Is your local paper covering the news? 350.org?

Submitted by Cook for Good on Sun, 10/25/2009 - 1:52pm

I recently resubscribed to my local newspaper, Raleigh's News & Observer. It's only been about two weeks now and I'm thinking about dropping my subscription again.

Yesterday, I marched with about 150 other people in the rain as part of the International Day of Climate Action. We went to the Governor's Mansion to ask Beverly Perdue to stop Duke Power from building the Cliffside Coal Plant and to ask President Obama to take strong action to stop global warming.

The News & Observer reported that six people were arrested. No mention of the rest of us chanting across the street to show our support and gratitude for those were arrested. No mention of global warming. No mention of the other 5,200 plus events around the world. Our local TV station, WRAL, did a much better job.

Follow me below the fold for a discussion of local news coverage and what we should do about it.

I stopped a lifetime practice of getting the daily paper three years ago. The last straw was when our paper refused to mention protests by 9 unions representing over 9,000 federal scientists and related employees over the approval of 32 pesticides. Instead, they only covered the happy-happy news that the Audubon Society was glad that one pesticide had been banned that would have been particularly harmful to songbirds. As the LA Times reported, the scientists' unions had sent a letter to the head of the EPA in which:

they accused the EPA of skipping many steps in assessing the dangers, "in violation of the principles of scientific integrity and objectivity." They were particularly concerned about whether the EPA was adequately assessing potential neurological effects on fetuses and children.

Now this was a local story with national implications for at least two reasons: the national headquarters of the EPA is located here and the state had just released a study that had gotten a lot of attention about severely deformed babies being born to farmworkers who had been exposed to pesticides, including one baby born without limbs.

So for three years, I've gotten my news online and via The Independent Weekly. But I've just become the organizer for our Citizens' Advisory Council, which is supposed to be a connecting point between the city government and the citizens. I wanted more local news and thought the paper might carry more in the print edition than it does online. So I resubscribed.

In just two weeks, I've noticed the lack of stories about the listening sessions to get citizen comments at the beginning of a process to revamp the city's zoning ordinances. The sessions for the developers were very well attended, but there were only about six people at the one for environmental concerns. The paper also missed a chance to gather some easy good news by covering the annual awards given by the Citizens' Advisory Council, a heart-warming event that salutes individuals, organizations, and businesses that have helped make Raleigh a better community.

A city needs news. But is incomplete news better than no news? A democracy depends on an informed citizenry to be most effective. As much as I respect and appreciate volunteer sources, it takes a lot of time to cover the workings of society at all levels, including going to all those boring city council meetings to keep an eye out for shennanigans. Even today, lots of people don't have internet access, so a printed paper is a great way to the news to many people.

But reading stories that so distort the truth may be worse. They make you think you've been informed on a topic, so you don't seek other sources.

Did your paper cover the local and international 350.org events? You can find out if there was a local action here. In the comments, please offer any ideas for encouraging good coverage of local events.

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Glad to have another watcher of the watch dogs

Submitted by James on Sun, 10/25/2009 - 4:31pm.

I subscribed to the N&O for more than 20 years, and while the news coverage is nowhere near as strong as it used to be, it's the paper's editorial page positions that caused me to cancel once and for all. Specifically, the presence of Rick Martinez, news director for WPTF Hate Radio, is one of their regular columnists. Combine that with an over-reliance on the Art Pope Glittery Opinion Manufacturing Machine as a reliabl esource for right wing idiocy, and you have a paper hardly worth having.

Happy to front page this. Thanks for writing it.

More on the N&O here

Submitted by Foxtrot on Sun, 10/25/2009 - 5:00pm.

My son lives in Raleigh and is a manager at a large company there (will not give the name if it is okay). He was raised by me after a very easy and agreeable divorce so he has my personality and has developed my political beliefs as well. He is "grown and gone" now. When he moved first to Durham then to Raleigh, he started cutting out articles by various columnists and "letters to the editor" and Editor presentations and sending them to me. We would call each other and laugh about some of them and when we got together, we would always discuss which way the N&O leaned politically. We came to the conclusion that this paper seemed to lean whichever way it needed to, meaning what was PC and what was what the upper management wanted to see in its commentary and overall presentations.

He has since stopped his subscription to the N&O (because of his disgust with the paper) and gets a national newspaper publication which serves both his investment information needs as well as his need to know the issues of the day.

___________________________________________________
“Discussion is an exchange of knowledge; argument is an exchange of ignorance" __ Robert Quillen

McClatchy-NC's Raleigh dead-tree edition is worthless

Submitted by usernamehere on Sun, 10/25/2009 - 5:24pm.

There is some moderate, but limited, value in their recently relaunched, yet still pitiful, online product - even on local matters. Certain topical blogs are better than others there.

If you're involved in CAC or planning commission type work in Wake County, read blogs linked at newraleigh.com and indyweek.com

You can get The N&O's source work at the rabidly conservative reactionary John Locke Foundation web sites James mentions above.

Bottom line: don't waste money on a subscription to The N&O. It's just a later version of some items online.

 

I cancelled my subscription for many reasons

Submitted by Haywood on Mon, 10/26/2009 - 7:26pm.

And agree entirely about coverage of these types of demonstrations. But along with this effort and your post here, I would suggest you get some others from the demonstration to write letters to the N&O editor and their national parent company. The folks in the Raleigh office actually read those things.

And in all fairness, the N&O isn't the only one to botch this story. It's a national problem and one that's logstanding when it comes to coverage of citizen demonstrations. Sensationalism gets ink. That's why the tea baggers were media darlings and this equivalent effort is barely covered.
Sigh. I've gone and depressed myself again. Great post by the way. Thanks.

Thanks Cook

Submitted by Green Mom on Tue, 10/27/2009 - 12:28am.

This is really important. I've been thinking of stopping my N&O subscription. So little to read there. It's really a shame.

Difficult

Submitted by Michael Brennan on Tue, 10/27/2009 - 5:30am.

It's difficult for me to get past the fact that over 40,000 scientists here in America think the global warming frenzy is just a political hoax. How can we ask our president to spend billions of dollars on something that has no consensus in the scientific community. After the stimulus bill passed we have no money left anyway. chris brown

asdf

Submitted by James on Tue, 10/27/2009 - 7:35am.

Perhaps that's because "the fact" you point to isn't a fact at all. Even if it were true that 40,000 scientists have consensus on anything, they certainly wouldn't have consensus on the specific statement you've made. You could at least engage in the charade of trying to find links to your "facts."

Not difficult

Submitted by gregflynn on Tue, 10/27/2009 - 7:37am.

The statement about 40,000 scientists in America calling global warming a hoax is itself a hoax.

I found this article today

Submitted by loftT on Tue, 10/27/2009 - 9:22am.

While looking for some news on a chemical spill this morning and came across this: Where Terry Sanford was calling for the US to come up with a cogent Science based policy on environmental issues, dated April 19, 1990

scroll down to see it:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1367&dat=19900419&id=U-UVAAAAIBAJ&...

We have wasted precious time. No time to argue with deniers anymore.

Oh, and there is no local news. One tiny story on the wfmy website about this acrylic acid tanker spill near my home.
The state of news reporting is distressing.

Progressive Democrats of North Carolina