County government matters.
Is it just your imagination, or has the Mail Tribune nearly stopped covering the Jackson County Commissioners?
It isn't your imagination.
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| "A local community newspaper." |
Verbatim and non-curated recordings are not the same thing as having news coverage by a beat reporter.
Actual coverage of the county and its leaders comes when a reporter follows the issues and flow of events, and who then distills the actual meaning of what is going on. The reporter then writes a story that is short and cogent enough to be readable and meaningful. An editor puts a headline on it. Then it gets printed and distributed.
That is news coverage. We get an informed citizenry.
We used to have that. Now we don't.
A community newspaper. On Friday the local newspaper explained its decision not to join the nationwide affirmation of the free press by saying their focus was not national news. They made a sound argument, justified by this assertion; "But we are, first and foremost, a local community newspaper. Our reporting staff does not cover the White House. Our focus is on city, county and state government."
If only.
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| Click. Live and recorded broadcasts |
Former county commissioners recall close, daily coverage of county government. Mail Tribune reporters Michelle LaBounty and Allen Hallmark covered nearly every meeting back during my term of office in the early 1980s. Hallmark had six to ten news stories every week.
It was justified, because county government was involved in multiple areas that affected local citizens. Planning and zoning. The jail. Rural policing. Library facilities and service. Animal control. County roads. County parks. The airport. County fairgrounds. Facilities like the Britt pavilion, courts buildings, and Sports Park. The probation system. Mental Health programs and facilities. Restaurant inspections. Vaccinations, Sexually Transmitted Infections, and Public Health. Contracts with utilities including solid waste and use of public easements by electric, gas, telephone, and cable companies. The Historical Society budget. Assessment and collection of property taxes. Elections. Recording of deeds and surveys and wells. Air quality. Veterans services. Contracts with nonprofit agencies that provided human services with alcohol, drug, and other problems.
Yes, all that.
The county is still involved with all of these.
Can readers remember anything in the newspaper recently about Colleen Roberts, Rick Dyer, or Robert Strosser? (They are your three current county commissioners.)
I did not trust my impressions or memory, so I went to the Tribune website and used their search function for their own stories. Try it yourself.
Yes, there are some stories. A month ago, on July 17, Roberts and Strosser were mentioned in a single sentence opining on recycling. An April story on the county budged noted that Roberts was not accepting her full authorized salary. A March 2018 story mentioned her having an opposition candidate, Lanita Witt. Going back in time, there was an October, 2017 story about Roberts opining on marijuana. A Google search adds a story about the naming of Dead Indian Memorial Road, a comment on forest fires, and a notation that Roberts voted to pass the 2017 budget. There were two stories locatable in 2016 one on her saying commissioners should work at their job and another about opposing a marijuana sales tax of 3%.
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| Candidate Profiles Story: 150 words each |
In March, 2018 the Tribune had an election story about the 4 candidates running for two open seats. The Tribune had 156 word "profile" on Roberts.
It is better than zero.
Possibly publishing three or four stories a year that mention a commissioner fulfilling a duty of passing a budget, or a single sentence mentioning a commissioner's point of view on a public issue" is exactly what a community newspaper thinks is appropriate.
And possibly a more diligent search would find other entries that demonstrate a few extra mentions of the commissioners over several years, but I don't remember reading them, nor can I find them using the Tribune's search engine, nor Google's.
News vacuum takeaway: It means citizens who want a feel for what is happening don't get their information from the newspaper. They get it via informal "news" sources, like Facebook or Twitter chatter, comments on local talk radio shows, or casual conversations with people who happen to have seen something.
This means incumbents standing for re-election like Colleen Roberts and Rick Dyer have small public reputations compared with commissioners in the past. It may be a blessing for them politically--it is easy to stay out of trouble if no one is watching. Voters will decide whether or not to retain Roberts and Dyer, but will lack the information they might have had from a community newspaper.
A corollary of that ignorance is that voters will make a partisan choice. They will know who is a Democrat and who is a Republican. It is a poor basis for choosing a commissioner. I was elected as a Democrat and served alongside Hank Henry, a Republican, and we disagreed on exactly one vote in two years. County issues are controversial sometimes, but they do not align on a national partisan basis. Setback requirements for a marijuana grow, or whether to renew a contract with ARC or OnTrack--the serious business of a commissioner--have nothing to do with whether one likes or dislikes Trump.
Disclosure 1. I have made campaign contributions to both Lanita Witt and Amy Thuren. I like them both. Dr. Witt was the ob/gyn physician for the birth of my son and I know Amy Thuren through Rotary. They asked me personally to help their campaigns and told me what they hoped to do in office, and I said yes because I know and respect them. I know very little about Colleen Roberts and Rick Dyer--which is my point.
Disclosure 2. I don't hate the Mail Tribune. We need what they say they are, a community newspaper. I want them to do a good job of that. The last time I was critical of the Tribune they took it badly, and said so in print, which had two positive effects. They amplified and spread my message of dismay at their subscription pricing (don't get me started), and they increased the daily readership of this blog nicely. With any luck, once again they will protest defensively and angrily, and write they are doing a great job covering county government, which will draw attention to just how little they do, plus drive my readership to yet another higher plateau. Go for it.
Alternatively, they might question whether they are in fact meeting their self-described mission, then decide they could do better. Then they might actually start covering the incumbent county commissioners and the candidates for the job with enough detail and quantity that voters can make a judgement on them based on viewing their on the job work, not on viewing their ads.
Possibly publishing three or four stories a year that mention a commissioner fulfilling a duty of passing a budget, or a single sentence mentioning a commissioner's point of view on a public issue" is exactly what a community newspaper thinks is appropriate.
And possibly a more diligent search would find other entries that demonstrate a few extra mentions of the commissioners over several years, but I don't remember reading them, nor can I find them using the Tribune's search engine, nor Google's.
News vacuum takeaway: It means citizens who want a feel for what is happening don't get their information from the newspaper. They get it via informal "news" sources, like Facebook or Twitter chatter, comments on local talk radio shows, or casual conversations with people who happen to have seen something.
This means incumbents standing for re-election like Colleen Roberts and Rick Dyer have small public reputations compared with commissioners in the past. It may be a blessing for them politically--it is easy to stay out of trouble if no one is watching. Voters will decide whether or not to retain Roberts and Dyer, but will lack the information they might have had from a community newspaper.
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| News stories do happen |
A corollary of that ignorance is that voters will make a partisan choice. They will know who is a Democrat and who is a Republican. It is a poor basis for choosing a commissioner. I was elected as a Democrat and served alongside Hank Henry, a Republican, and we disagreed on exactly one vote in two years. County issues are controversial sometimes, but they do not align on a national partisan basis. Setback requirements for a marijuana grow, or whether to renew a contract with ARC or OnTrack--the serious business of a commissioner--have nothing to do with whether one likes or dislikes Trump.
Disclosure 1. I have made campaign contributions to both Lanita Witt and Amy Thuren. I like them both. Dr. Witt was the ob/gyn physician for the birth of my son and I know Amy Thuren through Rotary. They asked me personally to help their campaigns and told me what they hoped to do in office, and I said yes because I know and respect them. I know very little about Colleen Roberts and Rick Dyer--which is my point.
Disclosure 2. I don't hate the Mail Tribune. We need what they say they are, a community newspaper. I want them to do a good job of that. The last time I was critical of the Tribune they took it badly, and said so in print, which had two positive effects. They amplified and spread my message of dismay at their subscription pricing (don't get me started), and they increased the daily readership of this blog nicely. With any luck, once again they will protest defensively and angrily, and write they are doing a great job covering county government, which will draw attention to just how little they do, plus drive my readership to yet another higher plateau. Go for it.
Alternatively, they might question whether they are in fact meeting their self-described mission, then decide they could do better. Then they might actually start covering the incumbent county commissioners and the candidates for the job with enough detail and quantity that voters can make a judgement on them based on viewing their on the job work, not on viewing their ads.
2 comments:
Got here late, but brilliant post. Of course I would think this, because I've been saying it for years.
What I really want to know is whether anyone at the Mail Tribune has read it???
Dear Sally,
I don't know what the Tribune knows. About a thousand people a day read this blog, so maybe. Possibly someone has sent them a link to it, or plans to write a letter to the editor making the point and citing the post. I write about them, but don't write TO them.
We need the community paper they aspire to be and claim to be. I aspire to weigh what I weighed in his school, 160 pounds. It would be wrong for me, though, to write about myself that I weigh exactly what I weighed in high school and am darned proud of it. I know the difference between an aspiration and a reality.
Peter Sage
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