local paper reports the factory shut it doors and laid-off its remaining workers and furthermore, the owner is not speaking about plans. About 6 months later the factory has a new name on it, "so-and-so seed company", and the sign across the street is gone.
This sounds like two common scams, put together. The first one is to borrow money on a business venture that will fail, but in the process of using the loan the principals make themselves quite wealthy. The second is a misdirection play: borrow money on a business that will fail, while the actual business interests waits in the wings ready to scoop the assets of the failed business for a steep discount. So, while I have no proof, I strongly suspect that the guy who got the $60 million loan for the failed manufactured home factory made himself rich on the failure, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the so-and-so seed company was in on this from the beginning, figuring they would get their warehouse built for them, acquiring it after it gets repossessed by the bank, and wind up paying maybe 10-50% of the cost of a new warehouse.
Now, this might seem far-fetched to many people, but I saw it so often in Indonesia, where the collusion between bankers, businessmen, and even politicians, leads to numerous deals that are designed around loans to a business that will fail . . . almost like "The Producers", that I cannot help but to be suspicious with this.
12/15/2010 12:05 pm
That IS abuse, Max. Did that get picked up by any bigger outlets?
Also, I agree that it's dangerous to report what needs reporting. From my experience, everyone needs everyone in this town to survive. So if a school board member or mayor gets mad at me, the repercussions are felt all over the place and they don't just affect me.
I do know that people care about what goes on, but rather than do something about it, they just go on with their lives.
12/15/2010 11:55 am
It's my opinion that stories about what local governments are doing/spending have far more value than re-writing a bunch of police reports and sticking them on the front page.
What say you people?
I agree, but I can take a stab at the source of the problem. It's simply too damned dangerous in a small town to report what needs reporting.
We had a situation here that rivals the worst abuses I ever heard in Indonesia. A school board proposed an unfunded non-voter approved purchase for $10 million to buy property on which to build a new middle school. They're not allowed to do this, apparently, unless they get approval, in this case I think it was from the county commissioner . . . who approved it and then retired. They purchased a farm with cash on hand, only to "discover" that farmland here cannot be converted for any reason whatsoever. Buildable property sells for 10 times that of farmland here, so they payed 10 times too much money for a piece of farmland on which nothing can ever be built as long the sun rises in the East. Oh, and by the way, the previous owner of the farm bears a family name that can be seen everywhere, the length and breadth, of this county (not quite like "Daley" in Chicago, because they are businessmen, not politicians, but you get the idea). So, the school district in this nice middle income area was either going to go insolvent, and be taken over by the state, or else voters would have to approve a bond measure to pay for the property on which we lost $9 million dollars and still cannot build a school. The bond measure failed once, with voters making the reasonable demands that all board members resign first and that the school board investigates possible legal action against the firm that assessed the value of the land. Then the bond measure passed, the board promptly determined that legal action would likely consume money with little hope of recouping anything, and the matter dies. The tax payers are out $9 million, we have a $1 million farm, and we still need a school . . . , which will of course require another bond measure.
The thing is, in Indonesia, at least, people would complain. They would assume all the major participants profited illegally from the arrangement. Here, it's like . . . eerily silent. Are people THAT confident that there is no corruption here and that it was all just a big mix-up? Are they scared to say anything, for fear of disturbing the waters in a peaceful little part of small town America? It is a weird homecoming for me to see shit every bit as flagrant and contemptible as what I saw in Indonesia, but without a peep from the press or people.
12/15/2010 11:15 am
I saw a link to this article today analyzing how terrible beat reporting has become on a local level.
The premise is that news organizations are too busy tracking cheap news (police blotters, jury verdicts) and not paying enough attention to local governments.
I've worked two small town beats in the past two years or so, and I think is pretty much spot-on. At the risk of boring people, I work for a weekly that's been publishing for a long time and currently engaged with a competitor that tries hanging with us, even though our area is nowhere large enough to support two weekly papers, but God love 'em, they try.
Anyway, to win the "war" their editor goes to the editorial pages and writes idiotic columns about how they have passed us up in advertising, subscribers and sales. A year ago, he wrote a long rant about how we cover too much cheap stuff: car wrecks, house fires, etc. and profit off of people's tragedy. In the same article, he talked about how his friend who works at a large daily in Oregon thought he was being too sensationalist with the front page because they load it up with articles about who got arrested for a DWI, who was sentenced to a year in prison for this or that and whatever else makes it sound like our area is run over with dangerous criminals.
It's my opinion that stories about what local governments are doing/spending have far more value than re-writing a bunch of police reports and sticking them on the front page.
What say you people?