Cindy Howe mug shot, courtesy of the Daily Astorian
The top headline in the May 7 Daily Astorian was “Howe charged with theft”, in big, bold letters. Turns out the former Sunset Empire Transportation District executive director, who quit last year amidst charges that she drove the district to near bankruptcy, was in town for a court hearing on her case.
The article starts out reporting on the day’s events in court, with a little background, and lots of quotes from the district attorney. Then this sentence: “Howe has been away from the district for more than a year, but the board members are still feeling the aftershocks of her 15-year tenure, during which she built an empire on artificial ground, leaving the district to pay for it with its now-modest operation.”
Being a writer for HIPFiSH, I’m sensitive to a reporter’s obligation to avoid editorializing in news articles. I’ve gotten some interesting feedback from readers who thought I didn’t tell the whole story, or misquoted them, or misrepresented the situation, so I feel a little sorry for poor Chelsea Gorrow, the Howe article’s author. But at least HIPFiSH is an alternative monthly newspaper, and we’re expected to have a little bias.
In the mainstream daily though, I think we all expect objective reporting. Now don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the witty reference to empire in the excerpt above. If this was a quote from one of the board members, or a statement from the paper’s editorial page, it would make a lot of sense. But Gorrow is new to the paper, and for all I know, to the area, and so I wouldn’t expect that she would know much about Howe’s tenure. (I don’t get the “artificial ground” part of the sentence, either. I think “shaky ground” would be better if I were coming up with an appropriate pun for the situation.)
Left out of the article is the background that is so necessary for readers to understand and judge the situation. In a daily print newspaper, there just isn’t the luxury of enough space to convey the whole story to hurried and busy readers. While I’m appreciative of HIPFiSH’s many features on varied subjects, giving readers the necessary background and depth to help in assessing many issues for themselves, they are also limited in space, and many interesting subjects, such as our local bus system, don’t get the space they need.
I’m really excited that the Upper Left Edge is back, in electronic form, to give a voice to the many excellent writers in our community. Isn’t it great that we can all be reporters, poets, artists – communicators – and participate in grass-roots journalism?!
What do you think? Should Howe be thrown in a cell for her role in the local bus system’s near demise? Do the elected board members over the years bear any responsibility? Do you use the bus to get around Clatsop County? Don’t be shy, on this issue or any other that you feel is important. If something in the Daily A, or HIPFiSH, or any other news source you have access to, gets your goose, let the Upper Left Edge be one way that you express your opinion and weigh in on the matter. Become a part of the grass-roots journalism revolution!!
It’s hard to get the words right, as you know. Truth cannot be confined by space and commercial protocol; yet we pretend it can by relying on mainstream middlemen who sell us news and opinion.
For many years I’ve worked as a columnist at various newspapers. The best the press can do is get us in the ballpark, I think, and that’s not enough to win for the public good. It’s up to citizens to pool our insights and figure out how the game works.
If we the people communicate, we can learn to be good stewards of our hard-earned tax dollars and limited natural resources. If we depend on middlemen, we’ll lose.