Media Monday – 20070101

I think I need to start date coding our “Media Monday” pieces. Something tells me that, as the city council election approaches, there will be quite a few.

Today’s “Tilghman Times” features a recap of local events during 2006 with a section concerning blogs. Reporter Laren Hughes Hall does manage to correct a distortion from several of her previous articles. In this article from November 30, Ms. Hall writes:

On Tuesday, a heated exchange took place between Councilwoman Debbie Campbell and the other four members of council after she disseminated a position paper to her constituents — but not to her colleagues — through blogs.

Of course that was not only incorrect, Ms. Hall told a big, fat fib. I don’t know Ms. Hall, so I can’t state as fact that she was the reporter that Debbie Campbell handed her press release to, but I do believe it was Ms. Hall as I do know the other “Tilghman Times” reporters who have covered the city council over the past year or so.

In todays piece she corrects herself by writing:

Months later in late November, City Councilwoman Debbie Campbell disseminated a letter sharing her positions on various city issues to local media agencies. Her colleagues were outraged when they learned the letter, to which they had not been privy, was published on several local blog sites.

Of course this correction was buried in an article. No correction was printed, but Ms. Hall is supposed to represent the “responsible media”? Of course she does. Her editors should be on Barrie Tilghman’s payroll rather than Gannett’s.

This is reinforced by Ms. Hall’s mention of the waste water treatment plant problem:

In late February, after one blogger’s pictures provided evidence for the Maryland Department of the Environment to investigate complaints that the city was covering up illegal operations at its wastewater treatment plant, Salisbury Mayor Barrie Parsons Tilghman called a news conference. There, she trashed the sites for causing unnecessary work and aggravation for the city’s employees.

While Ms. Hall does state that one blogger’s pictures (Mr. Joe Albero‘s pictures posted on Charles Jannace’s late blog) provided evidence of illegal action by the city, instead of explaining the outcome of the investigation she goes into the party line that the blog was wrong and that city workers were having to work overtime because of (baseless) accusations. In fact, if you think back to your 4th, 5th and 6th grade grammar classes and deconstruct this sentence you will find the the subject was Barrie Tilghman and the predicate was calling a press conference. The phrase about Mr. Albero’s excellent investigative work was merely being used to modify the subject (putting it into context).

While I usually blame the editors of the “Tilghman Times” for the paper’s blatant bias in favor of the mayor and her “council leadership” I can’t leave Ms. Hall blameless. When other reporters wrote pieces about the Salisbury City Council you could tell that the story had been chopped to pieces. It was only fair to assume that the reporter had written a balanced piece and that Messrs. Carmean and Bassett just aren’t very good editors.

Either Ms. Hall has decided to join their dirty little guild or Messrs. Carmean and Bassett have significantly improved their skills as editors. Since this happens to coincide with Ms. Hall taking over the city council beat the evidence seems to point towards Ms. Hall’s bias rather than an improved skill set on the part of her editors.

Keep up the great work Laren! I usually need something to write on Monday’s. You keep providing the bad reporting, I’ll provide the bandwidth.

Technorati Tags: Salisbury, politics, salisburypolitics, WWTP, environment, blogs, DebbieCampbell, TilghmanTimes, media, mediabias

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