I posed the following questions to Executive Editor Rick Green of The Desert Sun. They concern the paper's story today about government officials giving $700,000 in public money to financially troubled local auto dealers to spend on advertising the owners claim will jump-start business.
1. Why was this vote reported nearly two weeks after the fact?
2. Why was it not today's lead story?
3. What's the Sun's editorial position on this use of public money?
These are in addition to questions I posed in a voice-mail message to Green about the paper's online databases.
Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write gannettblog[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green rail, upper right.
Monday, April 20, 2009
6 comments:
Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."
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ReplyDeleteSounds like three legitimate questions to me. Hope you get
ReplyDeletethree appropriate answers.
And for those people who insist on posting, "You suck, Jim," just how infantile can they get?
Hope you continue
to kill out these inappropriate
comments. They are really getting
boring to those of us who tune
in to find out of what's going on
with Gannett.
It IS obvious that a major benefactor of this stimulus money will be the newspaper.
ReplyDeleteAnd when this was made public the LAST time, and the city tried to get it approved in the fall of 08, it got shouted down by an irate public. Oh, damn that public for coming between a newspaper and someone elese's tax dollars!!!
Sometimes, a newspaper has to be a watchdog AGAINST the interests of the public, after all. Besides, what to the PEOPLE know anyway?????
Isn't it best to keep those pesky, not-all-that-bright public in the dark a while so the deal can get done?
Of course it is! The great unwashed aren't smart like the government officials and the local media folks... after all!
If Palm Springs is anything like my Gannett paper, my guesses are:
ReplyDelete1. It was reported two weeks after the fact because the reporter has been on furlough, or was filling in for somebody else who was on furlough and it slipped by him or her, or the story was missed by editors because they've been scrambling because so many folks were on furlough; or the reporter and editors are lazy and/or incompetent, which is more exposed in the bare-bones staffs we're running with now.
2. Why was this not today's lead story? Because the editors aren't that good at their job, or they've had it drilled into them to downplay controversy, particularly when it pertains to major advertisers.
3. What's the editorial position on this? Does hiding your head in the sand count? If they can't get away with that, the only alternative left is to support the taxpayers. Just kidding! They'll be slurping the advertisers, of course.
12:25 a.m. you hit the nail on the head with your post. Numbers 1 and 2 could well be at my site, too. I am in awe at the stuff we're missing due to furloughs, or how nasty the paper looks due to furloughs. There's only so much you can squeeze an already overworked staff until more falls through the cracks.
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