The Star Gives Republican Ryan Silvey A Free Pass to Lie

Jason Noble of the Kansas City Star proved today that he is a stenographer, not a journalist.

Back in the day, journalists had a higher duty than simply copying down whatever lies a favored politician offered up. Instead, they would ask follow-up questions to expose the lie, or even put a sentence in their article explaining that what the politician said was false.

But, at the Kansas City Star, if the lie you are spouting is an attack on our Mayor, you face no such hostility or defense of the truth.

Today, Republican Ryan Silvey pulled a shallow publicity stunt, threatening to harm Kansas City because he wants our city to take tax dollars from basic services and donate it to the County for the stadiums. So far, so good - I understand that Ryan Silvey is part of a minority of people who think that we should not fully fund our police department but we should fully fund stadiums for suburbanites. We disagree, but he's entitled to his own positions.

Ryan Silvey is not entitled to make up his own facts, though. In defending his publicity stunt, Silvey claimed, "Pulling the money breaches the city's contract with the Chiefs and Royals . . .".

Folks, that's a lie. A big, fat whopper of a lie that no serious observer of the stadium drama could fail to recognize. There is no contract between the city and the teams.

Did Jason Noble challenge the falsehood? Did Jason Noble point out in his article that there is no contract between the city and the teams? Did Jason Noble ask a follow-up question to clarify the point?

No.

(Update: A commenter below points out that the Kansas City Business Journal has the journalistic integrity and tenacity to look at the contracts and acknowledge that there is no legal agreement binding the city to any payment.)

Outrage Addicts and Zero Tolerance

"Outrage Addicts" are a peculiar set of amateur commenters, quick to express their shock and dismay about the latest offense against "common sense", and eager to decry the bureaucrats or activists who wander into their crossfire. They thrive on disgruntlement and tend to view themselves as homespun geniuses of horse sense - if only the world would check in with them before acting, it would be a better, if less outrageous, place.

(As an aside, this group tends to be the absolute worst at fact-checking, though the very outrages they speak against tend to be those that cry out for suspicion. Thus, they send out their OMG via emails and blog posts on "controversies" that are almost always fictional or exaggerated. Thus, a suit about a religious symbol on public land mysteriously becomes an attempt to remove the crosses from Arlington Cemetery, and a product liability lawsuit filed becomes a multi-million dollar award for a misspelled word in a warning label. Snopes is their buzz-kill.)

All of which is a lengthy introduction to the latest "outrage" circulating through the community of Outrage Addicts, and their long-suffering email companions. A 6 year-old Cub Scout in Delaware brought a camp eating utensil to school, and was suspended under a post-Columbine zero-tolerance policy against bringing weapons to school. Under the policy, he could conceivably be sent to the District's reform school for 45 days, and so that is the exaggerated threat being reported by the Outrage Addicts.

In this instance, the Outrage Addicts have the facts mostly right, partially because they are relying on a report by the New York Times. (More commonly, the outrage of the week comes from less credible sources, like AM radio or World Net Daily.) Of course, the threat is exaggerated and the slanted facts are picked like ripe red cherries, and the fact that the School District has already resolved the problem in favor of the little boy has not caught up (and never will catch up) to the exaggerated story of his peril, but that's part and parcel of stories like this one.

While this particular anecdote is being circulated as an attack on zero tolerance policies, the same facts could be used as an instance of outrage if the official response had been to ignore the tiny knife-wielder.

"Troubled child from a broken home, in defiance of well-publicized policy to protect his tiny classmates from injury and death, brandishes a knife in the classroom. Upon being stopped before the blade 'accidentally' removed some little girl's eye, he claimed he only brought it to use on his lunch. His irresponsible single mother, who sent her child to school armed with a knife even though she knew of the policy, is seeking to get the policy changed so that 6 year-olds can carry weapons to school when they or their parents see fit."

Outrageous, isn't it? If the story had included a few other facts, such as a child being accidentally hurt or, God forbid, if the child had been poor and a minority, these same circumstances could be circulated among the Outrage Addicts as a shining example of why common sense requires that we need a strong policy of zero-tolerance to protect our children from these knife-wielding barbarians.

So, in that context, what does the outrage du jour teach us about the impact of zero-tolerance policies? Sadly, it teaches us almost nothing, except for the fact that they can, in some instances, result in penalties for those who choose to ignore them. But acts portrayed as outrageous can have a disproportionate impact on public policy.

Long before the Delaware Dagger case made headlines in the Times, serious people have been struggling with the issue of the impact of zero-tolerance policies. Some argue that they over-criminalize, and others argue that more discretionary policies result in discrimination against minorities and ignoring dangerous behavior. A quick search can turn up dozens of studies supporting either view.

Honestly, I have no spectacular wisdom on the subject of zero-tolerance policies (surprised, aren't you?). Having glanced at a few of the studies and given it a bit of thought, I probably lean against them, and certainly acknowledge that, for them to be fair and effective, they need to be drafted with incredible care and forethought - more of both than one typically finds in policy manuals.

But I insist that my knowingly-uninformed indecisiveness is superior to the knee-jerk "common sense" being spread by the Outrage Addicts. I know what I don't know, and I would not want to form public policy on the basis of a cherubic 6 year-old Cub Scout who wanted to eat lunch with his new toy. My critical faculties make me realize that I could just as easily be forming public policy on the basis of a thuggish 6 year-old crack baby sent to school with a blade by an unemployed drug-dealing mom.

Reaction to outrageous anecdotes is a poor substitute for careful thought. If we're going to engage in a rational discussion of zero-tolerance - and I think that's a great discussion to have - then let's be careful to look at both the angels and the demons.

Scooping Playboy

I try to keep a high level of dignity on this blog, and my respect for women is boundless, but, as a citizen-journalist, I feel the need to run with an EXCLUSIVE SCOOP of a widely-read (for the articles) magazine.

Before the new issue of Playboy hits the stands, featuring Marge Simpson, I can offer a sneak preview of what that lucky Homer lives with every day.

( . ) ( . )

Gun Laws or Tax Laws?

Acorn recently drew a rash of right-wing scorn and repercussions because a video came out showing a couple of their people offered tax advice to investigators posing as a prostitute and a pimp. It was a knuckle-headed thing to do, and it was even mildly amusing, since the "pimp" looked like something out of a Halloween costume shop.

Yesterday, new videos came out, showing sellers at gun shows selling deadly weapons illegally. It's creepy to watch the video of people talking about "stopping power" and concealability while selling pistols to a guy claiming he probably couldn't pass a background check. It's not mildly amusing at all.

Which videos will get more attention from major media?

3 Quarters Well Spent

75¢ won't buy you much these days. Even most candy bars will set you back a dollar. Don't bother walking into a coffee shop with 75¢.

But that same 75¢ will buy you a copy of the Kansas City Star to read as you're drinking a cup of that coffee you can't afford.

Most of the times I have mentioned the Star on this blog, I am complaining. I complain about Abouhalkah, I complain about Kraske, I complain about whatever grabs my eye. If I assembled my mentions of the Star into one grand post, it would be a vitriolic mess of negativity and mockery. (The fact that it would be mostly justified doesn't make it any more attractive.)

In keeping with my lapse-prone resolve to be a more positive voice, though, consider what your 3 quarters could buy you today. Dan Margolies does a masterful job of analyzing numbers and arguments in an article debunking the myth that "tort reform" can play a sizable role in lessening health care costs. That's the sort of work that takes time and judgment to produce - time and judgment you won't often see invested on a TV clip or a partisan blog.

There's also an ironic article provided by the Associated Press about Washington University closing its Center for the Study of Ethics and Human Values in the wake of scandals involving two faculty members (Jeff Smith and Timothy Kuklo).

The letters to the editor include thought-inspiring contributions by Dan Cofran, Ed Casey and Larry Rizzo.

The sports page brings good news about the Cardinals and bad news about the Royals, along with an interesting article about whether Tank Tyler is "mean enough" to play nose tackle for the Chiefs.

All this, plus the comics, for 75¢.

It's true that you can freeload and get most of this material online, but unless you're really strapped for cash, it's worth the money to get the actual paper version to have and to hold, and feel good for paying your share to support what's left of the Kansas City Star.

(As an aside, I never knew how to make the ¢ symbol on my keyboard until a friend directed me to this site, which has a great menu of keyboard tricks.)

Untold Stories

Today's issue of the Writer's Almanac is brilliant, thought-provoking and free. I have resolved to avoid describing people harshly on this blog, but if you don't subscribe, you're a . . . - ahh, well, let's just say you're depriving yourself of a daily read that educates, enlightens, and inspires.

What happens to stories that don't get told? What does the deprivation of a tale do to the fabric of the world?

A week ago yesterday, a friend I had never met died. (The story of our friendship is an odd one, but unimportant to anyone but me. We became close friends very quickly, and I grew to greatly admire her. We planned to meet on Monday, but my email suggesting a lunch location went unanswered, lost in a dead woman's email.) She went off the road on a quiet highway in Texas, struck a telephone pole and her car burned. I have chatted with her sister on Facebook, and we have decided that she must have been unconscious or dead immediately after the accident, before she could suffer and before the flames touched her. Some stories are almost necessary for the living, and it makes the most sense.

But what could it have been that put her on that highway at that time, when she was so exhausted that she probably fell asleep? Her sister and I figured it out from our separate bits of information. It changed a useless and simply sad death into something noble and inspirational. She was on that road at that time to help someone - when she died, she was doing something kind and selfless. At the hour of her death, she had chosen to go above and beyond what any reasonable person would do to accomplish something good in this world rather than take care of her own comfort and convenience.

That story, which would have died in the car with my friend had her sister and I not blundered into it, brought a dram of peace and goodness to a death which remains sharply painful.

In the context of all that happens in the world, how do stories gain importance and value? Everything that happens is a potential story, but 99.99% of what happens is unworthy of remembrance. Nobody wants to hear the story of how you chose what to eat for dinner (though some Twitter fans don't yet realize that).

Amidst the fire-hose rush of information coming at us every day, great stories pass over us without notice. Today is the birthday of Randy Shilts, who was the first major journalist to notice and cover the rise of AIDS. He paid attention. He got the story. He once said, "I view my role in life as writing stories that wouldn't get written unless I [write] them."

How many laid-off journalists are missing their opportunity - their calling - to find and write those stories today? How many working journalists are too busy filing their 3-paragraph blog entries to focus on, or even notice, important stories in our world? Can a thousand bloggers equal one Randy Shilts? We appear to have rolled the societal dice; may it please be so.

Also on this date, in 1946, Harold Ross, a New Yorker editor wrote a memo to John Hersey about his soon-to-be-published story on Hiroshima. He asked that Hersey tell not just the big story of what happened, but to tell the smaller, literal stories of how 100,000 people died. He asked for a description of the victims' vomiting. He wanted to know "how many were killed by being hit by hard objects, how many by burns, how many by concussion, or shock, or whatever it was?"

The result of that editor's insistence on memorable details was world-changing. The author later wrote, "What has kept the world safe from the bomb since 1945 has not been deterrence, in the sense of fear of specific weapons, so much as it's been memory. The memory of what happened at Hiroshima."

Had Harold Ross not sought the story, and had John Hersey not recorded it so vividly, that story would have been lost in the rush of other details. The New Yorker could have filled its pages with stories of celebrity deaths and fashion trends, and nobody would have been the wiser.

Nobody would have been the wiser.

Kraske Loses Chance at Redemption

(Kraske's latest effort inspired me to offer a similar analysis.)

Steve Kraske, a writer for the Kansas City Star, has survived the rounds of lay-offs that have claimed better, more useful writers in those hallowed halls.

Steve Kraske, there went your best chance.

One final shot to start all over again and give this writing thing a fresh start.

It's an enormous irony. You've held onto a job at a paper with dwindling circulation and influence approaching zero. A significant victory, this is not.

This coup was staged by a rag-tag group of bloggers with little money, toiling away on folding chairs, in basements, living rooms and kitchens throughout the region. And they've bested you. When you've made off-base predictions, they've been correct. When you've asked foolish questions, they've asked insightful ones. When he has failed to produce any news worthy of publications, they have scooped him time and time again. When they have predicted a rising Democratic Party, he saw the Democrats as "doomed in November".

So, you survived, but in a strange way, you still lose.

Because getting fired from the Star offered you that last chance.

Here's my thinking: If the Star fired you, you had an opportunity to start up your own blog, and have one more time to face the naysayers and beat them into the ground. You could have tried to form an audience based on merit, rather than proximity to the sports page or comics.

You could have showed 'em, Missouri-style. You could have built traffic and been a real part of the thriving part of the media world. You could have rubbed the bloggers' noses in it when you were right. You could have built a monumental readership that would have demonstrated that you're a worthy commentator.

Now?

Now we have more of the same. The Big Muddle, I call it.

That is, just more of the same at the Star: More turmoil. More uncertainty. More off-base analysis and more discord. More aimless drift out of your column, just as things have been since virtually the day you took over.

Don't breathe too easy yet. The newspaper industry continues to suffer, and a columnist who continually produces analysis that is weaker than that produced by at least a half-dozen local bloggers is not in a safe position. Day after day, week after week, smart, informed analysts are publishing better stuff than you. Meanwhile, McClatchy continues to look at ways to cut costs.

Maybe you'll get that shot at redemption after all.

Are Bloggers the Same as Journalists in Court?

I tend to be cynical when bloggers claim to be journalists. Many of those who claim to be "citizen journalists" are not, in fact, doing the sort of thoughtful, detailed, original research that is the backbone of true journalism. Where I, as a blogger, may feel justified in posting a story based upon a rumor or an anonymous source with questionable reliability, a true journalist would insist on finding reliable, dependable sources for the information s/he prints. I've witnessed the difference between good journalism and good blogging.

My theoretical distinction is being destroyed, however, by a race to the middle. "Journalists" publish unsourced speculation, while some bloggers do actual, in-depth, factual investigation. What I consider to be journalism can appear in blogs, and what I consider to be blogging appears regularly in print. Midtown Miscreant's examination of blight had more journalistic integrity than the emotional drivel published by some people cashing McClatchy checks.

A court in New Jersey is now facing the challenge of deciding whether a blogger is entitled to protect her sources under a Journalist Shield Law. She published some criticism about a software company, and the company has sued her for libel. In the discovery phase of the case, the company has sought to find out who her sources were. She's refusing, claiming that she should be entitled to protection under the New Jersey shield law.

This is all interesting stuff. Do bloggers have the legal right to withhold identifying information about their anonymous tipsters? Should journalists be entitled to greater rights than bloggers when they are publishing material that does not meet the traditional standards of journalistic integrity?

More globally, in a world where good journalism is showing up on blogs and crappy bias is being published in newspapers, how do we decide what qualifies as real journalism? And if the courts find that to be a tough issue, how will the average citizen handle it? Does the medium matter more than the substance?

Success has a proud father, but failure is an orphan

When should lawyers get their name in the paper? I suppose it depends . . .

In today's Star, Dan Margolies' column consists of two stories. In the first, he covers a decision by the 8th Circuit to reverse a local trial judge's decision to dismiss a case for discovery abuse. The Eighth Circuit agreed that both sides had provoked the Judge Whipple, but felt that he should be recused on the case because he lost his temper toward the plaintiff.

None of the lawyers' names appear in the paper. I know and like both sides' attorneys, so I'm kind of glad that they dodged mention in this stinker of a case, but it seems an odd editorial decision to include this quotation:

“You didn’t hear enough with four phone conferences, and I’m sorry you missed one, with three, four, I kept telling you to produce stuff, expert stuff. You ducked. You wove. You did everything to keep from producing them. You go to the Eighth Circuit. They tell you to produce them, and you still god---- don’t produce them. Now what the hell do you not understand? You must produce them”,

and not mention who the "you" was. I completely understand that in many discovery disputes, the lawyer is caught in the hard place between a recalcitrant client and an angry court, but the inclusion of such a gem of a quotation without a clear pronoun reference is striking.

At the other end of the spectrum, Kansas City's largest law firm is featured glowingly in the very next item. We are told that "Shook Hardy & Bacon won a big victory in Florida last week in a smoker’s liability case." It's notable that Shook, not the client, won the big victory, because when the vedict goes the other way, it's the client's loss:

In February a Broward County jury ordered Philip Morris USA to pay $8 million, including $5 million in punitive damages, to the widow and son of a chain smoker of Benson & Hedges cigarettes, finding that Philip Morris showed a reckless disregard for the smoker’s safety. Shook represented Philip Morris in that case also.

In victory, Shook wins, but in defeat, Shook merely represents its client.

In summary, the lesson seems to be that if the judge is yelling at you, then only your client's name will show up in the paper. If a verdict goes in favor of your client, though, the victory is yours.

Ignoring John Stossel

The Star's Prime Buzz is trying to draw attention to a special involving John Stossel that will be on TV sometime soon. No links, intentionally.

John Stossel is undeserving of attention. He is an immmoral libertarian, with a flair for dishonest mock journalism. I'm saddened that the Star is promoting the man.

Stossel had the gall to do a story lying about a local victim of death by denial. If you're interested, the victim's widow did a fine letter addressing Stossel's integrity here.

Dave Helling - Daily Revisions

Dave Helling claims he needs a translator to understand my criticism of his column entitled "End of $2 million stadium subsidy could let JoCo off the hook for ballparks". Now he's claiming that his column was an attempt to offer a history lesson about a long-gone politician's version of a backroom deal done decades ago.

Sure, Dave.

If it's a history lesson, why the budget analysis (faulty again, but math has always been a weakness for Helling) based on today's dollars?

As for your claims that you weren't saying what you thought of the proposal to end the tax dollar give-away (even though you trotted out every BS argument opposed to it, and neglected to mention that the City has no legal obligation to make the donation), they are as weak as your argument that $2,000,000 dollars is not a lot of money because it shows up in a larger budget (much of which is non-discretionary).

It's not surprising he can't understand my point - he even whines that I misspelled his name when I merely misplaced an apostrophe. Helling's inability to understand what is going on around him is a hallmark of his writing. Whether it's worrying about the collapse of the Democratic party in 2008 or low voter turnout in a record setting year, Helling never seems to need a translator for current events.

But, until yesterday, I had no idea the poor guy doesn't even understand what he himself has written. His post on Monday was a defense of the status quo for stadium donations, and his post on Tuesday was a poor attempt to redefine his current argument as an irrelevant history lesson.

Dave Helling Beyond Satire

I've made sport of Dave Hellings' inability to do simple math and everyone agrees that his hilarious hand-wringing about the demise of the Democratic Party after a triumphal primary season was an unintentional masterpiece of cluelessness.

Dave Helling doesn't produce much copy anymore, but when he does publish something, it often carries that special glow of obtuseness that makes real political observers stop in their tracks and say "Huh?".

Yesterday's gem was this - Kansas City should raid its general revenue to support the stadiums because that is the same as Johnson County giving money. This is the actual title of Hellings' piece - and, no, I haven't altered it to make it seem more ridiculous - "End of $2 million stadium subsidy could let JoCo off the hook for ballparks".

Because Johnson Countians pay a portion of the earnings tax. Which goes into general revenue.

Absolutely incredible. The Kansas City Star actually published that analysis.

By the same analysis, the City can bestow the benefits of Bistate funding anywhere it redirects general revenue by laying off enough police officers and cutting enough basic services.

It's genius! If Kansas City uses every nickel of its money to support things that suburbanites like, a new Age of Aquarius will dawn, and regionalism will reign over the unpatrolled and unpaved streets of Kansas City. That's the way things work in Hellings' world.

Only Fools and Editorialists Believe "Forever" Promises from Politicians

. . . what do I get? A one-way ticket to Palooka-ville! You was my brother, Charley, you shoulda looked out for me a little bit. You shoulda taken care of me just a little bit so I wouldn't have to take them dives for the short-end money.
- On the Waterfront

Yael Abouhalkah says that property taxes are off limits as Kansas City struggles to correct a structurally imbalanced budget. His "reasoning" is that taxpayers were promised in brochures, nonbinding resolutions and advocacy "fact sheets" from years ago that property taxes would not go up.

Perhaps Abouhalkah and the Star ought to pay the shortfall. If voters honestly believed that prior politicians and printers of brochures could tie the hands of future politicians, then the fault lies with our press. When they should have been forcing clear, specific answers as to where the money would come from and how future councils could be bound by promises of politicians past, they were issuing gushy editorials endorsing every tax and bond issue that a credit crazy council could create.

If voters didn't realize that the numbers didn't add up, it's because the Star failed to do its job. If voters didn't realize that civic salesmen were selling snake oil when they claimed that we could have shiny projects without paying for them, it's because the Star failed to do its job.

As I look at the budget, I'm not yet convinced that increasing property taxes is a good direction to go. But for Yael Abouhalkah to claim that property taxes are off the table because he chose to be a cheerleader rather than a journalist is unconvincing, and a little repulsive.

It's kind of amusing that Abouhalkah dug out the old brochures and "fact sheets" - none of which ever had the force of law or claimed to be impartial - to support his bleating about old promises. I don't have a file cabinet full of old paper, so I did a quick Google search that turned up his editorial claiming that 2004 bond supporters' claims that there would be no tax increase was "true". I also found this gem of objectivity after Credit Card Kay's bond issue passed: "The entire Kansas City region will benefit from her dogged efforts to overcome tough obstacles and improve the city's future.... Even Barnes' critics have to acknowledge one fact: The mayor knows how to get things done."

The Kansas City Star in general and Yael Abouhalkah in particular have failed the voters of Kansas City. Now, serious people are trying to correct mistakes that the Star could and should have prevented. I hope Mr. Abouhalkah understands if they choose to ignore him this time around.

All the News that's Comfortable to Print

In case anyone was wondering whether the Prime Buzz Blog Watch column would mention the massive blind spot in the Star's coverage of Jackson County, don't be silly. Instead, they found space for a piece about being a careful pedestrian in Kansas City.

As Elvis Costello wrote, "I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused . . .".

Kraske Whiffs Again - What He Should Be Asking

Steve Kraske claims the upper right corner of today's front page of the Star, and manages to look good while whiffing almost entirely. It's kind of like watching an unschooled rookie with a sweet swing face the famed knuckleballer Tim Wakefield. Kraske swings mightily, but can't quite make his wooden analysis impact the baffling trajectory of local politics.

The headline in the dead tree version of the story is "Has mayor run out of political capital?", and the lede is an anecdote claiming that Funkhouser failed to gladhand at a democratic fundraiser. In short, Kraske asks the wrong question and answers it with conventional wisdom from the chattering class. That, my friends, is not "analysis" worthy of publication.

First off, the question is not whether Funk has run out of "political capital". The guy won by fewer than 900 votes and walked into a council chamber poisoned by hardball politicians seeking to become mayor. The guy never really had political capital - he walked in with a target on his back, and nobody on earth was going to trade that target for a 7 member dependable majority. And, to give his critics their due, he certainly has not behaved in a fashion well-designed to accumulate it, either.

The correct question is "Can Funkhouser work with this Council to accomplish good things for our city?". Because, really, that's what people wanted when they elected him, and that's how he will be judged. Maybe a few of the insiders and professional game-players such as Kraske care about style points or how well he shakes hands at a cocktail party, but the rest of us care far more about accomplishments. By focusing on shaking hands and fuzzy concepts of "political capital", Kraske focuses on the parlor game aspects of city government rather than on the street level effectiveness of city government.

Now, before the anti-Funk brigade reflexively misinterprets what I have written so far, I'm only saying that the question ought to be "Can Funkhouser work with this Council to accomplish good things for our city?" rather than "Has mayor run out of political capital?". I hope we can all agree that my question is the better question - who cares if he never shakes another hand and the verdict at Kraske's chattering class cocktail parties unanimously states he has zero "political capital", if he is able to work with our council to accomplish good things for our city?

Having thus refocused the issue from image to substance, I'll go ahead and answer my own question.

Yes, Funkhouser can work effectively with this Council to accomplish good things for our city. He can do that by continuing to work creatively and subtly through other council people, the majority of whom will, when push comes to shove, get on board for the right reasons on the big issues for the good of the city. Jan Marcason and Beth Gottstein, for example, are not going to vote for a lousy Cauthen budget no matter what they think of Funkhouser or his wife. Most of the council is composed of grown-ups, and they can separate their disagreements on the anti-volunteer ordinance from good policy in facing the substantive issues they need to address.

All that said (and apparently beyond Kraske's imagination), Funkhouser has an opportunity right now to jumpstart his working relationship with the City Council and kick off 2009 in the most productive way possible for our city's future. In one fell swoop, he could eliminate his biggest problem in image and the city's biggest problem in reality.

In my opinion, Mark should approach those city councilmembers who really do have the good of the city at heart with a proposal to dismiss his Volunteer Ordinance lawsuit in exchange for their support in getting rid of Wayne Cauthen. Most agree that Cauthen is simply the wrong man for the foreseeable future, and I believe they would welcome such an opportunity to get back on track in solving our city's very real problems.

I feel like I owe some explanation, since I loudly called upon Mark to file his lawsuit, and I continue to think that the anti-Volunteer Ordinance is an unconstitutional bastard born in a backroom from spite and dishonesty. Despite my dislike of the Ordinance, though, that single issue need not continue to distract attention and dominate the public discourse.

Right now, Mark is working just fine with his geographically flexible Mayor's office, just as most of the councilmembers work effectively while spending little time in the four walls of their offices. While it feels wrong to let such an ugly little ordinance remain on the books, dismissing the suit does not make it constitutional. Someday, in a less critical time when we can afford to focus on "B" level priorities, the ordinance can be challenged in a more favorable environment. In terms of impact on the city, the Volunteer Ordinance is tiny in comparison to the damage wrought by the wrong City Manager.

Dismissal of the suit would also unplug the electricity surrounding rumors of Koster investigations and other nonsense. In short, Funkhouser would be rising above the Council's petty mistake, diminishing a danger, and accomplishing a larger goal. It would also provide the good Councilmembers with a way to redeem themselves from their current tarnished, bickering image, and make a clean break from the past.

Would Funkhouser ever make such a deal? I have no idea.

But it's a lot better question than Kraske's breathless insider chatter about "political capital".

REJECTED

As a skinny, nerdy teenager with acne, I was once a connoisseur of rejection. If it weren't for blind dates with a gentle sense of humor or a strong sense of pity, I might not have had any dates at all in high school.

But this is reeeediculous. This one hurts.

The Kansas City Star emailed me yesterday to tell me I won't be one of their Midwest Voices columnists. The paper that actually publishes Jason "Attention Whore" Whitlock, Steve "Hacktastic" Kraske and Yael "Spiteful Teenager" Abouhalkah on a regular basis won't put me on their page for a year.

And then there's Jenee' Osterheldt. Jenee' Osterheldt! Ouch.

This one hurts, hurts bad. I feel like the Chess Club just blackballed me because I'm not athletic enough, or the Math Club rejected me for a lack of social skills.

As I learned in High School, rejection teaches you that one door doesn't close without another door opening. Unfortunately, the door that opened was usually the one that led to watching the Carol Burnett Show on Friday night with my parents, while other kids were out doing all kinds of things I was yearning for. But still . . .

Whitlock - Winning Mizzou Team Should Feel Awful?

I know that Jason Whitlock doesn't get paid to put reasonable views onto paper - he justifies his massive salary by attaching his name to counter-intuitive perspectives, and every now and then he hits paydirt with a fresh insight.

That said, this morning's column berating the Mizzou Tiger football team after they defeated a similarly-ranked team in the Alamo Bowl Game is a classic example of saying something stupid in a vain attempt to be original. In it, he seeks to rain on the Tigers' parade because their victory was not a stomping of their opponent. He called the victory "an embarrassment", because the #21 team in the nation went into overtime to defeat the #23 team in the nation. He was shocked and horrified that the Missouri team celebrated on the field after the game.

Jason, a bunch of 18-24 year-old kids just won a nationally-televised big time football game, and it was the last time that many of them will get to play together. Do you honestly, truly think that they should feel bad about themselves, because they won the game but didn't complete the grim task of meeting the expectations of a middle-aged guy who can't play anymore? Do you really expect the winners of the Alamo Bowl to sulk off the field in a storm of self-loathing because they "merely" won the game?

Congrats to Mizzou for finishing among the top football teams in the country, and enjoy your ticker-tape parade in Columbia. College sports are for college kids, not for semi-pro joy-sucking parade-rainers.

Funkhouser to Electric Chair? - Journalists Make Lousy Bloggers, Too

I wrote a recent piece about the dangers of confusing bloggers with journalists, and several journalists emailed me with compliments on the piece, which I really appreciated. I meant what I said - bloggers rarely present original news that has been well-researched and based on reliable sources. Red letters, exclamation points and claims of "exclusive" are poor substitutes for fact-checking, confirmation and attempted even-handedness.

While my piece on Tuesday was directed at bloggers who act like they are journalists, today I want to consider journalists who think they are bloggers.

If you want to blog, close down the Prime Buzz, open up your own blogger account under your own name, and have at it. Because you, more than Tony, more than any self-deluded "citizen journalist", are to blame for blurring the distinction between news and nonsense. When you hold yourselves out as journalists and then behave as bloggers, you can't blame readers for getting the two confused.

Take, for example, the Star's Yael T. Abouhalkah. When he publishes a column in the Star, we all expect him to have checked the facts, spoken with the players, placed the issue into context, and considered all perspectives. And, while I frequently disagree with his published columns, I respect the fact that they uphold journalistic standards.

When Yael publishes something on Midwest Voices, though, we don't know what to expect. We can see, however, that we're getting a lower standard than we'd expect for something published. Where are we, as consumers, expected to draw the line between Yael the Kansas City Star Journalist, and Yael the Blogger?

On Thursday evening, I heard that Yael had a civic bombshell posted - the Mayor could be dismissed at any moment by a vote of 9 councilmembers. Sure enough, I went to his collection of posts and saw red letters and "Exclusive!" notices highlighting a post entitled "City Charter allows City Council to throw Funkhouser out". And I read a sensationalistic account of a Charter Provision that has been in the Charter for years, and that does not, in fact, allow the City Council to throw Funkhouser out - unless they find significant misconduct in office beyond anything that has been even alleged.

The red letters and "Exclusive!" notices have been deleted now. On sober reconsideration, the story is no more valid or newsworthy than a similar story entitled "Criminal Code allows State to Put Funkhouser to Death" - if he is found guilty of a capital crime which has not been charged. It's funny that Yael isn't even holding himself up to Blogger ethical standards, which frown upon altering a prior post in order to make yourself look better. (See, for example, that Tony has not tampered with his mistaken post about Funkhouser getting fired by his lawyer.) On Thursday, Yael wanted to out-Tony Tony.

The point is broader, though, than one blog post or one ethical lapse by Yael Abouhalkah. The point is that when journalists report gossip on blogs, or publish material without the rigorous fact-checking and placement into context that ought to go into their published work, they devalue themselves as journalists.

Back in the pre-blog world, journalists were privy to a lot more than they published. The line between what was "newsworthy" and what was "between us" was respected and dependable - and often abused. Real journalists kept us in the dark about womanizing and backroom deals - the public's right to know suffered to support the journalist's access to information.

Now, the pendulum has swung. An off-the-cuff elevator remark about a fellow politician's lack of fashion sense could show up on the Prime Buzz, and the line between journalism and blogging gets further blurred. When you add in the sad fact that McClatchy is asking fewer people to do the real work of journalism, you have a dangerous pressure to pass along quick gossip rather than solid analysis. And that pressure shows itself in Yael's page of recent posts, which, as of this moment, includes Yael trying to write intelligently about Blagojevich, the auto bailout, a gossipy piece with a glaring error about Marcason and Funkhouser's relationship, the Golden Globes, sewers, Tyler Thigpen, Mets baseball, cars, Tony DiPardo, and Big 12 Football. Plus much more, all over the course of 5 days! While still supposedly doing his real work of producing press-worthy copy. (I don't mean to pick on Yael, but his Tony imitation on Thursday evening was the "ah hah" moment that sparked this piece.)

If a journalist wants to join the blog world and post about whatever shiny issue attracts his or her attention, that is great. The more bloggers, the merrier. But if they want to publish their blog as an adjunct to the Kansas City Star, and approach public figures as a multi-headed blogger/journalist, then they have no right whatsoever to complain if the public equates bloggers with journalists.

For those journalists who like to blog on the side, I have a few questions.

When you earned the title of "journalist" by going to school and learning from your superiors, did you really want to become a blogger?

Do you think that public figures should treat you with respect, if they know you are looking for material that would never be newsworthy in hard copy?

When you were first hired by the Kansas City Star, one of the great journalistic institutions of the country, did you feel like you were taking on mantle that you would strive to live up to, and maybe even improve? Do you think you're doing that?

What Would/Will We Do Without the Star to Kick Around?

Bloggers have a bit of a love/hate thing with the professional press. Most of us love to criticize the lapses in accuracy, judgment, and ethics we find in the Star, and the Star certainly keeps us well-supplied with targets. Some bloggers even act as though they are competing with the real journalists, claiming "scoop" status when they rush to post a rumor, fabrication, or red herring.

The thing is, bloggers can be decent pundits, but they are terrible reporters.

Real reporters get sources on the record, confirm facts, and publish carefully. A mistake counts as a black mark on a reporter's record, and a series of mistakes results in termination.

Mistakes aren't a big deal in the blog world - in fact, if they drive traffic, they are desirable. Reporting that very well-informed sources say one thing and then reporting something totally different on the same afternoon is all in a day's blogging for so-called "citizen journalists", while a real journalist would call it "termination day". If I publish a headline today claiming that Gloria Squitiro is leaving City Hall to work for Jeff Roe, I'll get a few thousand extra hits, and maybe even force them to spend their time correcting my fabrication. While I might fear that regular reporting of falsehoods would damage my credibility to such an extent that smart readers would begin to avoid my site, we all know that it's okay to be consistently wrong as long as we're sensationalistic, and, if we happen to be correct once in a great while, we can even be viewed as credible sources, garnering more attention still.

Truthfully, bloggers, even more than more news-aware Kansas Citians, depend on the KC Star for the vast majority of raw material. No blogger has the time, money or dedication to consistently attend simultaneous meetings at the County Courthouse, City Hall, and Jefferson City, while working on a multi-page feature story. Instead, we sit back and wait for the Star to publish the facts, and then we jump in to put things into our preferred context.

I recently had a friend tell me he doesn't bother subscribing to the Star anymore, because he gets all the local news he needs online. He meant it as a statement of support for the importance of the blogosphere, but it bothered me to hear his decision to opt out of supporting the real reporting we all need to function as citizens.

As a blogger, I'm frightened to see the cutbacks at the Star. If the Star disappears, we all will be more ignorant. Already, as the Star diminishes with cutbacks, we are missing out on stories that deserve our attention. Have you seen any robust reporting on the Jackson County legislature's tampering with the Ethics Code? There was a time when it would be on the lips of all concerned citizens, but now it's a footnote that hardly raises an eyebrow.

It's true that we can live without the Star. I can publish more stories about beer and local restaurants, and maybe even pass on a bit of political information I pick up over lunch or at a cocktail party. I already publish better political analysis than Helling or Kraske, so that would be no loss.

But if you think you can do without the Star because you get all the local news you need from the blogs, you're horribly mistaken. You're still getting your local news from the Star - it's just getting filtered by bloggers, or you're dependent on the Star's website.

While you might think you're kind of clever because you're not having to paying for it, you're going to wind up paying for it if the Star's fortunes do not turn around. The difference is, your payment will go to support graft and corruption in our government and industries, rather than to a stable of good investigative journalists, who pay attention to credibility and accuracy. And don't count on the blogs to take care of you then.

Abouhalkah - Not Much of a Lawyer

In Yael's world, deponents should volunteer information in their depositions. In the real world, they shouldn't. It's up to the examining attorney to ask the right questions, and leading questions often fail to get the complete picture.

Mr. Abouhalkah, if you're going to accuse someone of inconsistency, you truly ought to find some real inconsistency.

Wall Street Journal and Abouhalkah's Achy Breaky Heart

We all thought it was going to be huge. A couple Wall Street Journal writers came into town to learn about the battle between the City Council and the Mayor's wife, and the political insiders got the vapors. What will they say about us? Did they read the Christmas letter? How bad will it be? What will a real journalist do with a story that the Star has done its sensational best with? Can they out-sensationalize the Star?

And when it came out, it turned out that article was crushingly even-handed. No bombshells. No excruciating recaps of how we all suffered so terribly when he accepted then returned a car. No dramatic retelling of how awful it was that one out of dozens of his appointments turned out to be a kook. No hand-wringing or outrage, OUTRAGE, that he does some of his work at home now. In short, the article made all the hullabaloo that occupies the Star seem kind of silly.

Humorously, Yael Abouhalkah sniffs that the non-sensational approach was a "Valentine" to Mark and Gloria. That is funny on so many levels that I have to admire his complete lack of circumspection.

On one level, it's a case of "it takes one to know one". As a Funkhouser supporter, I would never deny that his Mayoral campaign benefited from regular "Valentines" from Abouhalkah. It was almost embarrassing to read Abouhalkah's man-crush missives about Mark. For him to complain now about the Wall Street Journal writing a reasonable piece about the Mayor sounds like a failed suitor questioning what he ever saw in his unrequited love.

Second, Abouhalkah's complaint shows that he is dangerously bipolar on the topic of our Mayor. Having withdrawn the Star's endorsement, like a spiteful teenager ripping love-lorn pages out of her diary, Abouhalkah is now seething with resentment that when real journalists come to town, they don't see the same poopyhead that he sees. He grouses that the article fails to list every single one of what Abouhalkah sees as failures of the Funkhouser's administration. Rational people would question whether that was the actual assignment of real journalists, but such a thought apparently never crosses Abouhalkah's fevered mind.

The saddest and most embarrassing moment, though, lies in this tear-stained, ungrammatical gem:

Instead, the story gives all kinds of credit to Squitiro for how she ran his campaign in 2007, seemingly without any help from professionals (untrue) or anyone else (think The Star's endorsement -- since retracted -- didn't help the mayor in the Southwest corridor with his narrow margin over Alvin Brooks?)

Good God, man, get a grip on yourself!! Yes, we all know you were important, and that it hurts to see your former love smile at his wife. But, really, get a shred of dignity!

Abouhalkah had such grand dreams of what life with Mark would be, and it's sad to see him bitter now that they've been dashed. But it's getting ridiculous. Better journalists than him came to town, spent plenty of time with both sides of the controversy, and wrote an objective piece that made Mark look better than the Council on this petty issue.

Pull yourself together, Yael. Get a box of tissues, take a walk on the beach, crank Human League's "Don't You Want Me" or Ben Folds Five's "Song for the Dumped", and wipe your nose.

Funkhouser wasn't perfect to begin with, and he's not a monster now. Most of us knew that. The Wall Street Journal, as you point out, didn't tell us anything we didn't already know.

But your reaction to it sure exposed you.

Dave Helling Misquotes Himself

On Wednesday, I did a brief post chiding Dave Helling for his sloppy research and factual misstatements in claiming that the turnout for the 2008 election will fall short of the turnout four years ago, in his post titled "Turnout lower than 2004?".

Yesterday, he defensively addressed the issue, and claimed that "I'll stick by my original post: While impressive, the actual 2008 turnout was not the overwhelming vote many predicted." But that's not what his original post claimed! Helling is trying to play off his blunder by backing away from his bold proclamation.

In his original post, he claimed " . . . it appears almost certain turnout for the 2008 election will fall short of the turnout four years ago, when George W. Bush beat John Kerry," and "Late returns may boost the turnout number a bit, but it appears unlikely it'll be more than 2004."

Now he's trying to pretend he only said turnout wasn't as large as expected. That's like writing a pre-season baseball article saying it is virtually certain that the Royals will win the World Series, and, at the end of the season, claiming that you are sticking with your original post that they would win a few more games than the previous year. Actually, that would be a little less egregious, in that everyone would know the baseball prognosticator was making a guess, while most people probably assumed that Dave Helling's post was based on real analysis of real numbers by someone who is paid to interpret them.

Humorously, he misquotes me, too, in a minor fashion, by claiming I said that everyone agrees with Dr. McDonald's prediction about voter turnout. I'm neither surprised nor upset by the minor misquotation, though, in light of his much more serious misquotation of himself. He got the gist of what I was saying correct, but he changed the entire import of his own post.

Meanwhile, Helling has no explanation whatsoever about the egregious factual mistake in the Star's editorial on the Storm Water Amendment.

Star "Analysis" Factually Mistaken Again

The Star continues to let its readers down. A little while ago, they made a vital factual error in their endorsement of the storm water amendment, and then failed to correct it after I pointed it out. (While it's certainly possible that the error was simply a mistake caused by their inability to read a somewhat complex piece of legislation, it's strange that their error diminished the main reason to vote against the amendment, and it's also strange that they failed to correct it.)

Today's flawed analysis has a less direct impact on public policy, but it's still annoying to see Dave Helling publish sloppy research and factual misstatements under the guise of "analysis". Helling makes the fascinating and somewhat deflating point that "For all the talk about enthusiastic voters and long lines at the polls, it appears almost certain turnout for the 2008 election will fall short of the turnout four years ago, when George W. Bush beat John Kerry."

Great point, Dave, but it would be even better if it weren't flat-out wrong!

Dr. Michael McDonald, of George Mason University, has been studying election turnout, and reports that the percentage turnout may be the greatest since 1908. While some experts disagree and claim that the percentage will "only" be the greatest in 40 years, informed people agree that a record number of votes has been case cast (thanks, Pitch!), far exceeding 2004.

Quick, somebody explain to me why we should assign more credibility to "journalists" like Helling than bloggers like Tony?

Star on Amendment 4 - Conspiracy or Breakdown?

The Kansas City Star came out today with an endorsement of Missouri Constitutional Amendment #4. I suspected the endorsement was on its way when the Star's Prime Buzz avoided linking to my analysis of the giveaway to real estate and heavy construction. While I wouldn't even want to hint at a sense of entitlement to a link from another blog, the "Blog Watch" feature of the Prime Buzz is fairly generous in linking to political analysis in other blogs.

The Powers That Be seem to have decided that the less voters know about Amendment #4, the better, and it appears that the Kansas City Star has decided to sit back and allow that to happen. In three short paragraphs regarding Amendment #4, the Star manages to deliver a falsehood and a misdirection. Here, in it's entirety, is the complete coverage provided by the Kansas City Star on Amendment #4 during this entire election cycle:

The state deserves more leeway in how it uses tax-exempt bonds approved by voters 10 years ago for stormwater projects across Missouri, including in Kansas City.

The state wants to offer more loans, which have to be repaid by local utilities, and fewer grants, which don’t have to be repaid.

The change should lead to quicker access to the stormwater funds, allowing faster improvements. And it would not increase state taxes.

Paragraph 2 is a lie, and paragraph 3 is completely misleading.

While the Star claims that the Amendment will provide for more loans, the exact opposite is true. Quoting from the summary of the enabling legislation, "Currently, the Department of Natural Resources is required to provide both grants and loans using the funds resulting from the issuance of storm water control bonds, with 50% of the funding to be used for grants and 50% for loans. This amendment removes the percentage requirements as well as the requirement that both forms of financial assistance must be offered together. Additionally, the amendment removes the requirement that grants are limited to 50% of the cost of a storm water control project." I cannot explain how the Star managed to make such a wild misstatement, but it is one they should trouble themselves to correct. Whether it was from lack of research, complete misunderstanding, or they were bamboozled in one of their too-frequent editorial meetings with real estate developers and heavy construction leaders, they owe the public a correction.

As for the claim that the Amendment will not increase taxes, that's true only in the most technical sense. It does not increase taxes, but it eases the process for spending tax dollars, and allows more of them to be spent. To me, that is a whole lot like raising taxes. Denying that it raises taxes is kind of like saying that dynamiting a levee does not flood the land behind it. This Amendment "merely" blows a hole in the taxpayer protections that currently exist.

Furthermore, the Amendment goes further and diverts loan repayments away from taxpayers, so it will not be available to fund educational and medical needs of citizens, instead of fiscal needs of heavy construction and real estate developers. While that is technically not a tax increase, it will reduce tax revenue.

The Star has failed to provide news coverage regarding Amendment #4. Its brief editorial is 2/3 wrong. It is even refusing to link to sources that do provide strong analysis and thorough research. Is the Star part of a conspiracy of silence to keep voters ignorant, or did they simply have a complete breakdown in their research and analysis?

Restaurant Critic Getting Schooled

Last night, at the Blogger Gathering, I met Owen Morris, who writes for the Pitch's Fat City food blog.

Naturally enough, the topic focused on food for a while before veering off into the legitimacy of being apolitical, and Owen impressed me with his knowledge and passion for food. When I checked out Fat City last night, I saw that he is actually taking advanced culinary classes at Johnson County Community College, and he's going to do a weekly diary about his experiences.

I'm looking forward to going through culinary classes vicariously.

The Star's Sloppy Endorsements

I was early to make my endorsements during this cycle because. as I wrote then, "I'd hate for anyone to think that the Star's analysis influences me . . ." At the time I wrote that, though, I had no idea how sloppy the Star would be.

I'm not complaining about endorsing candidates other than the ones I support. I'm complaining of my disappointment with their ability to get facts straight and arguments lined up correctly. This season, the Star has erased its own credibility.

In the Sheriff's race, the Star had nice things to say about my favorite candidate, John Bullard, but wound up endorsing Mike Sharp. That's fine with me - reasonable minds can differ as to who is the superior candidate. But what made their endorsement laughable was their mistaken reasoning - the headline of their endorsement noted "Sheriff jobs require experience, solid administrative skills" and the text of their endorsement claimed "Mike Sharp has impressive credentials for the sheriff’s job, given his combination of service with the Kansas City Police Department and years of experience as a businessman". That all sounds pretty reasonable, but Mike Sharp has hardly any relevant experience! What happened was that the Star took at face value Sharp's claim that he has twenty something years of experience as a reserve officer, but, in fact, that's apples compared to oranges. That's like claiming that a kid who received a pair of pilot's wings on his or her first plane trip a dozen years ago has 12 years of experience as a pilot. It's absolutely fine to endorse Mike Sharp if you like him personally, or you think he will bring fresh perspective, or whatever, but it's just plain sloppy and embarrassing to endorse him because he has experience. He doesn't, and the Star should have realized that.

As sloppy as that endorsement was, though, they really shocked me with their endorsement of Jeff Harris - even when we agree that Jeff Harris is the best candidate! Clearly they reached the right result, but they gave him an edge "based on his leadership role [in the General Assembly] and prosecutorial experience". There are two things wrong with that statement - in an Attorney General race, prosecutorial experience is only important for those who do not know what the AG's office really does, and, second, Jeff Harris doesn't really have much irrelevant prosecutorial experience. Instead, Jeff Harris has experience as a division leader in the Attorney General's office itself - much better, and much more relevant!

Over the past several years, political insiders have been chattering about how fewer and fewer people pay attention to the Star's endorsements. Is it because of the rise of blogs, is it because of declining circulation, or some other reason?

I suspect the reason fewer people are paying attention to the Star's endorsements is because the Star is not paying attention when they are making them.

Midwest Voices

A while back, someone brought Midwest Voices to my attention, and I've been meaning to link to them ever since. It defines itself as follows:

Welcome to the Midwest Voices blog, a community forum created to foster discussion on issues that matter to our region, nation and the world. We hope it will become a gathering place of thoughtful debate, a spot to share ideas and push projects. The blogosphere is full of opinion options, but we hope to fill a niche by offering conversation among neighbors in this region who like to debate the issues of the day.

In short, it's a good collection of the editorial columnists of the Star mixed in with some amateur content of varying quality. Definitely worth visiting - and I'll add it to the blogroll the next time I tinker with the template.

By the way, who do you think I should add to the blogroll on the left?

They Pay For this Kind of "Analysis"?

Steve Kraske and Dave Helling needed to team up to produce the ludicrous "analysis" that the Kansas City Star recently published, posted and presumably paid for. In it, they claim that the "hard part" for the Democrats may be piecing the party back together after the primary season.

I wish I had been there to see the article get written. Was it written over the course of a tequila shot drinking contest, with the winner getting to eat the worm and the loser being made to list his name first? That would be kind of funny to watch.

Or did they write it while grilling wieners in an enclosed space, not realizing that the carbon monoxide was slowing their brain activity to a snail's pace? I would have rescued them.

Regardless of the circumstances, it takes a special kind of opacity to worry about the Democrats on the day that Obama clinched the nomination. After a primary season that saw record numbers of democrats, including millions of new voters, come to the polls to vote for their favored brand of CHANGE, the Democratic party has never been stronger.

From the beginning, the overwhelming majority of democrats have voiced the opinion that either Obama or Clinton would be great, regardless of which one they were supporting. While an occasional few have fallen to the intoxication of partisanship, they are not representative of a trend, or even of their more sober sides. Give them a week or two to calm down, and they will be fine. (Mr. Martin, were you really fearing a heart attack while watching a rules committee? That's not normal, and a specialist of some sort should be consulted.)

Because expressions of anger between the Clinton and Obama sides were apparently so hard to find, these two journalists were forced to resort to quotations of anger toward - journalists! They quote Mike Sanders:

“I firmly believe that Hillary Clinton was held (by the media) to a different standard than every other presidential candidate who ran in this cycle,” said Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders. “Not just Barack Obama, not just John McCain, but every other candidate.”

Helling and Kraske are weakly attempting to portray Sanders' dissatisfaction with how badly journalists did their job as some kind of dissatisfaction with his fellow Democrats. I suggest that they ask Mr. Sanders if he will be voting for Senator Obama in a match against McCain, and I promise that the answer will be a strong "yes".

The fact of the matter is that the dissension among the Democrats is nothing compared to that among the Republicans. Of course, in the heat of the moment, a few petulant Clinton supporters are going to overstate their disappointment in seeing their candidate fall short, but nobody who supports Hillary's progressive agenda and Democratic values is going to fail to see those same qualities in Barack Obama.

Within a couple weeks, Obama will be riding high atop a surge of enthusiastic Democrats eager to bring change to our country. I hope Kraske and Helling invite me to observe whatever collaboration they dream up then. It appears they may need adult supervision.

(I enjoy making fun of Kraske and Helling, because I'm frankly jealous they get paid decent money to produce such mediocre foolish verbiage a couple times a week, while I produce high-quality foolish verbiage almost every day, for free. I know, deep in my heart, that the only thing separating me from the professional pundits is a j-school degree and a willingness to really dive down deep into the murky depths of obtuseness and emerge with pearls like the article discussed here.)

Kansas City Star ROBBED by Pulitzer Committee!!

Incredibly, the Pulitzer Committee somehow overlooked the 120-article series on "hot fuel" penned by the obsessive Steve Everly. How could they fail to recognize the constant, tedious reportage plumbing the shocking, shocking fact that liquids tend to expand when they are warmed?

They must not have an award for pointless, breathless exposes . . .

Even so, they should have given an award for the weekend teaser they used back in October - "The hot fuel debate rages on nationwide . . .". Pulitzer for comedy writing?

Is David Martin a Fair Journalist? Guess Again . . .

A few months ago, David Martin of the Pitch got scooped by the Wall Street Journal. In his embarrassment at having an out-of-town paper get a story he had missed, he decided that the story wasn't true, and wrote an article attacking the credibility of a City Councilwoman, based entirely on his unproven guesswork.

Once again, we are getting a dose of Martin's guesswork when he fails to get to the bottom of a story. According to Martin, the City Planning and Development Department allowed bidders to look at each other's qualifications before they came in for interviews on a feasibility study regarding improving the bridges over the southern edge of the downtown loop. This is apparently unusual, though, frankly, it sounds like a good idea to me. Who's going to do a better job of reference checking than a competitor? And shouldn't the submitted qualifications of someone seeking a million tax dollars be a public record?

Brushing aside most journalists' preference for openness in government transactions, though, Martin sets out to avenge this breach of back-room secrecy and find out who dared to seek this information.

But he failed. He couldn't get anyone to tell him who did it - at least not on the record.

So he accuses HNTB without proof.

Again with the guesswork instead of journalism? Martin tells us twice that it was HNTB who requested the review, but nowhere does Martin explain what leads to that conclusion. Everyone who knows anything refuses comment.

Since speculation is part of the game in Martin's version of journalism (Martinism might be a better word, since it's not really a version of what I consider journalism), I'm guessing that someone told Martin off the record that it was HNTB. I'm guessing he failed to get anyone to go on record with it. I'm guessing he dislikes someone at HNTB for God-knows what reason.

I'm guessing that David Martin was frustrated because he couldn't prove that HNTB had done anything wrong. I'm guessing he was angry enough that he wrote a story calling the company names, but utterly failing to introduce proof.

I'm guessing other journalists would have stayed on the story and uncovered proof, or simply not written it up.

Unlike Martin, though, I'm not going to present my guesswork as fact. Unlike Martin, I won't put my credibility on the line by writing something like "Well, I can tell you it was HNTB." Because, unless he or she has the proof, a journalist really shouldn't tell you anything. I'm just a blogger, but even I know "that's just weak."

Kraske - Hacktastic again

Steve Kraske, the Star's political news columnist, offers up this gem in today's paper:

It’s official: Mayor Mark Funkhouser admits he, too, has heard the talk of a mayoral recall stemming from the Frances Semler appointment.

No leader of such an effort is emerging, but reporters are on watch.

I swear that's the entire segment. Go ahead, follow the link and see if he explains why the fact that Funkhouser has heard of something that has been discussed in political circles, on blogs, and even in Kraske's freaking paper is news. (He doesn't.) Go ahead, follow the link and see if he explains why he's devoting space to a recall drive that he acknowledges doesn't even exist outside the imagination of a few crackpots, blowhards and joke bloggers. (He doesn't.)

I have a scoop for Kraske. Political observers are talking about how worthless his column is, and wondering whether the Star ought to just get rid of it. Someone, someday, might circulate a petition asking that they ditch it. Nobody's actually doing it, but now that he's heard about it, it's worth putting in his column, isn't it?

Journalism, Blogging, and David Martin in the Middle

I am frequently amused by bloggers who get full of themselves and start to think of themselves as journalists. (I won't link to any examples - my most frequent critic [the one I live with] says I've been too mean lately.) Simply stated, journalism is similar to much of blogging in that it normally consists of timely writing on current events. But journalism has the added burden of carefully checking facts and getting reliable and verifiable sources, whereas bloggers can, and do, let a story fly based on an email or a suspicion. It's a huge difference, and an important one - I wrote about it here when Dan Margolies of the Star called me to try to find sources on a (true) story I had published based upon an email and a suspicion. We both wound up writing about the same thing, but I did it as a blogger and he did it as a journalist (only after he had confirmation of the facts). Journalists don't publish stories based on rumors and conjecture.

That is, unless you are David Martin of the Pitch. You see, David seems a little worked up that the Wall Street Journal (a source of real journalism, at least until Murdoch gains control) wrote about a small demonstration of Minutemen outside Beth Gottstein's place. David missed the story when it happened (even though he claims he's been "reading about" the Minutemen since someone else at the Pitch wrote about them), and now, egg all over his face, he wants to get to the bottom of this tiny facet of the whole Semler story.

Humorously, he seems surprised that Beth didn't want to talk to him when he shows up, flash photographer in tow, and insists on grilling Gottstein about the demonstration outside a meeting. Ambush journalism has its place, but not when the topic is a 5 week old demonstration consisting of a few Minutemen waving signs outside a plaza condo. In that context, it's just another form of harassment, and Beth treated the jerk like a jerk. Good job, Beth. Too bad you didn't have some mace for him.

Gottstein showed a lot more class than she needed to, and called him up to give him the interview he wanted. In it, he accuses her of making up the demonstration, and demands to know where the Wall Street Journal got its story. Beth, having moved past this 5 week old story, refuses to play his game, and rebuffs his attempts to stir up another fight between herself and the Minutemen crazies. She, like everyone else, knows that if she gives him a quote about the demonstration, he'll use it to provoke another one, and nobody except a failing "journalist" would benefit from that.

In other words, David Martin just got outscooped by the Wall Street Journal and outsmarted by Beth Gottstein. It's been a bad week, and he's feeling fussy about it. He's forced a photographer to invest time in this fool's errand, and he has no story. People must be kind of chuckling at him around the office.

Instead of being a journalist and sticking to the verified facts, David Martin attacks. He actually publishes an article based on his unverified suspicion that the demonstration didn't happen. Angry that real journalists found a facet of the story that he had totally missed, he assumes it must be false, because he would have known about it if it had happened.

What's his best piece of evidence? That someone with the Minutemen denies that he knew about it. Note - nothing in Martin's article says the Minutemen denied it happened, but a person who was not tied to the demonstration denies that his nutcase organization harassed a city councilperson. There's a shocker! That's enough to run the presses for David Martin, though.

Oh, there's one more bit of evidence, but it contradicts Martin's position. The Minutemen were gathering for a protest in Topeka later that day, so the thought that they decided to raise two kinds of hell on their trip, when they already had their signs painted, makes a fair amount of sense.

Laughably, Martin ends his article with an accusation that Gottstein is not telling the truth, and that she is stirring things up by embellishing the truth to make herself a victim.

David Martin, you have no facts. All you have is a suspicion, and a large dose of frustration. A blogger might run with that, but a journalist most definitely would not. Talk to some of the journalists in your office, and maybe they'll take the time to explain the difference. They pay attention to the difference, and publish their non-journalism on their blog, where it belongs, instead of in print. On the other hand, they might refuse to talk to you, just like Beth Gottstein did, because you cannot be trusted to act like a journalist.

The Sell-Out of the Washington Post

It's nice to think back to a day when an independent press doggedly sought to publish the truth and expose the corruption of our nation's capitol - but it's mostly an illusion. "Insider" press corps members have always shielded the American public from knowledge they didn't think we could digest properly, and shielded government officials from scrutiny of matters they didn't think were the proper concern of the public. Examples include the health issues and philandering of certain presidents. Who knows what other revelations have remained hidden in the buddy-buddy world of Washington?

It's also nice to think that things are improving, and that our press corps has develped a more complete sense of duty since Watergate. Alas, that is also a fanciful illusion.

Take a moment and read this paragraph by the Washington Post's "liberal" Richard Cohen:

With the sentencing of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Fitzgerald has apparently finished his work, which was, not to put too fine a point on it, to make a mountain out of a molehill. At the urging of the liberal press (especially the New York Times), he was appointed to look into a run-of-the-mill leak and wound up prosecuting not the leaker -- Richard Armitage of the State Department -- but Libby, convicted in the end of lying. This is not an entirely trivial matter since government officials should not lie to grand juries, but neither should they be called to account for practicing the dark art of politics. As with sex or real estate, it is often best to keep the lights off.

If you're not dismayed and disgusted by the prospect of a so-called journalist arguing that the prosecution of Scooter Libby (begun by a criminal complaint filed by the CIA, not the NYT) represent an unwarranted shining of light onto the "dark art of politics", then go here and read Glenn Greenwald's explanation of why you should be.