Comments on the local media

I've been critical of the local media in this blog before, so it's only fair I should give them a tip of the cap when they deserve it.

Let's start with the local weekly The Chronicle.

As I explained before:

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 daily] Post-Star of publishing and respecting opposing opinions.

[...]

(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 read The Chronicle every week. I think it's a nice community paper. Though I think I could nominate it for the Pulitzer Prize and one reader of this blog still would still find a way to divine anti-Chronicle sentiment.

A few months ago, the weekly hired Gordon Woodworth as its news editor. He has adopted the editor-in-chief's unfortunate habit of making snide references to 'the chain daily,' something which should be excised from purportedly objective news articles. But Woodworth's hiring has brought a welcome improvement to the paper: we're starting to see some more in-depth news pieces. For example, a recent issue ran a piece on how outgoing Glens Falls mayor Robert Regan was able to keep his post as head of the Greater Glens Falls Development Corporation. This is the sort of solid reporting that I hope to see more of in the paper.

However, the article suffered from a problem: it was buried on page 11. And 12. And 13. And it was hard to notice amidst huge ads.

The front page featured human interest stories like a coach fighting lung cancer, the new addition to the local YMCA and a saxphone quartet. But a promo for this piece of good journalism was nowhere to be found.

I have no objection to teasers for the sorts of arts, community and human interest stories that The Chronicle has always excelled in. And I realize that a free paper requires a lot of ads to survive. But if The Chronicle wants to gain a reputation as a serious source of local news or as an alternative that might keep The Post-Star on its toes more, it should do a better job promoting the good journalism it does produce.

While I've criticized the daily The Post-Star in the past, one thing I must commend them on is their continuing coverage of the Hadlock Pond controversy.

Last summer, a dam on Hadlock Pond in Fort Ann (NY) burst. It caused significant damage to local homes and roads, though fortunately no one was killed. The dam was built only two months prior, when the previous dam was deemed unsafe.

From the beginning, the Fort Ann town government's response has ranged from ham-fisted to overight coverup.

The ham-fisted part was exemplified by the Fort Ann town lawyer who pooh-poohed the dam breach and millions of dollars of resulting damage as 'just one of those things.'

The coverup part is more serious. According to reporting in The Post-Star, the town never submitted a certificate of completion for the dam to the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). As a result, the DEC never conducted a final inspection of the new dam nor did it authorize the town to re-fill the pond.

The Post-Star filed a freedom of information request from the town for documents relating to the dam's construction and re-filling, but was denied. The request was denied based on 'security' reasons, with the town supervisor apparently having the unmitigated audacity to invoke 9/11.

The Post-Star has consistently criticized the town government for this shameful coverup... and rightly so. Even if one accepts the absurd premise that terrorists in an Afghan cave might want to bomb a dam in some little upstate New York farming town that they've surely never heard of, the dam isn't even there any more!! The town government's incompetence got to it first!

But maybe the town wasn't incompetent or negligent. Maybe there is some legitimate reason for their course of action. A release of documents would prove this. The fact that the town so angrily refuses to release any information leads people to naturally assume they are as guilty as sin.

The only thing the town government's secrecy is intended to protect is their own rear ends. And the daily is right to hold their feet to the fire.