Lots to chew over in the Standard-Examiner today
By Curmudgeon
OK, all you cheapskates. This morning, cough up a half a buck and buy a copy of the Standard-Examiner. Lots of interesting things in the paper today.
First, of course, the two articles Rudi quoted and linked to below.
Then an editorial taking the legislature to task for making it harder to challenge laws by referendum, calling the change retaliation for the defeat of school vouchers by referendum, and asking the governor to veto the bill. Cal's editorial cartoon on the topic is worth a look too.
Over in the business section, Mr. Schwebke has an article about MidCity's Clearfield project, the only one of the tree that seems to be still on track. Or so the developer claims, though construction has not begun yet. And it seems, they're doing feasibility studies to determine how large some elements of the project, like a public theater, ought to be. Imagine that: doing the research and getting the facts first. Will such a radical approach to planning make it's way to the crack Godfrey development team? We can only hope.
And, finally, there's an article on Mr. Southwick's intention to plead guilty in what another paper has called the largest financial fraud in the history of the state. The Std-Ex headline calls Southwick "a wanted man" though nothing in the story indicates he's on the lam.
So, lots to chew over in the Standard today.
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13 comments:
It would be interesting to know what safegards Clearfield has in place before they hand over $22 million, to a developer that appears to be in deep trouble all ready. It sounds like they will be getting a cultural center out of it, but thats not part of the first phase. The article also leaves out who will operate and be responsible for the center. It also doesn't mention any huge subsidies from Freeport revenues to pay the lions share of the cost.
Are they being more responsible with tax dollars than Ogden City? If so, how? It would be good to know.
The Clearfield project is an accident waiting to happen. Hopefully Clearfield officials will sit back and wait, before they move even more than one step forward on this project.
These projects are further examples of tax money being used to subsidize construction companies and prop up the value of real estate owned by incompetent persons. The only reason it did not proceed in Ogden as planned is some people looked into the fine details of the project and the city council listened to them. In the meantime, the marginally-capitalized contractor is going belly up. Same old story.
More marginally-capitalized developer problems were reported in the SL Trib on Saturday. This time in Salt Lake County, with lots of people and the County left holding the bag.
Developers of mountaintop plan in default
Nice catch, OL.
Coming back to an earlier thread:
I finally spoke to Scott Schwebke on the phone today, asking him who at the city sent him a copy of the angry email from Godfrey to Wicks that was the subject of Saturday's article. He refused to name his source.
In other words, the public doesn't get to know who decided to escalate the Godfrey-Wicks conflict from a private dispute to a public one. The public doesn't get to know who in City Hall is deciding which emails get forwarded to the newspaper and which don't.
(Because Godfrey himself has complained to the press before that Wicks won't meet with him in private, I strongly suspect that he was the one who wanted this in the paper. But in this instance I really don't know.)
I asked Schwebke whether he promised anonymity to his source. At first he said yes, then he backpedaled and said "that's the way we do it here", as if the public is never allowed to know who has the Standard-Examiner's ear.
This isn't the first time this has happened. Readers of this blog will remember that when a private citizen sent an email to Mike Dowse suggesting that he might boycott Amer Sports, the Standard-Examiner reported it as if the citizen was making a public threat--when in fact (according to the individual involved) it was Dowse, or someone else who got it from Dowse, who decided to make the email public. Again, readers were kept in the dark.
In general, journalists are discouraged from using anonymous sources. The ethics code of the Society of Professional Journalists says they should "identify sources whenever feasible" and "always question sources' motives before promising anonymity." It's time for the Standard-Examiner to explain why it thinks these rules don't always apply.
Pure as Caesar’s wife”
SALT LAKE CITY – The chairman of the Utah Democratic Party issued the following statement in response to a report today that Republican members of the Legislature were asked to approve a $42 million “bridge” loan to St. George in connection with construction of a new regional airport. The loan likely would benefit the largest client of Utah House Speaker Greg Curtis’ law firm, Anderson Development.
“It appears that Speaker Curtis has been as pure as Caesar’s wife,” said Wayne Holland. “The public does not know what goes on behind those closed doors.”
The report titled “House speaker says he could not disclose association with bidder” was written by Bob Bernick and published online this afternoon by the Deseret Morning News.
As Republican lawmakers were being asked to provide the loan during their caucus at noon upstairs in the Capitol, Democrat Jay Seegmiller was downstairs in the Rotunda announcing his bid for District 49, the seat Speaker Curtis currently holds.
In a press release last week Seegmiller said, “It’s time to hold him (Speaker Curtis) accountable for his leadership style, rules he imposes on a whim that uniformly benefit his cronies, and the privileged access he grants special interests but denies constituents. I will fight for campaign finance and ethics reform that Utahns overwhelmingly favor but the Curtis Legislature has consistently stymied.”
The report illustrates that when confronted with an apparent conflict between his responsibility to Utahns as a public servant and greasing the skids to help a client make millions, the speaker of the Utah House follows the money.
Dan:
You wrote: in general, journalists are discouraged from using anonymous sources. The ethics code of the Society of Professional Journalists says they should "identify sources whenever feasible" and "always question sources' motives before promising anonymity." It's time for the Standard-Examiner to explain why it thinks these rules don't always apply.
I don't know how this went down, but if the source supplied the SE's reporter with the actual email, and the reporter confirmed that the email was not bogus [i.e. others on the Council confirmed that], then he was not using an "anonymous source" in the usual sense of that term. He had the document to back up the story. The story was based on the document, not simply a claim by an anonymous source.
If he didn't have the actual email, if all he had was an anonymous source saying an email had been sent and saying what was in it, your questions would be very much on target, and [though I don't know the SE's sourcing policy], I doubt they'd have gone with the story without corroboration from at least one other source. But once he had the email in hand, and confirmed that it was not bogus, then the story was no longer from an anonymous source. I wouldn't reveal the leaker under those circumstances either.
Granted, presuming the leak came from an administration leaker, there arises the dicey question of whether the SE is content to become a player in a game of political infighting. And maybe the news staff and editors ought to think about that some. But if someone leaked me an email or memo I thought was newsworthy, I doubt I'd refuse to go with it just because I couldn't ethically reveal the leaker.
I wonder what the Standard's sourcing policy is. Good question.
Curm:
Right after I wrote the post above, I received an emailed response from Andy Howell (managing editor) regarding this matter. He makes the same point as you, and goes on to compare this situation to "whistleblower" cases where the source of a leaked document might fear retaliation. But he never actually comes out and says that this is such a situation, so I still suspect that the only reason the source wanted to be anonymous was to ensure that the story didn't have the wrong political spin.
The facts of the story, as reported, were probably newsworthy in themselves. (The S-E definitely has a copy of the email in question, and its authenticity isn't disputed.) However, a story that disclosed who wanted to publicize this mayor-council dispute would have been much more newsworthy. It's too bad that, due to an apparent promise of anonymity, the S-E couldn't give us the whole story.
I vaguely recall reading something in the S-E a while back, probably in one of the editors' columns, about not using anonymous sources except in certain limited circumstances. But it seems that there is a much broader range of circumstances where they'll promise anonymity to an initial source, then corroborate the information in some other way before printing it. If this is a general policy of theirs, then I suppose I should learn to take advantage of it myself. There have been several instances where I would have preferred not to be named as a source in an article. But the SPJ ethics code seems pretty clear on discouraging promises of anonymity to sources whose motives are suspect.
Dan:
And the source in the email case would seem to be someone "whose motives are suspect."
I wonder, just as a matter of interest, how much of a box the SE has built itself into. Could they now ethically [since they know who leaked the email] pursue other sources to identify the leaker, and if they find two credible other sources who will finger the leaker, go ahead and print who leaked the email? Or would that be dirty pool, since their knowing who leaked it to them definitely would give them a leg up in finding other people to finger him and corroborate. Starts to get really complex, ethically, seems to me.
I'd have to wonder, as above, if someone leaked that email to me, what his or her motives were. I'd probably ask. And if I didn't get a plausible answer, I'd have to think long and hard about whether I and my paper were being played, and whether I wanted to be part of that. I suppose how significant I thought the email was would figure into my thinking on whether to go ahead or not.
And I'd probably be worried that if I didn't print it, the leaker would leak it to some competing news operation and they'd print it, leaving me to have to play catch up on the story. And, too, I'd be concerned that if nobody printed it, but it came out later that I had known about the email and sat on it, that my paper would be charged with playing favorites and protecting one side or the other by spiking the story. [Think for example, just for fun, if the SE got leaked a memo that reflected badly on the Mayor... I know, I know, that's inconceivable, but just for the sake of argument, let's assume it's not. And the paper decided to spike it because the motive of the leaker was pretty transparently to make problems for Hizzonah. And later folks found out the paper had the memo and buried it. The Mayor's critics would raise holy hell about the paper burying unfavorable news about the Mayor. I'd probably be among them.]
Gets really complex, some of the news judgments they have to make.
Dan, thats preety good, Andt Howell promptly setting you straight. Could they be overly touchy?
Let's see, this story is about a leeked e-mail expressing displeasure that despite all the formal channels and meetings, lying little matty can't get Amy alone. This ain't news, Anyone that paid attention to Amy's campain material and public appearances knows she's for open government. Her response to the paper should instill confidence in the people that she's true to her word, unlike lying little matty.
The Standard Examiner ought to be a little more cautious, their obvious love affair with the almighty prevaricator sticks out like short decks yellow decalmobile.
I find it hard to fathom, this leaked e-mail is newsworthy, but when I gave Schwebke all the documentation verifying that lying little matyy allowed Envision Ogden to have a political fundraiser at the Jackass center on the City's nickel, including the amendment to the lease stating the official date of occupation, it was ignored.
Curm and Bill,
Actually, I'd say that the leaked email does reflect badly on the mayor. But the mayor and his inner circle are probably too blind to realize this, so they still could have leaked it in an attempt to make Wicks look bad.
The more I think about it, the more I wonder if Bill is right: This email really wasn't very newsworthy in itself, since the mayor has publicly complained before about Wicks refusing to meet with him in private. For instance, he mentioned it in his videotaped interview after the final votes were counted in November.
Dan:
That the mayor was and is unhappy with the Council's chairperson was not and is not news. What was newsworthy was that the Mayor had, via his email mass-mailed to the council and leaked to the-press, launched a campaign to undercut the Council Chair's authority and support and to sew dissension among the Council members. But that, of course, is not how the story was reported.
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