News notes

I was thinking about what I should say about the Jesse Jackson/Barack Obama snafu when the New Yorker magazine cover came out.

Both are cases of media behaving poorly. Both are national stories that got little play in The Evening News. We’re a local newspaper that focuses on covering the Monroe County area. We print as much national and world news as we can in the space that’s left - and sometimes interesting stories like these get short shrift.

Both are interesting to me because they highlight issues that weren’t handled well by the media.

The first story involved the off-camera (he thought) remarks made by Rev. Jackson about Mr. Obama. A camera was running, and caught Rev. Jackson saying:

“See Barack been, um, talking down to black people on this faith based. I wanna cut his nuts off. Barack, he’s been talking down to black people.”

When the story hit the mainstream media, the Associated Press and most newspapers decided not to report the actual text of the comment. The Associated Press story in The Evening News made two references - first to “a crude comment,” then calling it, “a slang reference to wanting to cut off Obama’s testicles.”

Like most readers, I immediately wanted to know what actually was said. It didn’t take long to find the video on the Internet. I thought it was going to be pretty vulgar. I couldn’t believe that “I wanna cut his nuts off…” was considered to be inappropriate for a general audience - especially since we’re talking about two very high profile people, one running for leader of the free world.

The biggest sin, I thought, was that the paraphrasing made it sound worse than the actual words. Roy Peter Clark, who writes for the Poynter Institute, said it better in this blog post on the subject. By not reporting the actual words, we (the media) deprived people of the chance to decide for themselves how grievous the offense was.

Now, along comes the New Yorker cover. An entirely different kind of mess.

The New Yorker is famous for satirical covers. This time they blew it big time.

In an effort to satirize the offensive stereotyping of Barack and Michelle Obama during the presidential race, the artist depicts Sen. Obama in a turban, giving a fist bump to his wife, who has an afro and is holding an AK-47 in an apparent attempt to portray her as a terrorist. The American flag burns in the fireplace behind the couple,and a picture of Osama bin Laden hangs on the wall.

I’m sure that New Yorker editors thought their sophisticated and liberal audience would appreciate the joke. Ha, ha.

The problem is that satire only works when it’s obviously satire. Too many Americans have believed the untruths that politically motivated rumormongers have spread about the Obamas. The magazine cover reinforces the very lies and hatred it attempts to satirize.

I’m the first to defend The New Yorker’s right to publish satire. I’m generally a fan of satire. But in this case, the stakes were too high and the attempt missed too badly. In a race that should be about issues and leadership and who has the best plan to move the country forward, this cover puts race and bigotry right back in the forefront.

Nice, try, New Yorker, but it didn’t work. The end result is likely to be the opposite of what you intended.

When the world’s leaders get together in a place called Rusutsu, Japan, and agree to cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2050, it sounds like something a long way away that could hardly mean anything to folks in Monroe County.

And, it is true, most experts pooh-pooh the move as meaningless rhetoric.

But few places in the world have more at stake than Monroe County. How many other communities have two coal-fired power plants - not to mention a cement plant.

From the perspective of the world, the critics are probably right. It’s too little, too late, and isn’t likely to make any kind of an impact on the health of the planet.

From our perspective here in Monroe County, it could mean a lot if it leads to tougher controls on greenhouse gas emissions.

Most Monroe County residents want clean air. They appreciate the steps that DTE, Consumers Energy and Holcim have made to clean up their emissions. Many probably would support tighter controls that would make the air even cleaner and do our part to slow global warming. And we also have a nuclear plant and another on the drawing boards - one of the best solutions to burning more carbon.

But most Monroe County residents don’t support controls that would cost the community thousands of jobs.

The leaders of the world’s most powerful countries appeared to dodge any real commitment to cutting pollution. There are lots of reasons for their hesitation. Those reasons are understood better in Monroe County than in most places.

One of the regular users of MonroeTalks, “Kazimer,” challenged me to think about the connection between George Carlin, Tim Russert and MonroeTalks.

Kaz sent a link to a column by Rabbi Aaron Bergman on Detnews.com that made the loose link between Russert and Carlin, noting that they both “spoke truth to power.”

Neither backed down from challenging people in authority - in their own very different ways. Russert, as host of Meet the Press, was unfailingly polite and professional while asking tough questions and insisting on real answers. Carlin took pride in being rude and irreverent, both in his comedy and in his obversations on government, religion and any other institution.

What does all that have to do with MonroeTalks?

Kaz didn’t give his opinion, but I can see the direction he was heading with the question.

As the person primarily responsible for moderating MonroeTalks.com, I take a lot of grief from both sides when there is a controversial post that some think should be deleted.

Of course, I don’t make those decisions in a vacuum. They’re often discussed by several people before a decision is made. And of course, one of the underlying principles that we hold dear at The Evening News is freedom of speech. 

When it’s a close call, we’re usually going to err on the side of leaving it. That angers some people, who think we should be more aggressive in the name of decency. Like George Carlin’s comedy, some of the comments on MonroeTalks are pretty raunchy.

When does a person’s right to free speech get trumped by the public’s right to read a community discussion forum without being offended?

That’s not a question with an easy answer. We have “Terms of Service” for MonroeTalks - as well as for the comments that follow stories on monroenews.com - that prohibit profanity, obscenity and personal attacks, among other things. That helps, and we delete any clear violations. The problem is the huge gray area.

Rabbi Bergman ended his column with a plea that perhaps holds part of the answer.

“Politicians and religious leaders around the country are probably breathing a little easier, because Russert and Carlin will not be there anymore,” he wrote.

“It is up to all of us, in our own way, to continue to demand honesty and integrity from all in public life.”

MonroeTalks is a place where everyone can say what they want - in their own way. They can challenge people in authority, speaking their own version of “truth to power.” They also can tell jokes, swap recipes for potato salad, or banter about baseball.

And they can do it all like Russert, with class and respect, or like Carlin, with sharp and vulgar humor. 

My wife and I are thinking about getting a dog.

I’ve been negligent about blogging lately.

I’m following the growth of Twitter, wondering when and whether we should consider using it to help report the news in Monroe County.

Does all of this have any connection?

Only the tiniest thread.

I was reading the “E Media tidbits” blog on the Poynter Institute Web site this morning. It’s one of the ways I keep up with what’s going on in journalism new media circles.

There was a post by Michael Arrington, of TechCrunch.com, about how Twitter is occasionally turning off the reply function, because of traffic problems. Mr. Arrington noted that he just switches over to FriendFeed.com when that happens.

So I followed the link to see what that was about. This is how he started the conversation he used as an example:

“I keep thinking I should blog something, and then I look out at the ocean and go play with my dog instead.”

Note how short the message is. Typical of Twitter conversations.

Back to my story. That got me thinking about the dog my wife and I are considering. After 20 years of owning a dog, we’ve gone the last 10 or so without one. We’re thinking of getting back into the game.

The vision of walking the dog on the beach gets me thinking nostalgically about past walks with former pooches.

Which leads me to the fence I’ll need to build.

One more time-consuming project that will keep me from blogging.

This, of course, has been the $64,000 question in the newspaper industry for the past decade.

At The Evening News, we have seen huge increases in traffic to our Web sites, and a small reduction in the number of subscribers to the print edition.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that a few people are dropping readership of the newspaper because they get their local news online, but not many.

The available evidence seems to suggest, rather, that most people have developed new habits for using media of all kinds. They read the newspaper for certain kinds of information and entertainment, go to the Internet for other information and entertainment, and turn on the television or radio or any of the  many other sources for other select reasons.

A new study of Ohio readers suggests that’s exactly what’s happening.

The research, conducted by Belden Associates for the Ohio Newspaper Association, found that use of newspapers by readers remains strong, and that use of newspaper Web sites is growing. Now more than 80 percent of all people surveyed used one or the other to get their local news in the last week - far more than any other sources, such as television or radio.

Perhaps more important, more people said they were turning to both the newspaper Web site and the local newspaper than a year ago, while the majority said they were spending less time watching television, listening to the radio or reading magazines.

None of this means that newspapers are the news source of the future. That’s probably not the case.

But it suggests that for the time being people still are using both the print and on-line versions of the newspaper.

I mentioned in the discussion following a recent blog post that I have personal reasons to feel queasy about the Bush administration’s saber rattling with Iran.

In late 2002 and early 2003, in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq, I was torn over what I should say - either in my own column or on the newspaper’s editorial pages.

I should quickly add that I was not employed by The Monroe Evening News at the time. I was at the Zanesville, Ohio, Times Recorder.

My newspaper had endorsed George Bush for president and supported the invasion of Afghanistan. But I was convinced that attacking Iraq - without a plan for what we would do with the country once we conquered it - was a mistake.

As the inevitability of the attack grew near, I several times sat down to write about why I thought it was the wrong thing to do, both for moral reasons and as national policy.

I didn’t want America to lose the moral high ground by becoming the aggressor - the country that started a war. I grew up thinking of America as the white knight, the country that came in when needed to save the day. Invading Iraq just didn’t feel right.

Further, and more important, I didn’t think it would work. I thought it would just give radical Muslims another reason to hate us, and more ammunition to recruit. And there was the huge question of what would we do with Iraq once we drove Sadaam out?

But I didn’t write that column. I stayed silent. And I have regretted it over and over during the last five years. It’s not that my column would have changed the president’s mind. It probably wouldn’t have changed the mind of a dozen readers of my newspaper. But it would have mattered to me. I would have done what I could.

Now, I feel the deja vu. The president is rattling swords about Iran, just like five-plus years ago with Iraq. He’s trying to convince the world that this is a black and white issue - either Iran gives up its nuclear program or …. or what? Another invasion of a country we can’t hope to change? Another example of the United States as the biggest bully on the block?

I hope not. This time, anyway, I won’t stay silent.

In my view, U.S. policy on Iran makes no sense. The president says he won’t negotiate until Iran halts its nuclear enrichment program. He’s drawing a line in the sand and giving Iran only two choices - even though he knows that Iran is not going to allow itself to be bullied.

He’s marching down a path that can only lead to war. And that’s absolutely the wrong path.

When to publish a story during an ongoing police investigation can be one of the toughest decisions facing a news operation.

Such is the case with a story in Wednesday’s Monroe Evening News and on Monroenews.com about a Monroe High School teacher who is under investigation for inappropriate behavior with a student.

The story is receiving dozens of comments from readers on Monroenews.com, some of whom are critical of The Evening News for publishing the story when the teacher has not been charged with a crime.

They correctly point out that our policy is generally to wait until charges have been filed against someone before reporting their name.

We’ve known about the investigation for months. We know about lots of police investigations that never reach the point of a story in the newspaper. If the police decide there is nothing to an accusation, there’s no reason for a story.

Even when a suspect is arrested, we generally don’t name them until they’ve been to court and been arraigned, or until a prosecutor has signed a warrant.

Two things made this case different.

One, the suspect is in a position of public trust. This isn’t a private person - it’s a teacher, someone we’ve entrusted with childrens’ lives. There is a higher public interest in the case.

And, two, the case reached a point where concrete action was taken. The school district put the teacher on paid administrative leave. She was no longer teaching her classes. The case became public, in a sense, because of the district’s action.

From a practical standpoint, that meant that rumors began to fly even faster at the high school. If the local newspaper continued to ignore it, the rumors would just get wilder and wilder.

Ray Kisonas, the reporter who wrote the story, had to sort through a variety of allegations. The phone was ringing in the newsroom as plenty of people offered their suggestions.

The story that appeared in the paper was short, straightforward, giving accurate information. The teacher wasn’t led out of the school in handcuffs by armed police officers. The allegations had nothing to do with the earlier controversy involving volleyball players.

Other commenters on Monroenews.com wondered why the volleyball controversy was brought up at all. If they weren’t connected, why mention it?

In my view, The Evening News showed considerable restraint in not publishing a story about the accusations last winter, when parents of JV players accused the head coach of abusive behavior and favoritism.  We checked with school officials, who said the complaints were typical of parents who are upset with a coach. It’s not uncommon in youth sports, so we ignored it.

Ironically, the topic was covered on MonroeTalks.com, our social networking site. That’s different. The whole point of MonroeTalks.com is to give Monroe County residents a place to bring up any issue they want to talk about, and coaching of high school sports is a likely topic for conversation.

So, because of the MonroeTalks.com discussion, as well as the high school rumor mill, most people in the high school community were aware of the volleyball controversy. One of the first rumors to get started was that there was a connection between the two situations.

If Ray had left the volleyball controversy out of this week’s story, he would have done readers a disservice. It was important to include the information that they apparently are not connected.

I agree with those “posters” on Monroenews.com that if the teacher turns out to be innocent of the accusations, the story in the paper will have unfairly tarred her reputation. I think that’s very unfortunate.

But we wouldn’t have done her a favor by hiding the facts from the public, letting the rumor mill sweep through town unabated.

When the school district decided the situation was serious enough to take the teacher out of the classroom, we had to do our job and provide as many accurate details as we could.

About a year ago, I predicted that none of the frontrunners in the race for president would get their parties’ nominations.

I’m now officially wrong, on both sides of the fence.

My rationale was that both John McCain and Barack Obama had flaws that couldn’t be overcome. For McCain, it was his support of the war in Iraq. For Obama, race and inexperience.

I still feel the same. I can’t imagine America electing as president a man who thinks the war in Iraq was the right thing to do, and who plans on continuing it.

And I can’t imagine America electing a black man with little national experience as president.

But it appears that one will happen.

It’s not that I don’t admire both men. I’ve enjoyed watching John McCain’s political career since he first hit the national stage. He’s independent-minded, and he’s willing to be thoughtful and to listen to others before shaping his views. And for the most part he seems to be honest and straightforward - something I value, as do most Americans.

I don’t know as much about Barack Obama because he has very little track record. I like what he says, however, about national unity and the need to change how we do business in Washington. He’s a very personable speaker who is easy to like. And I think he’s closer to the right approach in Iraq.

Even though I was wrong in my prediction, I still think I was on the right track. In my view, this campaign is going to be about those same issues.

Which issue will American voters - particularly those middle class, often blue collar suburban white folks in the center of the political spectrum who generally swing elections - be able to stomach more: the status quo in Iraq, or electing a black man who looks and talks very differently than them.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think race should play a role. I wish we were past the point where people even noticed. 

But I’m realistic enough to know that many Americans still are struggling with race issues. They don’t see Mr. Obama as a promising young lawyer from Chicago who quickly rose through the state legislature to win election to the U.S. Senate and who has made a splash on the national scene with his fresh ideas and dramatic public speaking ability. They see him as a black man with a radical minister and hazy ties in his youth to Muslims.

I was wrong with my predictions a year ago, so you know about my track record. But my prediction now is that the war and race will be the real issues in November.

A thread on MonroeTalks.com is asking questions about Monroe Publishing Co.’s policies on moderating the forum.

I enter this kind of discussion with reluctance. I don’t want to stifle debate, especially on a topic so close to my heart. I’ve spent more than 30 years defending the First Amendment and believe passionately in free speech.

But some questions have been asked that deserve answers, or at least as close as I can come.

I appreciate the story on Twitter that French Fry posted. It highlighted the similar issues that all discussion forums and social networking sites deal with. How much to moderate is a challenge.

Too little and you lose your forum to people on the fringes. Mainstream folks don’t feel comfortable and leave. Too much and you lose virtually everyone, because who wants Big Brother looking over their shoulder.

We try to moderate as lightly as possible. Weeks go by without any posts being deleted or any users being admonished. I don’t keep records, but my sense is that we average about one incident a month that requires intervention. And sometimes that’s just a minor change, like removing a phone number or e-mail address from a post.

I’ve been asked to talk at national and regional conferences about how we manage MonroeTalks.com because it’s somewhat unique in the country. We’ve been able to create an online community that is more active and more responsible than most.

I really don’t know why we’ve been successful - luck is certainly one possibility. But I tell these audiences that I believe there are two reasons:

One, we moderate very lightly, and at the same time encourage folks on MonroeTalks.com to self-moderate (by that I mean both moderate your own posts before you push the button, and users correcting each other when they see inappropriate material).

And two, we benefit from the small-town atmosphere of Monroe County and the general sense of civility that comes with small town folks. In short, there are a lot of nice people in MonroeTalks and they tend to treat each other decently.

After I gave a talk in Washington, D.C. this spring, the man who moderates the Houston Chronicle’s talk forums came up to me and said, in effect, “Congratulations on MonroeTalks, but it wouldn’t work in Houston. People just aren’t that nice.”

Several people have made reference to their belief that local politicians control how we moderate MonroeTalks. They also seem to think that local politicians control how we edit the Monroe Evening News.

Mention that at City Hall, or the county courthouse, or the offices of our state legislators, and you would get some laughs. Certainly, many local movers and shakers try to influence our reporters and editors. Some call regularly with complaints or concerns. We always listen carefully and politely. Sometimes we do what they ask. But only if we think it’s the right thing to do for our readers and our community.

Actually, there is a kind of double standard when it comes to moderating MonroeTalks. That’s because, whether for better or for worse, our legal system has a double standard when it comes to libel. One set of rules apply for public officials, another for private folks. So when a topic gets critical of a public official, it’s unlikely we’ll step in. They’re fair game. But when a topic is critical of a private individual or business, we have to be careful. If someone can prove they’ve been defamed - and it’s not true - they can sue for libel.

That’s why we didn’t do anything to stop the long threads on MonroeTalks that involved back-and-forth discussion between City Council member Brian Beneteau and supporters of former Zorba’s/Jefano’s owner Jeff Fraunhauffer. Both would be considered by the courts to be public figures - Mr. Beneteau because of his election to the city council and Mr. Fraunhauffer because of his arrest and conviction.

When we delete a potentially libelous post, we’re not just protecting ourselves - we’re protecting the person who made the statement. The Internet Communications Decency Act, passed by Congress in 1996 and updated several times since, protects the provider of a discussion forum from being sued, as long as they don’t moderate too heavily. In other words, if we generally keep hands off, except when someone complains, we can’t be sued. The person who makes the statement can be, however.

That’s one of the reasons we moderate very lightly. We don’t want to “take control” of the forums. If we did, we would be liable for the content.

Editorial Page Editor Tom Chulski and I discussed earlier this week the challenge of finding something for the editorial page each Memorial Day.

We’ve both been in the newspaper business more than three decades. That’s a lot of Memorial Days.

Yet because we’ve written dozens of editorials on the topic of why Memorial Day is important, that doesn’t make the holiday any less relevant. Each year it’s just as important as the year before.

And since we’re currently at war, the holiday takes on even more significance.

This year, the task was made easier by Carleton resident John Durbin, who sent us a timely and well-written guest column reminding people to put aside their picnic baskets and turn off their television sets long enough to celebrate the holiday. It will appear in Sunday’s Evening News.

Oh, and Monday there will be an editorial from The Evening News, celebrating the patriotic men and women who have sacrificed protecting our liberties and reminding all of us that we have a responsibility, too.

This weekend, I have lots of yard work to do. And a few games to watch on TV. And I’d like to see the Indiana Jones movie. And we’ll probably fit in some grilling.

But we’ll make sure we set aside some time to think about my father, who served in Europe in WWII, and my wife’s father, who served in the Pacific, and our nephew in Iraq, and several other friends with children in harms way serving their nation.