Earlier this month, The Post-Star's Will Doolittle published a blog entry regarding a Syracuse Post-Standard article on the Adirondack Park Agency and the Adirondack Club and Resort in Tupper Lake. Doolittle, a long time harsh critic of the Agency and of green groups, criticized the central New York daily for shallow, 'he said, she said' journalism. He goes on to add further 'context' that the Syracuse paper should have, in his opinion, included about how the environmentalists were wrong.
I left a comment on the PostStar.com blog saying that Doolittle was essentially attacking the Syracuse paper for not pushing his personal viewpoint. I also pointed out that the shallow 'he said, she said' transcription (not journalism) is a staple of most newspapers and broadcast outlets, including The Post-Star itself. Maybe that's why the daily doesn't do any reporting on Fred Monroe's taxpayer-funded anti-APA activist group.
I guess the comment hit too close to home. The comment has not been published more than two weeks later.
Showing posts with label APA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label APA. Show all posts
Monday, September 17, 2012
Thursday, November 11, 2010
A matter of trust: the anti-APA Post-Star plays fast and loose with APA 'facts'
A few weeks ago, Post-Star head honcho Ken Tingley patted himself on the back for how well his paper informed the public. A month or so ago, he did so again by bragging that his 'Newspaper can still make its readers smarter.' (One observer wondered how many issues of The Post-Star he'd have to read to become smarter than non-P-S reader Stephen Hawking.)
Apparently, even Tingley's large ego became so sore from the repeated massaging that he had to take yet another 'brief' two week vacation.
But his claim that reading the Glens Falls daily will make you smarter is accurate if 'smarter' means knowing things that are demonstrably false.
A few days ago, the paper editorialized that Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo ought to make 'reform' of the Adirondack Park Agency one of his priorities. By reform, they mean abolishing it, as they editorialized earlier this year.
In this week's editorial, the paper wrote:
The 11-member APA board is currently comprised of the commissioners of the Department of Environmental Conservation and Economic Development, the state secretary of state, three members of the public from outside the park and five from inside the park - one from each county [emphasis mine]
There's a little problem (aside from the grammatical error in the beginning): there are more than five counties inside the Park.
I left an online comment pointing out that I thought there were between 9 and 11 counties with territory inside the Blue Line (there are actually 12) and I named them.
They didn't change the wording of their editorial. They didn't claim I misinterpreted the phrasing. They didn't even acknowledge my comment pointing out an apparent factual error in any way shape or form.
This error doesn't seem intentional or manipulative. It's not a detail that's central to the editorial's thesis or the paper's general editorial line. It's easy enough to fix. Why they don't correct it raises some questions? Do they not care? Do they feel that, as the self-appointed watchdog, they are unaccountable?
Even though they can't/won't get their basic facts straight, and refuse to correct them when confronted with their error, I'm supposed to give them credibility and take them seriously on this issue?
Have parts of their purportedly objective reporting on the APA been tainted by such sloppiness with (or manipulation of?) the facts?
Some years ago, I asked my mom if she wanted a subscription to TIME magazine. She said she'd never read that magazine again. When asked why, she said that when she was in college in the late 1960s, the weekly did a story about her university. In it, a graphic or photo misidentified one or more buildings on campus. She explained that if they didn't get the facts right that she knew, how could she trust their account of the facts she didn't know.
As part of the declining newspaper industry, The Post-Star would do well to heed this lesson.
Apparently, even Tingley's large ego became so sore from the repeated massaging that he had to take yet another 'brief' two week vacation.
But his claim that reading the Glens Falls daily will make you smarter is accurate if 'smarter' means knowing things that are demonstrably false.
A few days ago, the paper editorialized that Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo ought to make 'reform' of the Adirondack Park Agency one of his priorities. By reform, they mean abolishing it, as they editorialized earlier this year.
In this week's editorial, the paper wrote:
The 11-member APA board is currently comprised of the commissioners of the Department of Environmental Conservation and Economic Development, the state secretary of state, three members of the public from outside the park and five from inside the park - one from each county [emphasis mine]
There's a little problem (aside from the grammatical error in the beginning): there are more than five counties inside the Park.
I left an online comment pointing out that I thought there were between 9 and 11 counties with territory inside the Blue Line (there are actually 12) and I named them.
They didn't change the wording of their editorial. They didn't claim I misinterpreted the phrasing. They didn't even acknowledge my comment pointing out an apparent factual error in any way shape or form.
This error doesn't seem intentional or manipulative. It's not a detail that's central to the editorial's thesis or the paper's general editorial line. It's easy enough to fix. Why they don't correct it raises some questions? Do they not care? Do they feel that, as the self-appointed watchdog, they are unaccountable?
Even though they can't/won't get their basic facts straight, and refuse to correct them when confronted with their error, I'm supposed to give them credibility and take them seriously on this issue?
Have parts of their purportedly objective reporting on the APA been tainted by such sloppiness with (or manipulation of?) the facts?
Some years ago, I asked my mom if she wanted a subscription to TIME magazine. She said she'd never read that magazine again. When asked why, she said that when she was in college in the late 1960s, the weekly did a story about her university. In it, a graphic or photo misidentified one or more buildings on campus. She explained that if they didn't get the facts right that she knew, how could she trust their account of the facts she didn't know.
As part of the declining newspaper industry, The Post-Star would do well to heed this lesson.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Post-Star series on the APA and NCPR follow ups make waves
"Never attribute to malice what can easily be ascribed to incompetence."
Post-Star projects' editor Will Doolittle recently published a pair of pieces regarding the Adirondack Park Agency (APA) and two cases in the town of Black Brook.
(Part one is here and part two here)
The choice of Black Brook was unusual, as it's in Clinton County, far outside the Post-Star's circulation area. The choice of Doolittle, who has a long history of publishing harsh anti-APA columns, to do a purportedly objective investigation into the APA was also questionable.
The title of part one: 'Under attack by the protectors.'
When I raised this issue, Doolittle defended his ability to be objective despite his point of view. Doolittle is a good journalist, but I maintain that an important, purportedly objective story about the APA should not have been assigned to someone with a open, public contempt for the APA. If the Adirondack Council's John Sheehan had done a purportedly objective report for the same paper on the exact same cases, its appropriateness surely would've been called into question too.
Anyways, Doolittle's first piece uncritically echoed claims by one of the aggrieved parties that the APA and Nature Conservancy were colluding but did not offer a shred of evidence to that effect.
North County Public Radio's highly respected Brian Mann further investigated some of the claims reported in Doolittle's pieces and came to a different conclusions.
Mann's research conclude that 'No, the APA did not conspire illegally with the Nature Conservancy'.
Additionally, Doolittle reported on a four year enforcement case by the APA on a John Maye, a former forest ranger and Clinton County landowner. The case dragged on but was dropped abruptly after a meeting between APA and Black Brook officials in which the latter accused the former of colluding with environmentalists.
The unwritten implication is that the threat of 'exposure' caused the APA to drop its patently unfair case.
Another piece by NCPR's Mann suggested otherwise. During the meeting, town officials shared a key piece of information with the APA rep. The APA claims that it was because they received that key piece of information that they dropped the case.
They claimed that Maye had refused to allow APA officials onto his property and failed to respond to APA inquiries. Both of these are his legal right but it's a bit dubious for him to then claim that the APA was prolonging the case simply to harass him.
I suspect Doolittle was guided, perhaps even subconsciously, to fail to ask the questions and investigate further that Mann did.
Mann wrote, Will Doolittle has expressed a firm opinion about this episode. He thinks the APA mistreated the Mayes and was then suspiciously eager to drop the case.
For my part, I'm just not sure.
The APA had been asking for a chance to look at that foundation for four years and they finally got it. That's a significant fact.
The accounts by Doolittle paint a portrait of a power hungry bureaucracy out of control, opposed only by heroic Clark Kent-like property rights defenders. Mann offers a more nuanced picture; his pieces reflect an agency whose real failings in the case seemed more about understaffing and general bureaucratic inertia.
And this perfectly illustrates the difference between pieces on the APA written by an openly anti-APA journalist and those written by one with no apparent agenda.
There are very real issues with the APA.
The fines it can impose should have a cap or at the very least, should have some kind of explicit structure. The Agency's defense of exorbitant fines ($2.9 million in one of these cases) is that it never actually collects the huge amounts; this is unpersuasive. Perhaps, fines above a certain amount can only be imposed by a court (see below).
There should be some legal obligation of responsiveness by the Agency to inquiries from property owners and municipalities. Perhaps there should be an independent ombudsman to address complaints where such responsiveness was not forthcoming or other unfair treatment alleged.
The APA board should comprise entirely full-time residents of the Park. Localities and counties should have some input into the Agency's staffing and board composition.
Most importantly, there should be some sort of judicial review available of the Agency's decisions, within the context of state constitution's Article XIV ("Forever Wild"). The APA is described by some as the zoning board for the Adirondack Park. But most zoning boards have zoning boards of appeal and this one should too. One of the reasons for the very real resentment of some Park residents is that the APA is viewed as judge, jury and executioner. Judicial review would help alleviate this.
I believe in Forever Wild. And I believe that the APA should play an important role in maintaining this. The Agency has its faults and should be reformed. And Doolittle's pieces really did expose a few disturbing facts that should be a addressed. I believe that in trying to protect the little guy from abuse by a government agency, we shouldn't go too far and expose the little guy to abuse from big developers who can do much more long-lasting damage.
But The Post-Star's inexplicable decision to assign this legitimate story to its most adamant anti-APA reporter to do this investigation was a journalistically indefensible, one clearly illustrated by the omissions that Mann revealed.
I urge you to read Doolittle's and Mann's pieces and judge for yourself.
Post-Star projects' editor Will Doolittle recently published a pair of pieces regarding the Adirondack Park Agency (APA) and two cases in the town of Black Brook.
(Part one is here and part two here)
The choice of Black Brook was unusual, as it's in Clinton County, far outside the Post-Star's circulation area. The choice of Doolittle, who has a long history of publishing harsh anti-APA columns, to do a purportedly objective investigation into the APA was also questionable.
The title of part one: 'Under attack by the protectors.'
When I raised this issue, Doolittle defended his ability to be objective despite his point of view. Doolittle is a good journalist, but I maintain that an important, purportedly objective story about the APA should not have been assigned to someone with a open, public contempt for the APA. If the Adirondack Council's John Sheehan had done a purportedly objective report for the same paper on the exact same cases, its appropriateness surely would've been called into question too.
Anyways, Doolittle's first piece uncritically echoed claims by one of the aggrieved parties that the APA and Nature Conservancy were colluding but did not offer a shred of evidence to that effect.
North County Public Radio's highly respected Brian Mann further investigated some of the claims reported in Doolittle's pieces and came to a different conclusions.
Mann's research conclude that 'No, the APA did not conspire illegally with the Nature Conservancy'.
Additionally, Doolittle reported on a four year enforcement case by the APA on a John Maye, a former forest ranger and Clinton County landowner. The case dragged on but was dropped abruptly after a meeting between APA and Black Brook officials in which the latter accused the former of colluding with environmentalists.
The unwritten implication is that the threat of 'exposure' caused the APA to drop its patently unfair case.
Another piece by NCPR's Mann suggested otherwise. During the meeting, town officials shared a key piece of information with the APA rep. The APA claims that it was because they received that key piece of information that they dropped the case.
They claimed that Maye had refused to allow APA officials onto his property and failed to respond to APA inquiries. Both of these are his legal right but it's a bit dubious for him to then claim that the APA was prolonging the case simply to harass him.
I suspect Doolittle was guided, perhaps even subconsciously, to fail to ask the questions and investigate further that Mann did.
Mann wrote, Will Doolittle has expressed a firm opinion about this episode. He thinks the APA mistreated the Mayes and was then suspiciously eager to drop the case.
For my part, I'm just not sure.
The APA had been asking for a chance to look at that foundation for four years and they finally got it. That's a significant fact.
The accounts by Doolittle paint a portrait of a power hungry bureaucracy out of control, opposed only by heroic Clark Kent-like property rights defenders. Mann offers a more nuanced picture; his pieces reflect an agency whose real failings in the case seemed more about understaffing and general bureaucratic inertia.
And this perfectly illustrates the difference between pieces on the APA written by an openly anti-APA journalist and those written by one with no apparent agenda.
There are very real issues with the APA.
The fines it can impose should have a cap or at the very least, should have some kind of explicit structure. The Agency's defense of exorbitant fines ($2.9 million in one of these cases) is that it never actually collects the huge amounts; this is unpersuasive. Perhaps, fines above a certain amount can only be imposed by a court (see below).
There should be some legal obligation of responsiveness by the Agency to inquiries from property owners and municipalities. Perhaps there should be an independent ombudsman to address complaints where such responsiveness was not forthcoming or other unfair treatment alleged.
The APA board should comprise entirely full-time residents of the Park. Localities and counties should have some input into the Agency's staffing and board composition.
Most importantly, there should be some sort of judicial review available of the Agency's decisions, within the context of state constitution's Article XIV ("Forever Wild"). The APA is described by some as the zoning board for the Adirondack Park. But most zoning boards have zoning boards of appeal and this one should too. One of the reasons for the very real resentment of some Park residents is that the APA is viewed as judge, jury and executioner. Judicial review would help alleviate this.
I believe in Forever Wild. And I believe that the APA should play an important role in maintaining this. The Agency has its faults and should be reformed. And Doolittle's pieces really did expose a few disturbing facts that should be a addressed. I believe that in trying to protect the little guy from abuse by a government agency, we shouldn't go too far and expose the little guy to abuse from big developers who can do much more long-lasting damage.
But The Post-Star's inexplicable decision to assign this legitimate story to its most adamant anti-APA reporter to do this investigation was a journalistically indefensible, one clearly illustrated by the omissions that Mann revealed.
I urge you to read Doolittle's and Mann's pieces and judge for yourself.
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