The Glens Falls daily Post-Star is a publication that suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder. Every few months, the paper comes up with a different obsession to bash its readers over the head with.
Sometimes, it is actually useful, like arguing for increasing governmental accountability and openness. Othertimes, it does more harm than good, like the hysteria they whipped up about teen drinking/binge drinking/drunk driving (which the paper disingenuously treats as one and the same).
The present crusade du jour concerns the counterproductive anti-pedestrian roundabout for downtown Glens Falls that the outgoing [city] Common Council approved.
Incoming mayor Le Roy Akins wisely seems to have some concerns about the permanent roundabout, something which raised the ire of never stand in the way of ‘progress’ folks at The Post-Star. Editorials and opinion columns have chastized Akins to not waste his time revisiting the roundabout and that he should just implement the cockamemie project without these pesky questions.
In addition to being counterproductive, the roundabout will also cost the city some $3 million. The paper regularly attacked the previous Council for refusing to consolidate police dispatch services with the Warren County Sheriff’s office, a move which would allegedly have saved something like $150,000 (a figure critics dispute). The daily also applauded a move by the Council to reduce by $225,000 the subsidy paid by the city for the Civic Center. (This is more of a philosophical statement, since the city is legally obligated to cover the arena’s operating deficit.)
The paper and its columnists continually assault politicians who, in their view, are not sufficiently ruthless against taxes and spending.
Fair enough.
But how can the daily rip politicians who won’t cut $150,000 from the city’s police department and applaud those who cut $225,000 from the sports arena, but savage those who question the widsom of spending $3,000,000 of city money on a boondoggle in silver bullet’s clothing like the roundabout?
A boondoggle that not only fails to address the fundamentally pedestrian-unfriendly (pedestrians being a synonym for consumers) atmosphere in downtown Glens Falls, but makes it worse.
Now, the Crusaders at The Post-Star have gone one step further. Rather than attacking critics of the roundabout, I think their new strategy is to pretend the controversy no longer exists.
In his column today, managing editor Ken Tingley raved about outgoing mayor Robert Regan’s plan for a retail development proposal across from the Civic Center. The plan looks intriguing, provided the city addresses the anti-pedestrian atmosphere I’ve mentioned before.
But Tingley added, in his most Orwellian fashion, that the new Common Council must continue to move forward and stop resurrecting past controversies like the roundabout....
The roundabout has only been approved by the previous Council. It hasn’t been built. Construction hasn’t started. No contracts have been signed. So how did it become a past controversy?
The Crusaders at The Post-Star regularly attack those who dare question the paper’s claims of omnipotence. And it’s not just concerning the roundabout or the alleged paradise of unfettered development.
When a teenager from Queensbury named (I believe) Patrick Murphy wrote a letter to the editor pointing out the logical flaws in the daily’s teen drinking hysteria, he was ripped apart by Grand Inquisitor Tingley and by the editorial board. And after demanding Murphy be stoned for heresy, the managing editor broke his arm patting himself on the back for starting a ‘discussion.’
The next letter Murphy wrote was to express shock and dismay at the way the ‘Hometown Paper’ treated him expressing an entirely reasonable opinion and stated that he’d never write another letter again because of it.
In today’s ‘From the Managing Editor’ column, Tingley had the gall to say “Readers shouldn’t be afraid to let us know what they think.”
He added, I know I have had anonymous phone calls from readers voicing complaints, and when I asked who I was talking to, they sometimes refused to tell me out of fear of retaliation. I always find that disturbing since our goal is to always get the facts right. ‘Getting someone’ just isn’t what we do.
Patrick Murphy might disagree, assuming he hasn’t been burned at the stake already.
Talk is cheap, Mr. Tingley. The Post-Star has every right to think its editorial positions are correct, just as I think my opinions are spot on. But it’s pretty arrogant to attack honest citizens who disagree in good faith and then profess shock (SHOCK) that anyone might be afraid to speak out.
Some day, The Post-Star’s leadership might realize that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. While the occassional strongly-worded editorial can be effective, relentlessly bashing readers over the head is a blunt and ineffective way of convincing them, one that usually has the opposite effect. People don’t like being condescended to. They don’t like being told, “Why are you so stupid/masochistic?”
If anyone at The Post-Star reads this, they may well think that I hate the paper and hope it rots in hell. That’s simply not true. To the contrary, I was a long-time defender of the paper when criticizing it was in vogue. I thought it was a pretty good paper for a small market like ours. Notice the past tense.
I don’t like the sharp decline the paper has suffered from in the last few years. As the only serious source for local news, it’s too important an institution to let its rot pass without comment. I want it to be better. A few weeks ago, it did a good piece on local poverty. It was good, solid reporting on a serious, but hidden/ignored, problem. It was the kind of journalism that should be more common in The Post-Star’s pages.
Drop the pomposity and treat readers, even dissident ones, with respect. And they’ll return the favor. If the paper does that, it won’t have to reassure readers not to be afraid. They’ll figure that out for themselves. I hope this transformation happens sooner rather than later, but I’m not holding my breath.
5 comments:
Up to a point, minister (as they used to say in the British/PBS show, "Yes Minister.") If you favor civility in discourse, why do you insult The Chronicle by calling The Post-Star the only serious source of local news, and why do you ignore the points about the roundabout raised by The Chronicle's editor in his recent discourse with you, i.e. that pedestrian concerns are a key part of the design for the roundabout, which its proponents say will improve pedestrian accesibility? Cheers - RC
The Chronicle is an excellent paper for coverage of arts and culture. And they did a great job letting political candidates express their views in the most recent election.
But news coverage is generally not its strength due to its small budget and staff. I do not hold it against the paper. I think it does a much better job than the Post-Star of publishing and respecting opposing opinions. Which is largely the point of this essay.
However, I am not going to lie and say I think it has Pulitzer-esque news coverage. Does that make it a worthless paper? Of course not. It's better at arts and culture coverage than the Post-Star, but not at 'hard news.' Is that uncivilized? Hardly.
(Though yes, I do object to the fact that The Chronicle's editor regularly criticizes the Post-Star's news coverage and then publishes little news blurbs based on that journalism. Ones that begin, "This week, The Post-Star reported that...")
I'm sorry that you seem to see evidence of my alleged anti-Chronicle hatred behind every cloud but it's simply not there.
Furthermore, your assertion that I haven't addressed The Chronicle editor's explanation of the pro-roundabout side simply is not true. My response to his defense was published in his paper.
Mr. Frost and some of the people who've commented to me about it seemed to think the exchange was intelligent, respectful, civilized and useful. And frankly, so do I.
He said that roundabout advocates claim that reducing the speed to 15 mph will make it easier on pedestrians to cross. As I explained in my published response, I don't accept that this will change anything, except probably to make it worse for pedestrians.
You can't cross the street if traffic never stops, whether it's going at 40 mph or 15. Try crossing Dix Avenue of foot, if you don't believe me.
The delusions of anti-Chronicle bias are all the more bizarre since the only time I've explicitly mentioned the paper in this blog was an entry whose sole purpose was to praise the weekly. Surprisingly, that essay didn't garner any praise or even comment from the readers who divine Chronicle-hatred in every corner of this blog.
Hmmm.. I haven't actually ever accused you of "anti-Chronicle hatred," "anti-Chronicle bias" or "Chronicle hatred." Your response was long but incomplete, failing to address my points. As I mentioned in my Christmas card, I found the correspondence in The Chronicle civilized, but you have not addressed the points raised by its editor about the Creighton engineering study and public meetings, nor my point about your implication that his newspaper is not a "serious source of local news." You do have a habit of criticizing local media, which I do not object to, but if you dish it out you should be able to take it. -
The two questions you asked were:
1) Why did I "insult" the Chronicle by implying that it was not a serious source of local news? (By this, I meant "hard" news since I explicitly praised its coverage of arts and culture and its openness to publishing diverse opinions)
2) Why did I ignore the points about the roundabout made by The Chronicle's editor?
In the previous comment, I answered the first question and pointed out that the second question is based on an inaccurate premise: I DID answer the points about the roundabout made by The Chronicle's editor.
If you didn't like my answers, then that's a different question. If you disagree with the points I made or feel them insufficient, I invite you to get specific.
To sum up:
Just because its proponents SAY the roundabout will improve pedestrian accessibility, doesn't necessarily make it so. As both members and observers of the media know, you can find experts to tell you anything you want to hear.
One-way traffic was once the solution to the traffic issue. Then a return to two-way traffic. Now, only ten years later, it's the roundabout.
The specific reason I'm skeptical about this specific proposal is because to the best of my knowledge, one single fundamental question has not been answered by anyone. Not by you, not The Chronicle, not the Post-Star, not the architects. (If I'm wrong, by all means correct me.)
The fundamental question is this: how can a pedestrian cross the street if traffic never stops?
Until that most basic question is sufficiently and plausibly answered, I can not accept claims that the roundabout will make things easier for pedestrians. Because being able to cross the street is one of the most fundamental elements of pedestrian accesibility.
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