Tag: media criticism

Those golden days of last Thursday

Today’s Globe editorial on Middleborough keeps the string alive — there’s no mention of the second vote, to reject the casino itself. But if you look back to those golden days of, oh, last Thursday, you’ll see that at least one Globe reporter thought the second vote was very important indeed.

In a preview of the Middleborough town meeting for Globe South, Christine Wallgren wrote:

The first of the two ballot items authorizes selectmen to enter into an already-negotiated agreement with the Mashpee Wampanoag and their backers to build a casino complex.

The second item — placed on the warrant by the casino opposition — asks voters whether they want a casino built in town at all. While it is nonbinding, casino opponents hope a negative vote will show state and federal authorities that a casino is not welcome under any terms….

Rejection of the idea of a casino in town would send a message to state and federal officials who must act on other aspects of the tribe’s casino proposal.

“This way, people get to actually vote on whether they want a casino, rather than just voting on a flawed agreement,” said casino foe Richard Young. “This would send a message to the selectmen, and I think at least some of them would take it to heart. They could fight this. Other towns have fought and won.”

Another casino foe, Jacqueline Tolosko, said: “I’ve been told by [state] Senator Marc Pacheco and by [US Representative] Barney Frank that if residents of this town don’t want a casino, they will back us. I think the vote on this is very important.”

Opponents have said they hope a negative vote would have some impact on how state and federal authorities react when the tribe looks to put the land in trust and obtain a compact for expanded gambling.

Exactly. So why does the Globe continue to ignore this important wrinkle? Last Thursday, Wallgren got the nuances right: the first vote was on the agreement with the Wampanoags; the second vote was on the casino itself. Today’s editorial blasts past all that. When is the Globe going to get it right?

The Globe’s stunning omission

I’m stunned that the Globe failed to report that Middleborough voters, shortly after approving the agreement with the Wampanoags, turned around and rejected the casino itself. Despite publishing two stories (here and here) featuring four bylines, the paper somehow couldn’t find an inch to include that crucial fact. The Globe managed to do better in its online coverage yesterday. And as I’ve already noted, the Herald gets it right in its own Sunday story.

So, for that matter, does The Standard-Times of New Bedford, whose deep reporting on yesterday’s proceedings shows that this fight is a long way from being over. First, consider this, from Steve Decosta’s story:

After casting their votes on the agreement and before the final tally was announced, the body, on a hand vote, ironically rejected a nonbinding question to approve casino gambling in town. Only about half the voters remained on the high school athletic field for that tally.

“I don’t think that’s a true indication of how people feel, because so many people had left,” said Marsha Brunelle, selectmen chairwoman.

Asked if that outcome tainted the vote on the agreement, Mr. Marshall [Glenn Marshall, the Wampanoag chief] said: “It’s the end of a hot day, people get tired, people leave. The true number is the one that got counted.”

But casino opponents would not minimize their victory.

“That’s the root question,” said Jacqueline Tolosko, president of the anti-casino group Casinofacts. “We’re really encouraged. The town just said it doesn’t want a casino. How can that not have weight?”

Think about the cluelessness of Brunelle’s comments. Only 25 percent of the town’s registered voters took part in approving the agreement with the Wampanoags. As has been meticulously and widely documented, turnout was held down because of the midsummer heat and humidity, which kept elderly residents and people with health problems away. People who had to work or who couldn’t find child care were kept away, too.

As for people leaving, well, town officials all but told people to leave by staging a disgraceful signing ceremony with the Wampanoags as soon as the agreement was approved, but before the casino itself was put to a vote. [Well, no. See correction, below.] That action in itself ought to be the subject of a legal challenge on the grounds that it was a ruse aimed at making people think the meeting was over.

Even so, the vote to reject the casino was a legal (if non-binding) vote on a warrant article properly put before town meeting. Officials have no right to pretend that vote never took place. Again, think about Jacqueline Tolosko’s remarks: “The town just said it doesn’t want a casino. How can that not have weight?”

The second Standard-Times story, by Steve Urbon, expands on Sabutai’s report about improper influence on the part of casino proponents. Look at this:

Another opponent, Richard Young, pointed to Bill Marzelli and his dozens of orange-shirted casino backers and complained that while they were allowed to wear the T-shirts and white hats that read, “Vote YES for Middleborough’s future,” the police confiscated his side’s yellow leaflets, which explained a few opposition talking points. “I’m not allowed to give you anything to read,” he said.

Do I need to point out that the town’s two police unions have endorsed the casino? This strikes me as sufficient in and of itself to throw out the results of yesterday’s vote. No wonder police didn’t want the media watching.

Let me expand on something I wrote earlier. No doubt some people voted “yes” on the agreement because they would genuinely like to see a casino come to Middleborough. But there were others — plenty of others, I suspect — who voted “yes” because they were told, repeatedly, that the casino was coming whether they wanted it or not, and that they might as well negotiate the best terms that they could.

Last week, New England Cable News’ “NewsNight” program devoted a half-hour to the Middleborough debate. In the first segment, Ted Eayrs, a town assessor and former selectman, debated Greg Stevens, a casino opponent. In the second, I debated town planner Ruth Geoffroy, who favors the casino.

If you watch both segments, you will see that Eayrs (an opponent until recently) and Geoffroy each talked repeatedly about the supposed inevitability of the casino as a reason for approving the agreement. Let me share something else with you that you will not see in these segments: As we were leaving NECN, Eayrs told me that though he favored the agreement as the best way of protecting the town’s interests, he hopes the state will step in and stop the casino from ever being built.

Well, gee, that’s exactly how Middleborough residents voted yesterday, isn’t it? “Yes” on the agreement, “no” on the casino itself.

Gov. Deval Patrick will have a major say in what happens next. Without his wholehearted approval, a casino will not be coming to Middleborough. The governor needs to consider the fact that voters yesterday said “no” to the casino. Patrick should say no, too.

Update: This is really incredible. The Globe runs a slideshow of supporters and opponents of the casino — and the first two are of supporters wearing orange shirts! The message is cut off, but the first guy is also wearing a white cap that says “Yes to Middleborough’s Future.” Remember, the opponents’ leaflets were seized by police.

Update II: NECN gets it right. This report is particularly good on how opponents were marginalized and shunted aside. It also mentions the “no” vote on the casino itself.

Correction: According to this story, in the Cape Cod Times, the vote on the casino itself was held while the ballots on the casino agreement were being counted. WBUR Radio reports it the same way. That’s a significant difference, and I regret the error.

Don’t ask, don’t tell

Media Nation regular O-Fish-L passes along a curious item. It seems that Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi was rumored to have died during the past day or so. Mr. Fish writes: “Now I’ve called the Herald, Fox 25 and WEEI to check on this. All three had heard the rumor and quickly dismissed it as false. Someone at Fox told me that Bruschi’s agent asked them not to run a story dispelling the rumor because it might adversely affect the Bruschi children.”

Obviously this was not a particularly outlandish rumor, given Bruschi’s stroke history. Fortunately, he is alive and well.

Anyway, it appears that the first person to make any public mention of this story was Tom Curran, who posted a blog item at NBCSports.com — and Curran whacks the media, writing:

How did it get this far? Well, the answer won’t really drape the journalism industry in glory.

Apparently, an anonymous e-mail to a TV affiliate in Boston came in Monday afternoon saying that Bruschi had gone to Jesus.

Before getting confirmation from the Patriots that Bruschi was (and is) indeed alive, the rumor made its way to other media types putting them on red alert as well. This caused them to start calling every contact they could to find out if tragedy had struck Bruschi and the Patriots again. And they called two friends and so on, and so on.

So reporters aren’t supposed to ask questions? Isn’t that what we do? It would have been disgusting if someone had put out an unconfirmed report that Bruschi had died, but no one did that. And it was Curran, after all, who broke the so-called news that this rumor was circulating.

Mr. Fish adds: “Trust me when I tell you that this one had legs and caused more panic than the ‘Great Blue Hill Volcano’ from April Fools Day many years ago. I heard it from my elderly mother, to a police Lieutenant that I once served with, to a clerk at the corner store. It seems Curran is the only journalist to officially touch the story thus far.”

I can’t imagine why Curran thinks it’s wrong for any journalist to check out a tip, verify that it’s not true and then not report it.

Following Curran, WCVB-TV (Channel 5) confirms Bruschi’s continued status as being among the living.

More: Bruce Allen explains. (Via Universal Hub.)

Bush, Hitler and political contributions

MSNBC.com’s Bill Dedman, a former Globe reporter and the creator of this gift to journalism, has weighed in with a piece identifying 144 journalists who’ve made political contributions since 2004. Here’s the most amazing paragraph:

“Probably there should be a rule against it,” said New Yorker writer Mark Singer, who wrote the magazine’s profile of Howard Dean during the 2004 campaign, then gave $250 to America Coming Together and its get-out-the-vote campaign to defeat President Bush. “But there’s a rule against murder. If someone had murdered Hitler — a journalist interviewing him had murdered him — the world would be a better place. I only feel good, as a citizen, about getting rid of George Bush, who has been the most destructive president in my lifetime. I certainly don’t regret it.”

Wow.

In case you’re wondering, there’s not much exciting to report locally. The biggest name is Liz Walker, a former anchor for WBZ-TV (Channel 4), who donated to Hillary Clinton and a couple of other Democratic women.

Though most observers will probably focus on the fact that the vast majority of the contributions tilted liberal/ Democratic (or, in Singer’s imagination, anti-Nazi), what amazes me is that journalists would make political contributions to anyone. There are two reasons not to do this: (1) you shouldn’t; (2) therefore you can always tell people that you can’t.

For my, uh, money, Rule #2 is one of the few perks we enjoy.

Jeff Greenfield on the “liberal” media

Jeff Greenfield on liberal media bias:

[I]n my view the danger of bias does not lie in political coverage. I mean, ask Al Gore and John Kerry if they were the beneficiary of a poodle press. They were treated very critically — appropriately.

“Appropriately”? As has been well-documented (start here and here), Gore in 2000 was subjected to the most viciously false media pounding of any modern presidential candidate. From the media-created lie that Gore had claimed to have “invented” the Internet to the hue and cry that he give up on a race that he’d actually won, the 2000 presidential campaign amounted to a shocking eruption of media irresponsibility. The media’s shoddy performance was just as responsible for Gore’s loss as the five Supreme Court justices who handed George W. Bush a victory he hadn’t earned.

No, it wasn’t as bad with Kerry. The swift-boat lies never really broke out of the cable and radio talk ghetto (although Eric Boehlert shows the mainstream media deserve at least some blame), and by 2004 the media were finally starting to catch on to Bush. But Greenfield really needs to bone up on what happened in 2000.

Then again, I remember Greenfield’s popping up on the radio some years ago — on Imus, naturally — to say that he wasn’t all that troubled by the outcome in Florida, because whatever went wrong was balanced off by the fact that the media had mistakenly called the state for Gore before folks in the Panhandle had finished voting. Good grief. (Via Romenesko.)