Mixed bag over at the SE this morning, but some stuff truly worth reading.
By Curmudgeon
First this:
"Cong. Bishop Says He Never Believed Bush on Iraq War".
Well, OK, that's not what the headline said, but it's what the story said. Bishop visited the SE editorial board for a "free wheeling" 90 minute discussion, during which he told the SE that "he never did buy the argument that weapons of mass destruction were the real reason the US went to war in Iraq." The real reason was Saddam Hussein was a bad man.
Mr. Bishop's trenchant analysis of the President's claim about WMDs as a reason to invade Iraq: "if we were really concerned about weapons of mass destruction, we really should have been bombing France." That was your Congressman speaking, folks. And he wants you to re-elect him.
By the way, Bishop now claims that had he been in Congress when Bush asked Congress to authorize him to invade Iraq, he --- Bishop --- would have voted "no." Sure. Right. One of the most notorious Bush Bobble Heads in the House, nodding 'nay' or 'yea' docilely as his party handlers decreed, would have voted "no" to Bush's war. And he thinks the war was handled incompetently by Bush. And he says now he favors a hard and fast deadline for Iraqi government reform, and a "sudden" removal of all US forces if they fail to meet the deadline. Rob Bishop said that? [Is he running as Democrat this time? Bush lied; the war was bungled by administrative incompetence; we should have a firm deadline for getting out. Has he endorsed Obama?] My god, the Republicans must really be scared. Bishop's astonishing interview can be found here. Going to be very interesting to see if the SE Board bought Mr. Bishops revisionist tap-dance. If they did, I have this bridge in Brooklyn I can let them have for a very reasonable price. Cash only. Small unmarked bills please.
Then there's a story on the Top of Utah page, reporting that the Council and Mayor are about to discuss Ogden City goals and objectives. The discussion will include Malan's Basin development, which means I'm willing to bet, gondolas, gondolas, gondolas. As usual, Mr. Peterson, the presumptive developer of a proposed Malan's Basin mini-ski resort and Tyrolian Fantasy was unavailable for comment. The Council and Mayor will also discuss trolleys, buses and ways to move Ogden forward, improve recreational opportunities, and so on. Stay tuned.... The article can be found here.
Finally, there is on the front page an example of pretty shoddy journalism. The story is about police capturing two convenience store bandits, one male, one female, in Woods Cross after a chase. The reporter is Jesse Fruhwirth. The forth paragraph of the story is this, in its entirety:
"The woman [arrested] garnered at least one whistle and several smiles from a road crew across Redwood Road as a female officer frisked her after the chase ended."
Where the devil was Mr. Fruhwirth's editor? The SE has a new news editor. Where did the paper find him? The NY Post? Has Rupert Murdoch bought the SE without letting us know? What will the headline be next time? Babe Bandit a 10, Gawking Construction Workers Say .
Not good work, guys. Not good at all.
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14 comments:
Curm great analysis of the news this morning. I am wondering how many times the "G" word came up in the Council/Administration work session.
I believe all of the pieces of the puzzle are coming together. The Golf Course is in dire need of reconfiguration, the club house needs to be moved, so that it will be in alignment for what? Would tha be a Gondola? It's all coming together isnt it?
Dan is proving to be a better prognosticator than Nostridamus.
Whatch out folks, we are going to have a Gondola shoved down our throats, and it will be added to the debt of the city.
Godfrey is on a mission, and is aint for the church.
"However, Mayor Matthew Godfrey has refused to sell the golf course and adjoining property to Peterson because, he says, residents fear the city's trail system in the foothills along the East Bench would be adversely affected."
WTF!!!
He REFUSED to sell the golf course.
Where the hell did the SE get that angle.
I am dumbfounded....
Someone get me something strong....
I'm gonna puke...
How the hell do we go from him hammering the naysayers as evil for getting in the way of his obsession with selling the golf course to this fabrication.
Tec: I noticed that too, but luckily it was before breakfast so I had only the dry heaves.
Regarding the issue of Mayor Godfrey's unethical vs. illegal conduct, and whether he will one day cross the line.
All this dissembling and misdirection on the gondola/golf course issue begins to remind me of a paper published a few years ago in the Journal of the American Medical Association. A link to the full text is here.
The authors took a look back at the records of doctors who had lost their licenses to disciplinary action. Over and over, the same pattern emerged: the doctors did little things wrong, unethical things, what I would call "coloring outside the lines". They didn't rip pages out of the coloring books, or put chewing gum in the other kids' hair; their infractions never rose to the level of serious discipline or expulsion.
They just kept coloring outside the lines, and getting told not to, and one day, either emboldened by their previous "successes" in disreputable behavior, or because the crayon just slipped, they found themselves in deep stew.
A recent study showed that medical students who lack thoroughness and are unable to perceive their weaknesses in the first two years of medical school are more likely than those who do not have these deficiencies to be identified as unprofessional in the clinical years (Stern et al., 2005). Our study extends this finding by demonstrating that, among some students, unprofessional behavior is sustained over decades (Papadakis et al., 2005).
I know it's a bit technical, but I would suggest it's recommended reading for anyone who wants insight into that particular kind of unprofessional behavior. I can't tell you what to think, but I do see a pattern here that seems to match that of the Mayor.
"evaluate a future proposal for a resort in Malan's Basin..." I have absolutely no problem with that, if that's really the way it's worded. Obviously if a landowner makes a development proposal that affects the city, the administration and the council should evaluate that proposal. It's really an obligation, not a goal. I just wish the administration had had that attitude two years ago, rather than becoming the proposal's main cheerleader.
What bothers me about the "goals" is this, from the article's final paragraph: "determining the feasibility of a trolley system and transit loop downtown". Excuse me, but the Wasatch Front Regional Council has already taken a very comprehensive look at transit needs in Weber County, and the first priority is not a little loop around downtown but rather a transit investment (streetcar or bus rapid transit) in the corridor from downtown to WSU and McKay-Dee Hospital. That's the project that has a good chance of winning generous federal matching funds as well as funding from the sales tax that we passed last fall. A little trolley loop around downtown wouldn't qualify for either, because it doesn't serve a demonstrable regional transportation need. It would be a cute tourist attraction that would nevertheless cost tens of millions of dollars, and Ogden City would probably have to pay for it (somehow).
The only plausible explanation for Godfrey's fixation on a downtown trolley loop is that he's trying to divert our attention from the WSU transit corridor. And the only plausible explanation for that is that he still wants to put a gondola between downtown and WSU.
Tec:
Yup. Nice catch. I love the image the story conveyed: Brave Matthew Godfrey, courageously refusing to sell the golf course to a real estate developer, selflessly standing against the UnNamed Persons who were trying to force him to sell the course....probably those Smart Growth Ogden types. We all know how devious they are. Thank God Matthew Godfrey was there to save the park for Ogden!
Might have been nice if Mr. Schwebke had at least noted that it was Mayor Godfrey who, for the two years prior to his "refusing" to sell the park [in the midst of his hotly contested re-election campaign], had been the leading proponent of selling the course.
And the SE's news editors, who did not have a good day yesterday, might have discussed with Mr. Schwebke, the important fact that words have connotations, and common meanings, that they covey very specific ideas to readers. And that describing the decision, mid-campaign, of the man who had advocated, loudly, the sale of the golf course for the previous two years, to take the sale off the table during the election as "refusing to sell the course" is, to be as gentle as possible about it, misleading. It is not good writing. It is not good reporting. It is not good enough for My Home Town Paper.
Don't news editors edit copy any more? Has the business changed that much?
Curmudgeon
That is why they call it the Sub-Standard dontcha know!
Marv:
Well, what to do? Throw up our hands, moan "woe is me" and give up? Or pressure them to get better? I don't see any margin in the former.
And let us remember: (a)The SE published Mr. Bishop's remarkable confession today. They get some chops for that. (b) Mr. Schwebke in the past has been criticized for not including in not-selling-the-MOGC stories the fact that WSU "refused" [the word fits there] to sell its land to Mr. Peterson, rendering the sale of the rest [according to Mr. Peterson] moot. Mr.Schwebke included WSU's refusal to sell in this morning's article.
Some of its reporting [and editing] is sub-standard, like today's embarrassing wolf-whistle episode in a crime story. But only some. The SE also prints good work... reporting, editorials, features, columns. Not all the time. But hell, no paper does that. Not the NYTimes [itself fallen from its once olympian heights], not the LA Times, not the Miami Herald, not the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, not the SL Trib. Not any of them.
I think the SE's overall reporting and editorial content is good enough so that the derisive title "Sub Standard Examiner" is a misnomer.[Though clearly it does a better job in some areas than in others.] I've seen really bad dailies. [Check out the San Antonio Light sometime.] The SE is little like them.
Folks tend to focus, where the media is concerned, on things they don't like, on shortcomings, etc. And they tend to forget about, or at least not focus on, stories, columns, editorials, content and coverage they liked.
What I'm arguing is that if we're going to be effective press critics... and everyone who subscribes to the SE or plunks four bits down to buy a copy is fully qualified to be a critic of the paper... we need to notice what they do well, as well as what they do poorly. To keep in mind the high spots, not just the lows. And we need to aim the criticism at encouraging them to become a better paper. Certainly some of what they print would fit comfortably in the pages of a Sub-Standard Examiner. But not most of what they print. And focusing only on the shortcomings won't, seems to me, result in much improvement.
We don't want to become naysayers, now do we? [grin]
I noticed your blog tends to focus on all things Ogden. But I feel like it's my duty to inform you that Weber County Commissioner Jan Zogmaister has made it to the top 5 in our blog: electedhotties.blogspot.com.
The community will be voting on Ms. Zogmaister, as well as other female Wasatch Front county officials through next week.
Just thought you should know.
The gay, babykiller, terrorist, antigun, antichrist is running against me!!!!
http://www.votebillhansen.com/
Good Old (?) Curmudgeon:
The Gondola-Examiner editors aren't worried about bringing their paper up to your level of editorial snuff; rather, they lick at the lap of Gondola Freak Lee Carter, publisher and issuer of paychecks to those who worship THE GONDOLA. God bless you.
Oh, and I forgot:
THE SKI IS BEAUTIFUL BLUE
I was just checking in because of the golf course. You and Ozboy can have your blog back.
/exit + drunk
Jason:
Not my blog. Rudi's. I don't have a blog.
And I don't thing the quality of copy editing at least is much related to the editorial slant [or lack thereof] in stories. Even if the SE was the spineless docile lap-dog of the Godfreyistas some here apparently think it is, what appears in it should still be well-composed and well-edited. And what you're pleased to call "my" level of editorial snuff is, seems to me, the minimal acceptable standard that every SE reader, any SE reader, all SE readers should look for, and insist on, day after day, issue after issue, story after story from the front pages to the filler pieces that run back with the girdle ads.
Good to see you back, J.
Jason is not back, he just got lose from his handlers for a brief moment, just long enough to zing in a couple hits of this blog.
It was in the Standard, didn't you read it? It was pretty small on a far back page under those girdle ads you mentioned. I think the small headline was something like: "Bat Shit Crazy blogger breaks free for brief fling"
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