Yikes! It appears a new thread is in order. During our last thread we invited WCF readers to release their final anger and angst, concerning the prospect of having Boss Godfrey "reign" over our town for four more years. And Man Alive...did they ever doo that...
Lots of anger, angst and political pain was displayed in the lower thread. We left it open for maybe too long bcause we thought it might be "cathartic." Then again, maybe we shut it down too quickly.
Time for a new thread, your blogmeister thinks.
We'll be moving a couple of Curmudgeon posts here, and will eventually publish our own anti-right wing socialist schpiel, right here on Weber County Forum.
Meanwhile... lets's just consider it the newest weekend open thread.
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24 comments:
The one comment that rang through load and clear from both sides is the terrible job that the Standard Examiner is doing.
Their reporting of events and their editorials lack depth in detailing what the reported story is actually all about. One can not get a true feel for what the real issues are in a reported story by reading this paper.
The SE needs to do the front end investigation of an issue and get a better understanding of the story itself before it take a position on an issue or for that matter before it reports on the issue. Their lack of research and analysis is disappointing when compared to other papers and their obvious bias clouds their reporting.
Like it or not the paper is viewed as the source of credible information within most communities and when they let their bias interfere with this credibility they undermine that credibility and encourage their readers to seek out other sources for information. I understand that no one or entity can report something without bias but to assume a position without a full knowledge of the facts on the front end is not meeting that fiduciary responsibility that a paper is viewed as occupying. No one or entity on any particular side of an issue is all right or all wrong and it is the papers responsibility to point out the errors in the thinking on both sides. This is what creates credibility and this is what keeps the people reading the paper.
Standard Examiner, step up to your responsibility.
We've subscribed to the Des News also. Amazing the wealth of info in it...national, international news....local.
We were offered a good promotional deal to take it and we're glad we did.
Couldn't agree more with your analysis.
The Se and it's reporters do no investigative reporting.
As Schwebke told me when I alerted him to Godfrey misusing Huntsman's voice on the phone dialer and radio ad..."Scott, you need to write an investigative report on this."
Scott: " I don't DO investigating, I just write the truth.""Well. Scott, if you write the truth, you will be investigating, won't you?"
It's evidnetly their policy to keep anything they know of a derogatory nature to Godfrey to themselves, and let the citizens be fed pablum.
Such a disservice to their readership.
We meed another paper or two in this town so badly.
Does the Deseret News have a Saturday TV guide for the next week?
That is the only thing I don't like about my new subscription to the Tribune.
It is such a relief to open up my morning paper and not have to see Godfrey's face nor an article about how much taxpayer money he has given a company to come to Ogden to compete with local businesses.
However - today's Trib did have a sickening article on how much The Governor's Office of Economic Development had given of Utah taxpayers' money to Goldman Sachs to help expand their existing office in SLC to bring in 350 more employees to be paid $75 grand a year.
Goldman Sachs needs $20 million like I need 4 heads so the Guv is giving them $20 million in tax incentives over 20 years.
The time has now "ar-riv-id" to declare war on Huntsman's being re-elected. He has done too many stupid things to stay in the office of Governor of Utah.
Goldman Sachs is one of the world's largest and wealthiest investment banks in the world.
I think they could handle bringing in 350 of their employees to Salt Lake without my help.
This really does not set well with me.
What on earth is the Utah GOED considering in this giveaway?
Sharon,
I don't think anyone on either side of these recent events was well serve by the paper. They were harmed as much as you were, in that some on the other side of the issues may have had different views of the events had they known "the rest of the story" and likewise in reverse.
The Standard Examiner is not living up to what people expect from a local newspaper, that of being a credible source of information with editorial opinions that are based on a complete knowledge of the issues. I feel that the paper‘s lack of presenting objective research on the issues and then informing their readers with all of those facts so that their readers could develop informed positions on the issues has been equally contributory to the divisions within the city as the issues themselves.
I used to look first to the paper to get up to speed on issues and expected the paper to present that information in an informed manner. I may not agree with all decisions made by authorities, all political outcomes or editorial positions taken by the paper but I expect that I should know all of the facts involved in order to arrive at my decision. Today, I can’t expect to get the whole story from the local paper, something that I used to be able to do. I don’t think that they are doing their job
The point I’m trying to make is that the paper is not serving their readers, irrespective of what side of the issue their readers are on. That’s a consensus of both sides and something that the paper better understand.
On the ill-informed/educated nature of [sadly] much of the American public: The SL Trib today has an interesting discussion in its Readers Advocate Column. Earlier this week, the paper ran a feature on how to spruce up Thanksgiving dinner. Nothing wrong with that, except the Trib ran it under the headline "Pimp My Feast".
You can imagine what happen. The Reader's Advocate's phone line lit up like a Christmas tree. Complaints poured in, objecting [rightly] that the headline was in poor taste and out of line for a newspaper story about new recipes for Turkey Day. [I agree; I would not have run that headline.] But one of the complainers' emails was, I think, profoundly depressing:
"My 16-year-old was shocked to see that published in the paper. 'If we're not allowed to say that at school, are they really allowed to say that in the paper?' was his question. He told me that a speaker recently came to their high school to further the students' understanding of the word and its derogatory origins. The word now disgusts him, his friends and the girls they know."
A high school student in Utah apparently believes that newspapers should not be allowed to use words in print that minors are not permitted to say while in school. Think about that: that papers should not be allowed to use words or terms that offend readers. Not be allowed.
Not be allowed by who? The government? [State? Federal? Local?] Which raises the question of whether the middle and high schools in Utah spend any time educating students about the bill of rights? About free speech and what that means? About that fact there there is not, anywhere, in the US Constitution [or the Utah constitution] an enforceable right not to be offended?
Truly sad. Sad also that the complaining parent... an adult we must presume... apparently saw nothing wrong in his or her child's belief that newspapers should "not be allowed" to offend readers by using words students aren't allowed to use in school.
The proper response to the Trib's ham-fisted headline was to lambaste the paper by phone, mail and email for its bad taste. Which many did. But arguing that bad taste in the press should "not be allowed" is a very different thing.
Pretty depressing, I thought, and a sadly typical indication of the sadly widespread weakness of American history and American civics education in the US generally.
Real Journalism --- or What the SE Should Be Doing And Too Often Isn't.
Interesting piece this morning on www.cnn.com It's from New Orleans. Here are the opening graphs:
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- A system of floodgates and pumps built since Hurricane Katrina to help alleviate flooding in several New Orleans neighborhoods may not be as much help as authorities first said.
The Army Corps of Engineers test canal pumps in New Orleans in August.
The Army Corps of Engineers released flood risk maps on a block-by-block basis on June 20, but didn't include some technical data, preventing independent assessments of the accuracy of the maps.
The maps showed that the improvements made to the city canals' drainage systems would reduce flooding during a major storm by about 5.5 feet in Lakeview and nearby neighborhoods. The maps were based on a storm that has the likelihood of occurring at least once in 100 years.
But in a report released November 7, Corps scientists estimated that the actual benefit the system would provide would be just 6 inches.
The discrepancy was tucked into the voluminous report's appendices, and neither the Corps nor the scientists hired to conduct the study brought the changes to the public's attention when the report was released. It wasn't until New Orleans television station WWL-TV asked an engineer involved in the assessment about the discrepancy that it became known.
Note: A government agency issued a report, and WWL-TV decided to check it accuracy rather than merely accept the blizzard of numbers as graven in stone and handed down from the mount. And lo and behold, WWL unearthed a major story: the Army Corps of Engineers report claiming new floodgates and pumps would reduce flooding by 5.5 feet got it wrong. All those millions of dollars worth of new floodgates and pumps would only reduce flooding by six inches.
Now, had that report been issued here in Ogden, odds are the SE would have [given past performance] printed it straight and unexamined. Congratulations to WWL-TV, New Orleans for committing journalism. And I hope the news editors of the SE notice that not only did WWL get a major story out of doing what the press is supposed to do, it also in the end served the public interest.
Here is a link to the full story in hopes the SE's news editors will read it. And take notes.
If the Big Nickel was smart they would start carrying the obituaries’, a selection of comics, the police scanner report and a local events calendar. Those plus their want ads would provide most SE readers with the same amount of information as those readers are currently getting out of the SE.
I wonder how long it would take for advertisers to start using the Big Nickel if it went after the SE in the local market.
I find it interesting too, that the ex-standard dummy gets the paper for the weekly TV guide insert. It would be cheaper to buy an annul subscription to TV Guide and drop the SE paper if that all your interested in.
You can get tv listing on line for free.
couch potatoe,
great suggestion!
Big Nickel vs SE?
Give me a break. With all of its problems [which mostly IMHO involve taking press releases, and official statements from public officials, and reporting them as unexamined or checked fact], the SE provides a great deal more in re: the greater Ogden metropolitan area than SL Trib or the DN. A great deal more.
It covers Ogden area HS sports much more fully than the SL Trib. Doesn't matter much to me, but most people in the mullet-wrapper business I know tell me covering local sports matters a whole lot to a whole lot.
Then today the SE ran an interesting article
on "The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster" and how those who study religion are starting to look at it with some seriousness... sort of. Didn't find that in my SL Trib.
Another story in today's paper revealed how administrators in the Davis County schools district managed to finagle themselves fat bonuses while claiming they were unable to fund the full one K bonus the legislature intended for teachers this year. Didn't see that in the Trib either.
And a front page story on how the planned route for the Legacy Highway extension through Weber County has [as state rep. charges] been made with virtually no opportunity for public input. Seems to be an SE exclusive.
And a Your front page story reporting that the Air Force and Navy are turning 50K vets out of jobs so they can use the money saved to buy more hardware. From the story:
To free up money for more expensive weaponry, the Air Force and the Navy are telling 50,000 that their time in uniform has come to a premature end.
“It’s like I’ve been shot right in the heart,” said one Air Force major, afraid that talking publicly about his impending layoff would complicate the waning months of his military career or jeopardize prospects in the civilian job market....
“The Air Force said, ‘We’ve got to protect the F-22.’ So they cut every cost they could,” said Cindy Williams, a defense analyst at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the editor of Fill- ing the Ranks.
“That’s why these jobs are going away.”
Brass in the Air Force and the Navy have essentially decided to spend more on hardware and less on troops.
Interesting story, well worth the reading.
The point is, folks, that not everyone is fixated exclusively on Ogden City politics, and not everyone is as wonky about city politics as I and I presume most of us here are. And there is a great deal in the SE that is worth the reading and knowing about besides Ogden city political and municipal government coverage. Without conceding one bit of the criticism of its local news coverage gaffes [and editorial fumbles] that I've been posting about here for two years or so now, it is still true that cutting off the SE means cutting yourself off from much else besides local political coverage. And much of what you'll miss is not replicated in the SL Trib or the DN. Neither cutting off your nose to spite your face nor throwing the baby out with the bathwater are, as a rule, wise things to do.
Like it or not, to be consistently up on events of all kinds on the Greater Ogden Metropolitan Area [GOMA], the SE is the only game in town.
Looks like the SE finally put in some interesting articles, Curm.
I thot it interesting that NO Ogden folks are seemingly spit on sidewalks for school kids.
However, today's aer is a fluke, IMHO. Most of the time, there isn't much to read in there.
Stories about the war are found several pages back, if at all.
Roadside bombings are down by 77% !!!! I didn't read that in the SE, did you? Did I miss that good news?
I heard it first on Fox News (cable) and then later, NBC finbally reportd that good news. They usuually have nothing good to say about what is happening in Iraq.
Ex Standard:
I looked thru the DES NEWS and didn't see a tv guide booklet. I'll check tomorrow's paper.
My husband has lived here since Moses was in the bulrushes, so he takes the Standard for the obits, and since he was a coach, and tetosterone oozes from his pores....he likes to read the sports page. (this was supposed to be at the bottom of the post)
The Se doesn't do a very good job on national news either.
The Des News has an interesting article on Warren Jeffs claiming not to be a prophet after all.
Utes 28, Lobos 10. Next victim - the Bros.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wow! Rebecca Walsh has done a superlative analysis of our Mayoral election in today's SL Trib.
Standard Examiner, this is what you should be doing!
Well Ogdenlover,
I haven't checked out the Trib story, but if you want to throw up your oatmeal, read Robinson's whitewash of the little dictator in the DesNews today.
Sorry, I don't know how to link.
Stu Reid is the cheerleader on this fluff piece....and for $43,000. I coulda been also.
PLS NOTE THAT GODFREY WILL ADD A HOTEL ON TOP OF THE JUNCTION FOR THE GONDOLA TO PASS THRU TO A RESORT ON THE SOUTH SLOPE OF THE MOUNTAIN OVERLOOKING OGDEN!!!
Did any of us ever think this little liar had any other plans? Methinks y'all better not miss one CC mtg from now on....and that includes work meetings where Harmer and the othr flunkies lay out all the great plans for the council.
The only impressive thing I found in the article is that the Godfrey's are debt free! Wish our city was.
But, according to the 'frugal one'....we'll be debt free in just a few short years.
It'll be all gravy flowing into the troughs.
Read it and shake your head.
Oh, and note 'the retail stores at eh Junction.'
Read it....what a load of baloney.
Hey OGlover
I'm trying to bring up the walsh story..and can't access it off the internet. Do you have the paper or are you on internet?
thanx
Finally! A good article by Walsh....wish she'd gone further tho. Will anyone?
I'm not a fan of Bob Geiger, I just think Neil Hansen needs to get a life, that guy just creeps me out.
Neil Hansen's name shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath with the rotten vandal, Geiger...either one!
Neil Hansen cares for Ogden and it's people. I watched him in a leg. mtg...he had the best comments and ideas to put forth.
Shame on you, coyote!
This suit is a waste of taxpayer money, anyone with 1/2 a brain realizes what a joke this guy really is. Shame on you and Hansen. I've NEVER heard one sensical thing come from the mans mouth he's a fatheaded disaster.
I think ogden agreed he didn't even make it pass the primaries! What a LOSER
OL:
Walsh's column [not article] is the best post-election analysis of the division in Ogden, the election and how it came out that I've seen yet. Nice bit about the city's divisions reflecting The Marshall White Center on one side and the Saloman Center on the other. Interesting piece, and well-written.
Sharon:
This from Robinson's piece in the DL:
The Ogden River and the adjacent land were cleaned up, some 60 acres so far, with dumps and other rundown areas being replaced by kayak parks, cafes, stores, trails, parks, housing, fly-fishing parks, and more is on the way, including a one-of-a-kind man-made ice-climbing tower of real ice.
Notice that his careless prose suggests all this has already been done in the River Project zone. Seems to have mixed up "planned/hoped for" with "already achieved." But that often happens when a real estate huckster is driving a mark around, pitching. One would like to think a newspaper man would be just a little skeptical about such claims. And Mr. Robinson seems to think the Ice Tower will be going up somewhere along the River, which gives you either some idea of how closely he was paying attention, or some idea of how sloppily he composed his piece, or some idea of how dazzled he was by the pitchman. Take your pick.
But hey, the Deseret News appointed as its editor last year a man with exactly zero newspaper experience, but lots of experience on committees overseeing church publications. Apparently looking at things primarily through the eye of faith is required of its columnists too....
And thanks for pointing out that the Mayor is still pitching the gondola chimera. No news there.
Ms. Walsh lives in Ogden, I think, or used to, and Mr. Robinson does not. Which may account for one of the essays being grounded in reality and the other falling into wide-eyed belief as the huckster pitches the mark.
riley coyote:
I think you've been toe tapping too much with Republican Senator Larry Craig way too much. Your stance just keeps getting wider and wider. The stance in your mouth that is!!!
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