Here is the false and misleading article published by the Union-Tribune. This lawsuit is most definitely NOT settled. There was a trial verdict on October 3, 2012, but no settlement. The case is quite likely headed to the Court of Appeal. Why would anyone want the public to believe it was settled? I have some ideas about that.
Suit settled in favor of former Del Mar Superintendent
Lyndsay Winkley
U-T San Diego
Oct. 9, 2012
A lawsuit between Del Mar school’s former Superintendent Sharon McClain and the district was settled last week in McClain’s favor after more than two years of legal battle.
Superior Court Judge John Meyer ordered the Del Mar Union School District to pay $388,537 plus about $30,000 in interest after ruling McClain was wrongfully terminated.
Board members did not talk specifics about McClain’s termination throughout the legal proceedings, citing the lawsuit, but a negative performance evaluation from McClain’s tenure was submitted as support for the district’s position during the case.
“You are openly hostile to the current Board President, you complain to Board members about other Board members, and you complain to District staff about the Board,” the evaluation said. “You have positioned yourself as fighting against the Board instead of being part of a governance team.”
McClain submitted a rebuttal saying she felt the board was committed to finding problems with her performance to fire her.
Trustees voted to oust McClain at a March 2010 board meeting, called only two days prior. Still, the board room was packed with parents, and all speakers, nearly 30, supported McClain. In a 3-1-1 vote, she was fired.
Two current trustees took part in the 2010 vote. Trustee Doug Perkins voted in favor of firing McClain, while Trustee Comischell Rodriguez opposed it. Neither responded to emails Tuesday for comment. McClain also did not respond to emails for comment.
Del Mar’s school district has spent more than $700,000 in the last four years on settlements for two superintendents.
[Maura Larkins comment: This statement is false, since not one cent has been paid in any settlement with Sharon McClain, and the district has NO plan to settle with McClain. More importantly, this article fails to tell us how much the district spent on three full-time lawyers during the trial, and for two years of depositions and motions preceding the trial.]
The board bought out Tom Bishop’s contract for more than $300,000 in 2008. McClain was hired in summer 2008.
Current Superintendent Holly McClurg is the fourth to hold the position in four years, following former Superintendent James Peabody, who retired in June.
THE BIZARRE REPORTING OF U-T SAN DIEGO
On October 9, 2012 I added the following to my own blog post about the Sharon McClain trial:
"To its shame, U-T San Diego has not reported on the trial outcome in this case, although it published the details of the district's criticisms of McClain."
Later that day, at 6:28 p.m., U-T San Diego published the bizarre and false headline, "Suit settled in favor of former Del Mar Superintendent."
But this lawsuit is most definitely NOT settled. There was a trial verdict, but no settlement. The case is quite likely headed to the Court of Appeal. Why would anyone want the public to believe it was settled?
I think the answer is clear. Many people claimed that the district would settle to avoid paying huge amounts to lawyers. The opposite is true. The system is set up so that lawyers, rather than wronged employees and students, receive the largesse of school insurer SDCOE-JPA (San Diego County Office of Education). SDCOE's Diane Crosier used to work in Dan Shinoff's law firm, and Mr. Shinoff was involved in hiring Ms. Crosier at SDCOE.
A reasonable person would conclude that the court had actually overseen a settlement of the case. The word "trial" does not occur anywhere in the U-T article. The article refers to "legal proceedings" and mentions the name of the judge, and includes a recitation of board complaints against McClain.
The name of Dan Shinoff is entirely missing from the U-T article. Interestingly, the Union-Tribune completely failed to cover the sexual harassment lawsuit that Mr. Shinoff lost on behalf of his long-time client Patrick Judd, former superintendent of Mountain Empire Unified School District and former board member of CVESD, although the Union-Tribune had endorsed Mr. Judd repeatedly.
Here's the comment I posted on the U-T article:
There was a trial, not a settlement, in this case.
This article states: "Del Mar’s school district has spent more than $700,000 in the last four years on settlements for two superintendents."
This statement is false, since not one cent has been paid in any settlement with Sharon McClain, and the district has NO plan to settle with McClain.
More importantly, this article fails to tell us how much the district spent on three full-time lawyers during the trial, and for two years of depositions and motions preceding the trial.
Obviously, the district should have settled with McClain in the beginning.
U-T San Diego leadership:
Douglas F. Manchester Chairman & Publisher
John T. Lynch Vice Chairman & CEO john.lynch@utsandiego.com
Mike Hodges President & Chief Operating Officer mike.hodges@utsandiego.com 619-293-1104
Jeff Light Editor, Vice President jeff.light@utsandiego.com 619-293-1201
Joe Brenneman Chief Revenue Officer joe.brenneman@utsandiego.com 619-293-1500
Mike Glickenhaus Vice President, Strategic Sales mike.glickenhaus@utsandiego.com 619-293-2161
Dan Hellbusch Vice President, Audience/Business Development & Strategic Partnerships dan.hellbusch@utsandiego.com 619-718-1484
Tom Jimenez Vice President, Spanish-Language products tom.jimenez@utsandiego.com 619-293-1568
Ryan Kiesel Vice President, Chief Financial Officer ryan.kiesel@utsandiego.com 619-293-1117
Kris Viesselman Vice President, Product Development & Chief Creative Officer kris.viesselman@utsandiego.com 619-293-2235
Harry Woldt Vice President, Circulation & Distribution harry.woldt@utsandiego.com 619-293-1601
Opinion
Steve Breen Editorial cartoonist steve.breen@utsandiego.com 619-293-1230
U-T San Diego Editorial Board 619-293-1395
Blanca Gonzalez Community opinion editor blanca.gonzalez@utsandiego.com 619-293-1241
William Osborne Editorial editor bill.osborne@utsandiego.com 619-293-1395
Chris Reed Editorial writer chris.reed@utsandiego.com 619-293-1511
Joe Taylor Letters editor joe.taylor@utsandiego.com 619-293-1789
[It looks like Don Sevrens, who hid the truth about Castle Park Elementary School as he was publishing hysterical stories and letters, is gone. It's not much of a loss for education reporting.]
SADLY, THE NORTH COUNTY TIMES HAS BEEN BOUGHT BY THE OWNER OF THE U-T.
We are close to having a newspaper monopoly in San Diego.
For years, the North County Times has done a good job reporting on schools. It seems that this is changing since the NCT was recently purchased by Doug Manchester, owner of U-T San Diego.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Who is exposing the underbellies of school systems, U-T San Diego or Voice of San Diego?
My challenge to Will Carless at VOSD and Jeff McDonald at U-T San Diego:
Why don't you find out the truth about what's going on at SDCOE?
Now that Will Carless has replaced Emily Alpert at VOSD, why doesn't he conduct a "Crosier Watch" similar to the "Petty Watch" he conducted in 2008?
Over the past few years, only a few limited stories about the tactics of education attorneys have crept into the press. Reporters have to beg and plead and practically stand on their heads to get their stories published. Voice of San Diego dropped its coverage of SDCOE attorney shenanigans, and laid-off its stellar education reporter Emily Alpert. CEO Scott Lewis claimed that he didn't have enough money to pay her.
But that explanation doesn't hold water.
Voice of San Diego benefactors Buzz Woolley and Irwin Jacobs, who claim to care about education, could have easily paid Emily's salary with their pocket change if they'd wanted her to stay. And I suspect she would have wanted to stay if her job description had been made more appealing, which would have included being allowed to publish her stories freely. At one time she must have hoped that all her work would result in some changes for children in schools.
It seems Buzz Woolley, Irwin Jacobs and Emily Alpert weren't on the same page.
I recently discovered (in a story by Jeff McDonald at the U-T) that SDCOE executive Dan Puplava, whom Emily had started investigating, was fined $7000 and had his brokers license suspended while AIG Financial, which was paying Puplava big bucks for moonlighting with them, was fined $300,000 for not properly overseeing him. Still, Puplava retains his job as head of the SDCOE Fringe Benefits Consortium.
Voice of San Diego never even placed a link in its Morning Report to the U-T San Diego story.
To its credit, VOSD's Will Carless is doing a great job investigating a school bond scam in Poway pulled off by board members and their lawyers.
But if VOSD had been willing to aggressively investigate education attorneys, the Poway Capital Appreciation Bonds scandal might have been prevented. Of course, the downside of that for VOSD would be that it wouldn't have an exciting school bond story to write about.
It seems that journalists are a bit like Plaintiff lawyers: they actually benefit from corruption and wrongdoing because investigation it gets them money and fame.
All along, of course, the school attorneys are making work for themselves by advising school boards to ignore the law.
But the public doesn't hear much about this.
In fact, even private bloggers like me and Scott Dauenhaur get sued by SDCOE lawyer Dan Shinoff for defamation on behalf of himself and his pals at SDCOE. SDCOE should stop tax dollars to stop public discussion of school attorney tactics, but it won't.
Shockingly, it seems that U-T San Diego's Jeff McDonald is more willing to expose SDCOE than Voice of San Diego is. As a member of Voice of San Diego, I never thought I'd be forced to confess that we need the U-T in order to get balanced news reporting in San Diego. I never thought Doug Manchester's rag would sometimes do a better job on education than Buzz Woolley and Irwin Jacobs.
The U-T freely admits that it is using the paper to influence voters and officials. You know you're reading a biased paper when you read the U-T. The Union-Tribune has been killing important stories for years.
The problem with VOSD is that the bias is in the censorship--you don't know which stories they killed because donors didn't like them. Except, of course, in cases where VOSD started a story--and then killed it.
Now that Will Carless has replaced Emily Alpert at VOSD, why doesn't he conduct a "Crosier Watch" similar to the "Petty Watch" he conducted in 2008?
Over the past few years, only a few limited stories about the tactics of education attorneys have crept into the press. Reporters have to beg and plead and practically stand on their heads to get their stories published. Voice of San Diego dropped its coverage of SDCOE attorney shenanigans, and laid-off its stellar education reporter Emily Alpert. CEO Scott Lewis claimed that he didn't have enough money to pay her.
But that explanation doesn't hold water.
Voice of San Diego benefactors Buzz Woolley and Irwin Jacobs, who claim to care about education, could have easily paid Emily's salary with their pocket change if they'd wanted her to stay. And I suspect she would have wanted to stay if her job description had been made more appealing, which would have included being allowed to publish her stories freely. At one time she must have hoped that all her work would result in some changes for children in schools.
It seems Buzz Woolley, Irwin Jacobs and Emily Alpert weren't on the same page.
I recently discovered (in a story by Jeff McDonald at the U-T) that SDCOE executive Dan Puplava, whom Emily had started investigating, was fined $7000 and had his brokers license suspended while AIG Financial, which was paying Puplava big bucks for moonlighting with them, was fined $300,000 for not properly overseeing him. Still, Puplava retains his job as head of the SDCOE Fringe Benefits Consortium.
Voice of San Diego never even placed a link in its Morning Report to the U-T San Diego story.
To its credit, VOSD's Will Carless is doing a great job investigating a school bond scam in Poway pulled off by board members and their lawyers.
But if VOSD had been willing to aggressively investigate education attorneys, the Poway Capital Appreciation Bonds scandal might have been prevented. Of course, the downside of that for VOSD would be that it wouldn't have an exciting school bond story to write about.
It seems that journalists are a bit like Plaintiff lawyers: they actually benefit from corruption and wrongdoing because investigation it gets them money and fame.
All along, of course, the school attorneys are making work for themselves by advising school boards to ignore the law.
But the public doesn't hear much about this.
In fact, even private bloggers like me and Scott Dauenhaur get sued by SDCOE lawyer Dan Shinoff for defamation on behalf of himself and his pals at SDCOE. SDCOE should stop tax dollars to stop public discussion of school attorney tactics, but it won't.
Shockingly, it seems that U-T San Diego's Jeff McDonald is more willing to expose SDCOE than Voice of San Diego is. As a member of Voice of San Diego, I never thought I'd be forced to confess that we need the U-T in order to get balanced news reporting in San Diego. I never thought Doug Manchester's rag would sometimes do a better job on education than Buzz Woolley and Irwin Jacobs.
The U-T freely admits that it is using the paper to influence voters and officials. You know you're reading a biased paper when you read the U-T. The Union-Tribune has been killing important stories for years.
The problem with VOSD is that the bias is in the censorship--you don't know which stories they killed because donors didn't like them. Except, of course, in cases where VOSD started a story--and then killed it.
Democrats are not invited to U-T San Diego's "One-Stop Shop" main event for candidates
No Democrats were invited to big event for U-T San Diego.
U-T San Diego’s one-stop-shop flop
GOP gets paper’s CEO and Hedgecock; Dems don’t
By John R. Lamb
City Beat
Sep 26, 2012
U-T San Diego editor Jeff Light told the four people who attended the second leg of the conservative paper’s “One-Stop Shop for Candidates” event two weeks ago that they were kept separate from the local GOP version “to keep the peace.”
Spin Cycle has no idea if Light was joking, but he needn’t have worried, for the Mission Valley headquarters of hotelier/developer Doug Manchester’s spreading media empire remained standing the next day.
Billed as two “exciting evenings” to showcase the U-T’s sputtering evolution into an “innovative new media company” and provide insight into “how to get noticed by the press” and “how does one get endorsed,” the differences and similarities between the Sept. 11 and Sept. 13 productions were indicative of the company’s political underpinnings.
The most notable difference was in who showed up, according to accounts of the proceedings provided to Spin Cycle. Although invitations for both events proclaimed that U-T Vice Chairman and CEO John Lynch would make “introductory remarks,” he bothered to do so only for the 50 or so conservative brothers and a handful of sisters at the Sept. 11 Republican gathering.
Of course, it was that day that the Lynch / Manchester duo had lifted its leg on the U-T’s latest conquest, the Escondido-based North County Times, whose acquisition by Manchester is set to conclude Oct. 1.
Mention of that to the GOP choir packed in the U-T’s Manchester Boardroom that night drew hoots and applause, which seemed to fire up the jock in Lynch.
“I think that allows such incredible opportunity. My kids went to school in North County, and they’ve always had an incredible heritage of fabulous prep sports and family coverage up there,” Lynch told the Republican crowd. “We can really make an impact because the North County is about who we are.”
He hinted at undetermined “plans” of “joining the papers together” and of future conquests—Manchester is rumored to be interested in snapping up the Chicago-based, bankruptcy-mired Tribune Co., owner of the Los Angeles Times—“to really create a great business with this same type of model across the country.”
If that isn’t enough to make progressives and working journalists queasy, Lynch also described his vision of changing “the political landscape in each community in terms of really supporting the values that we stand for, and that’s loving our country and loving America again,” as if somehow the Manchester / Lynch team has a lock on that market, too.
Lynch referred to local GOP honcho and “retired” video-game hacker Tony Krvaric, sitting in the audience, as a “terrific friend and partner” and lauded the fluffy profile of him that ran recently in the U-T as the kind of “good news” about “people who make a difference in our community” that Manchester—who did not attend either event—wants to provide.
Krvaric stumbled through a few laudatory sentences about “Papa Doug” (Disclosure: Spin Cycle has decided to no longer use the self-appointed paternal moniker that Manchester insists on, citing the ridiculousness of it) and bootlicked his “media powerhouse.”
“It takes a lot of guts,” the San Diego County Republican Party chairman gushed. “You are the ultimate risk takers…. There are some people that will try to take risk out of the system, which means you take opportunity out of the system. Then we’re all going to be equally miserable just like in Europe.”
Lynch said the “nationwide” coverage of the U-T’s growth plans—mostly negative—“mystifies” him. “I keep saying, ‘I’m such a nice guy!’ How could they say that?” he said to an eruption of laughter. He then turned the floor over to Mike Hodges, the man charged with turning the U-T into a multimedia dynamo of dominance. Lynch heaped praise on Hodges before going all Darth Vader on him by saying, “You better damn well hit the numbers!”
“It always comes back to the numbers, right, John?” Hodges nervously responded.
Hodges boasted about the emergence of UT-TV, the laugh-track of a television station that features, as one attendee noted, “silicon-laden blondes” who are challenged to speak in whole sentences.
Despite the newsroom and editorial staffs having been decimated by layoffs—opinion “director” Bill Osborne even noted with disdain that the once-robust 14-member editorial board has been slashed to four, with only two writers, making endorsements for the third-tier candidates who made up the majority of attendees difficult—UT-TV staffing has grown to 60, said the star of the Republican evening, loose conservative cannon Roger Hedgecock...
U-T San Diego’s one-stop-shop flop
GOP gets paper’s CEO and Hedgecock; Dems don’t
By John R. Lamb
City Beat
Sep 26, 2012
U-T San Diego editor Jeff Light told the four people who attended the second leg of the conservative paper’s “One-Stop Shop for Candidates” event two weeks ago that they were kept separate from the local GOP version “to keep the peace.”
Spin Cycle has no idea if Light was joking, but he needn’t have worried, for the Mission Valley headquarters of hotelier/developer Doug Manchester’s spreading media empire remained standing the next day.
Billed as two “exciting evenings” to showcase the U-T’s sputtering evolution into an “innovative new media company” and provide insight into “how to get noticed by the press” and “how does one get endorsed,” the differences and similarities between the Sept. 11 and Sept. 13 productions were indicative of the company’s political underpinnings.
The most notable difference was in who showed up, according to accounts of the proceedings provided to Spin Cycle. Although invitations for both events proclaimed that U-T Vice Chairman and CEO John Lynch would make “introductory remarks,” he bothered to do so only for the 50 or so conservative brothers and a handful of sisters at the Sept. 11 Republican gathering.
Of course, it was that day that the Lynch / Manchester duo had lifted its leg on the U-T’s latest conquest, the Escondido-based North County Times, whose acquisition by Manchester is set to conclude Oct. 1.
Mention of that to the GOP choir packed in the U-T’s Manchester Boardroom that night drew hoots and applause, which seemed to fire up the jock in Lynch.
“I think that allows such incredible opportunity. My kids went to school in North County, and they’ve always had an incredible heritage of fabulous prep sports and family coverage up there,” Lynch told the Republican crowd. “We can really make an impact because the North County is about who we are.”
He hinted at undetermined “plans” of “joining the papers together” and of future conquests—Manchester is rumored to be interested in snapping up the Chicago-based, bankruptcy-mired Tribune Co., owner of the Los Angeles Times—“to really create a great business with this same type of model across the country.”
If that isn’t enough to make progressives and working journalists queasy, Lynch also described his vision of changing “the political landscape in each community in terms of really supporting the values that we stand for, and that’s loving our country and loving America again,” as if somehow the Manchester / Lynch team has a lock on that market, too.
Lynch referred to local GOP honcho and “retired” video-game hacker Tony Krvaric, sitting in the audience, as a “terrific friend and partner” and lauded the fluffy profile of him that ran recently in the U-T as the kind of “good news” about “people who make a difference in our community” that Manchester—who did not attend either event—wants to provide.
Krvaric stumbled through a few laudatory sentences about “Papa Doug” (Disclosure: Spin Cycle has decided to no longer use the self-appointed paternal moniker that Manchester insists on, citing the ridiculousness of it) and bootlicked his “media powerhouse.”
“It takes a lot of guts,” the San Diego County Republican Party chairman gushed. “You are the ultimate risk takers…. There are some people that will try to take risk out of the system, which means you take opportunity out of the system. Then we’re all going to be equally miserable just like in Europe.”
Lynch said the “nationwide” coverage of the U-T’s growth plans—mostly negative—“mystifies” him. “I keep saying, ‘I’m such a nice guy!’ How could they say that?” he said to an eruption of laughter. He then turned the floor over to Mike Hodges, the man charged with turning the U-T into a multimedia dynamo of dominance. Lynch heaped praise on Hodges before going all Darth Vader on him by saying, “You better damn well hit the numbers!”
“It always comes back to the numbers, right, John?” Hodges nervously responded.
Hodges boasted about the emergence of UT-TV, the laugh-track of a television station that features, as one attendee noted, “silicon-laden blondes” who are challenged to speak in whole sentences.
Despite the newsroom and editorial staffs having been decimated by layoffs—opinion “director” Bill Osborne even noted with disdain that the once-robust 14-member editorial board has been slashed to four, with only two writers, making endorsements for the third-tier candidates who made up the majority of attendees difficult—UT-TV staffing has grown to 60, said the star of the Republican evening, loose conservative cannon Roger Hedgecock...
Saturday, September 22, 2012
The media rates readers! Voice of San Diego news quiz winners
Link: Voice of San Diego
VOSD News Quiz The results are in for last week's VOSD News Quiz and we're quite impressed. Two members received perfect scores.
First place: Lee Swanson and David Gatzke win $500 vouchers for Co-Merge Workplace
Second place: Jo Brooks and Judy Radke win Voice of San Diego Photo Books
Third place: Bill Bradshaw, Pat Seabord, Dennis Doyle, David Inmon and Chris Metcalf win NEW VOSD T-shirts
VOSD News Quiz The results are in for last week's VOSD News Quiz and we're quite impressed. Two members received perfect scores.
First place: Lee Swanson and David Gatzke win $500 vouchers for Co-Merge Workplace
Second place: Jo Brooks and Judy Radke win Voice of San Diego Photo Books
Third place: Bill Bradshaw, Pat Seabord, Dennis Doyle, David Inmon and Chris Metcalf win NEW VOSD T-shirts
Friday, September 14, 2012
Did Channel 10 News "track down" the wrong people for its misleading story about John McCann's "patriotism"?
10News and Sweetwater's John McCann, True Patriots?
By Susan Luzzaro
Sept. 13, 2012
Many people believe a 10News report broadcast at 5 p.m. on September 12 deliberately misinformed the public.
On September 10, the Sweetwater Union High School District held a special meeting with an ambiguous agenda that suggested controversial interim superintendent Ed Brand would be awarded a contract. After several hours of deliberation, the board had nothing to report to the public.
Approximately 20 speakers addressed the board prior to the special closed-session meeting. When Kathleen Cheers, a community advocate, gave her speech to the board, she pointed out that the trustees had forgotten to do the pledge of allegiance. About 15 minutes later, board member John McCann requested a pledge of allegiance. The audience laughed.
“They were laughing at Mr. McCann’s opportunism,” said Cheers in a September 12 interview. 10News quoted Stewart Payne, a member of Occupy Sweetwater, explaining the laughter as well: "The moans and groans you hear aren't about the Pledge of Allegiance. They're about John McCann making it about himself again.”
Nevertheless, 10News told the story differently. “Disrespectful laughter at the flag and victims of 9/11,” said news anchor Kim Hunt, leading into the story. “10News has obtained an audio recording of a recent local school board meeting where the crowd appears to laugh at a request to say the pledge and a moment of silence for 9/11…. Joe Little tracked down the people in the audience to get their take on the audiotape,” said Hunt, perhaps inadvertently suggesting the tape’s provenance was dubious.
The newscast included a four-second audio clip of McCann’s request being met by laughter. Before introducing the sound bite, 10News reporter Joe Little told the TV audience, “During the meeting, trustee John McCann realized the board forgot to say the pledge of allegiance.” Joe Little was not in attendance at the meeting.
Whether or not 10News had a recording of the entire meeting — including Cheers’s comment about the pledge being forgotten prior to McCann’s request for the pledge — is unknown.
Payne, a Sweetwater parent and one of the five people who took corruption charges to the district attorney’s office, sent the following message to Joe Little upon viewing the report: “I have watched the [10News] story of the board meeting held at SUHSD on Monday. While I feel the story was fairly reported, it is based on inaccurate and misleading information…”... Payne, who is one of those accused of disrespecting the flag, rarely speaks of his military career. He served 21 years in the Marines, was in three combat zones, and retired as a sergeant major. Following the 10News report, late on September 12, Sweetwater board member Bertha Lopez phoned Little, requesting that he retract his story due to the erroneous context presented. She emailed him today to follow up. As of late afternoon September 13, Little had not responded to Lopez’s messages or two phone calls left by this reporter.
By Susan Luzzaro
Sept. 13, 2012
Many people believe a 10News report broadcast at 5 p.m. on September 12 deliberately misinformed the public.
On September 10, the Sweetwater Union High School District held a special meeting with an ambiguous agenda that suggested controversial interim superintendent Ed Brand would be awarded a contract. After several hours of deliberation, the board had nothing to report to the public.
Approximately 20 speakers addressed the board prior to the special closed-session meeting. When Kathleen Cheers, a community advocate, gave her speech to the board, she pointed out that the trustees had forgotten to do the pledge of allegiance. About 15 minutes later, board member John McCann requested a pledge of allegiance. The audience laughed.
“They were laughing at Mr. McCann’s opportunism,” said Cheers in a September 12 interview. 10News quoted Stewart Payne, a member of Occupy Sweetwater, explaining the laughter as well: "The moans and groans you hear aren't about the Pledge of Allegiance. They're about John McCann making it about himself again.”
Nevertheless, 10News told the story differently. “Disrespectful laughter at the flag and victims of 9/11,” said news anchor Kim Hunt, leading into the story. “10News has obtained an audio recording of a recent local school board meeting where the crowd appears to laugh at a request to say the pledge and a moment of silence for 9/11…. Joe Little tracked down the people in the audience to get their take on the audiotape,” said Hunt, perhaps inadvertently suggesting the tape’s provenance was dubious.
The newscast included a four-second audio clip of McCann’s request being met by laughter. Before introducing the sound bite, 10News reporter Joe Little told the TV audience, “During the meeting, trustee John McCann realized the board forgot to say the pledge of allegiance.” Joe Little was not in attendance at the meeting.
Whether or not 10News had a recording of the entire meeting — including Cheers’s comment about the pledge being forgotten prior to McCann’s request for the pledge — is unknown.
Payne, a Sweetwater parent and one of the five people who took corruption charges to the district attorney’s office, sent the following message to Joe Little upon viewing the report: “I have watched the [10News] story of the board meeting held at SUHSD on Monday. While I feel the story was fairly reported, it is based on inaccurate and misleading information…”... Payne, who is one of those accused of disrespecting the flag, rarely speaks of his military career. He served 21 years in the Marines, was in three combat zones, and retired as a sergeant major. Following the 10News report, late on September 12, Sweetwater board member Bertha Lopez phoned Little, requesting that he retract his story due to the erroneous context presented. She emailed him today to follow up. As of late afternoon September 13, Little had not responded to Lopez’s messages or two phone calls left by this reporter.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
The man who calls himself Papa Doug now owns all of San Diego's major papers
The UT-San Diego yesterday denied that it had bought the North County Times, but today admitted that it had. This makes Voice of San Diego all the more important to San Diegans.
U-T Buys North County Times
September 11, 2012
By DAGNY SALAS
Voice of San Diego
Developer and U-T San Diego owner Doug Manchester now owns two major daily newspapers in the San Diego region: The company jointly owned by Manchester and his partner, U-T CEO John Lynch, bought the North County Times for $11.95 million. Voice of San Diego reporter Rob Davis is on the story and has been tweeting about it this morning:
11 Sep 12
Rob Davis@robwdavis
NCT publisher confirms that, yes indeed, the sale is complete now. Today. For real...
11 Sep 12
Rob Davis@robwdavis
Yesterday's non-sale fiasco has the bad odor of a case of We Wanted to Control Our News So We Denied The Report...
11 Sep 12
Rob Davis@robwdavis
The man who calls himself Papa Doug now owns all of San Diego's major papers. Good time to reread my profile of him. [Click here.]
U-T San Diego to buy North County Times, Californian
MANCHESTER EXPANDS MEDIA REACH IN $11.95M DEAL
By BRADLEY J. FIKES
nctimes.com
September 11, 2012
U-T San Diego has agreed to purchase the North County Times from Lee Enterprises Inc., North County Times publisher Peter York said Tuesday. The price was $11.95 million.
The sale of the Times, including The Californian, its edition in Southwest Riverside County, had been rumored for some time. A story in the San Diego Business Journal on Monday said a sale had been completed...
U-T Buys North County Times
September 11, 2012
By DAGNY SALAS
Voice of San Diego
Developer and U-T San Diego owner Doug Manchester now owns two major daily newspapers in the San Diego region: The company jointly owned by Manchester and his partner, U-T CEO John Lynch, bought the North County Times for $11.95 million. Voice of San Diego reporter Rob Davis is on the story and has been tweeting about it this morning:
11 Sep 12
Rob Davis@robwdavis
NCT publisher confirms that, yes indeed, the sale is complete now. Today. For real...
11 Sep 12
Rob Davis@robwdavis
Yesterday's non-sale fiasco has the bad odor of a case of We Wanted to Control Our News So We Denied The Report...
11 Sep 12
Rob Davis@robwdavis
The man who calls himself Papa Doug now owns all of San Diego's major papers. Good time to reread my profile of him. [Click here.]
U-T San Diego to buy North County Times, Californian
MANCHESTER EXPANDS MEDIA REACH IN $11.95M DEAL
By BRADLEY J. FIKES
nctimes.com
September 11, 2012
U-T San Diego has agreed to purchase the North County Times from Lee Enterprises Inc., North County Times publisher Peter York said Tuesday. The price was $11.95 million.
The sale of the Times, including The Californian, its edition in Southwest Riverside County, had been rumored for some time. A story in the San Diego Business Journal on Monday said a sale had been completed...
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
Dismembered bodies of 2 journalists found in Mexico
Dismembered bodies of 2 journalists found in Mexico
By the CNN Wire Staff
May 4, 2012
At least two of four dismembered bodies found Thursday morning in the eastern state of Veracruz and bearing signs of torture were journalists, Mexican authorities said.
The journalists were identified as Guillermo Luna Varela and Gabriel Huge, who had been reported missing Wednesday, said Sandra Garcia, a spokeswoman for the state government...
Dangers faced by journalists in Mexico
..."By the characteristics of the crime, one presumes that organized crime was involved in the commission of these homicides," the attorney general's office said in a statement.
Luna Varela worked as a photographer for veracruznews.com.mx, and Huge "dedicated himself to private activities," it said.
Their relatives said they had been missing since Wednesday, the statement said.
The bodies were found by naval police in the Zamorana Canal in the city of Boca del Rio, where two abandoned trucks were found last November containing 35 bodies.
The discovery of the photographers' bodies occurred on World Press Freedom Day and four days after Regina Martinez, a reporter for the weekly Proceso magazine, was found strangled in her house in Xalapa, Veracruz.
Since 2000, a total of 76 journalists have been killed in Mexico -- not counting Martinez or the two photographers -- according to data from the National Human Rights Commission.
By the CNN Wire Staff
May 4, 2012
At least two of four dismembered bodies found Thursday morning in the eastern state of Veracruz and bearing signs of torture were journalists, Mexican authorities said.
The journalists were identified as Guillermo Luna Varela and Gabriel Huge, who had been reported missing Wednesday, said Sandra Garcia, a spokeswoman for the state government...
Dangers faced by journalists in Mexico
..."By the characteristics of the crime, one presumes that organized crime was involved in the commission of these homicides," the attorney general's office said in a statement.
Luna Varela worked as a photographer for veracruznews.com.mx, and Huge "dedicated himself to private activities," it said.
Their relatives said they had been missing since Wednesday, the statement said.
The bodies were found by naval police in the Zamorana Canal in the city of Boca del Rio, where two abandoned trucks were found last November containing 35 bodies.
The discovery of the photographers' bodies occurred on World Press Freedom Day and four days after Regina Martinez, a reporter for the weekly Proceso magazine, was found strangled in her house in Xalapa, Veracruz.
Since 2000, a total of 76 journalists have been killed in Mexico -- not counting Martinez or the two photographers -- according to data from the National Human Rights Commission.
Monday, March 05, 2012
Rush Limbaugh is probably not sweating this one, folks.: Still has the biggest sponsor on his side
Rush Limbaugh: Still has the biggest sponsor on his side
By Rene Lynch
Los Angeles Times
March 5, 2012
Rush Limbaugh is probably not sweating this one, folks. The critics keep piling on. But the immensely popular talk radio host has the biggest "sponsor" of all on his side: Clear Channel radio network.
Arizona Sen. John McCain, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, and New York's Cardinal Timothy Dolan are among the latest to criticize Limbaugh for calling a Georgetown University student a "slut" and a "prostitute" after she testified in favor of birth control insurance coverage.
But Clear Channel's Premiere Radio Networks Inc., which hosts Limbaugh's conservative talk show, has voiced its unwavering support for Limbaugh, whose contract runs through 2016.
"The contraception debate is one that sparks strong emotion and opinions on both sides of the issue," Premiere Networks told the Associated Press. "We respect the right of Mr. Limbaugh, as well as the rights of those who disagree with him, to express those opinions."
A representative for Premiere declined to tell the news service how much revenue the company is losing over the recent loss of advertisers seeking to distance themselves from Limbaugh and his comments.
So far, at least seven advertisers have at least temporarily pulled away from the show, including ProFlowers, Quicken Loans, mattress retailers Sleep Train and Sleep Number, software maker Citrix Systems Inc., online data backup service provider Carbonite and online legal document services company LegalZoom, according to the Associated Press.
The advertisers who discussed the decision publicly said that Limbaugh crossed a line, going "beyond political discourse to a personal attack and do not reflect our values as a company,” said ProFlowers, an online floral delivery service.
Limbaugh caused a national uproar when he called Sandra Fluke, 30, a "slut" and "prostitute" and said she should post her sex videos online so he could watch. Limbaugh had blasted Fluke after she testified before Democratic congressional representatives in support of national healthcare policies that would force all employers -- including her Catholic-affiliated university, to cover birth control for women.
The furor led President Obama to personally telephone Fluke to lend his support. And Republicans and Democrats alike lambasted Limbaugh, who apologized to Fluke on Saturday.
But that was too little too late for some, like David Friend, a father of two adult daughters. Friend is also the chief executive of Carbonite, which provides online backup services, and was a frequent advertiser on Limbaugh's show. Friend issued a statement saying that he took the comments personally and could no longer be associated with the show.
"No one with daughters the age of Sandra Fluke, and I have two, could possibly abide the insult and abuse heaped upon this courageous and well-intentioned young lady. Mr. Limbaugh, with his highly personal attacks on Miss Fluke, overstepped any reasonable bounds of decency. Even though Mr. Limbaugh has now issued an apology, we have nonetheless decided to withdraw our advertising from his show. We hope that our action, along with the other advertisers who have already withdrawn their ads, will ultimately contribute to a more civilized public discourse."
For her part, Fluke said today on "The View" that Limbaugh's apology was insufficient.
McCain said Limbaugh's comments were "totally unacceptable" and "should be condemned" during an appearance on the CBSprogram "This Morning." New York's Dolan, who has been leading the battle to roll back blanket birth control coverage, on Sunday told the Daily News that the debate on such matters needs to stay civil. Gringrich also said Limbaugh was right to apologize for his statements -- and also said that the bigger issue were efforts by the "elite media" to frame the issue.
By Rene Lynch
Los Angeles Times
March 5, 2012
Rush Limbaugh is probably not sweating this one, folks. The critics keep piling on. But the immensely popular talk radio host has the biggest "sponsor" of all on his side: Clear Channel radio network.
Arizona Sen. John McCain, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, and New York's Cardinal Timothy Dolan are among the latest to criticize Limbaugh for calling a Georgetown University student a "slut" and a "prostitute" after she testified in favor of birth control insurance coverage.
But Clear Channel's Premiere Radio Networks Inc., which hosts Limbaugh's conservative talk show, has voiced its unwavering support for Limbaugh, whose contract runs through 2016.
"The contraception debate is one that sparks strong emotion and opinions on both sides of the issue," Premiere Networks told the Associated Press. "We respect the right of Mr. Limbaugh, as well as the rights of those who disagree with him, to express those opinions."
A representative for Premiere declined to tell the news service how much revenue the company is losing over the recent loss of advertisers seeking to distance themselves from Limbaugh and his comments.
So far, at least seven advertisers have at least temporarily pulled away from the show, including ProFlowers, Quicken Loans, mattress retailers Sleep Train and Sleep Number, software maker Citrix Systems Inc., online data backup service provider Carbonite and online legal document services company LegalZoom, according to the Associated Press.
The advertisers who discussed the decision publicly said that Limbaugh crossed a line, going "beyond political discourse to a personal attack and do not reflect our values as a company,” said ProFlowers, an online floral delivery service.
Limbaugh caused a national uproar when he called Sandra Fluke, 30, a "slut" and "prostitute" and said she should post her sex videos online so he could watch. Limbaugh had blasted Fluke after she testified before Democratic congressional representatives in support of national healthcare policies that would force all employers -- including her Catholic-affiliated university, to cover birth control for women.
The furor led President Obama to personally telephone Fluke to lend his support. And Republicans and Democrats alike lambasted Limbaugh, who apologized to Fluke on Saturday.
But that was too little too late for some, like David Friend, a father of two adult daughters. Friend is also the chief executive of Carbonite, which provides online backup services, and was a frequent advertiser on Limbaugh's show. Friend issued a statement saying that he took the comments personally and could no longer be associated with the show.
"No one with daughters the age of Sandra Fluke, and I have two, could possibly abide the insult and abuse heaped upon this courageous and well-intentioned young lady. Mr. Limbaugh, with his highly personal attacks on Miss Fluke, overstepped any reasonable bounds of decency. Even though Mr. Limbaugh has now issued an apology, we have nonetheless decided to withdraw our advertising from his show. We hope that our action, along with the other advertisers who have already withdrawn their ads, will ultimately contribute to a more civilized public discourse."
For her part, Fluke said today on "The View" that Limbaugh's apology was insufficient.
McCain said Limbaugh's comments were "totally unacceptable" and "should be condemned" during an appearance on the CBSprogram "This Morning." New York's Dolan, who has been leading the battle to roll back blanket birth control coverage, on Sunday told the Daily News that the debate on such matters needs to stay civil. Gringrich also said Limbaugh was right to apologize for his statements -- and also said that the bigger issue were efforts by the "elite media" to frame the issue.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
U.S. drops in Press Freedom index
PRESS FREEDOM INDEX 2011/2012
Syria, Bahrain and Yemen get worst ever rankings
“This year’s index sees many changes in the rankings, changes that reflect a year that was incredibly rich in developments, especially in the Arab world,” Reporters Without Borders said today as it released its 10th annual press freedom index. “Many media paid dearly for their coverage of democratic aspirations or opposition movements. Control of news and information continued to tempt governments and to be a question of survival for totalitarian and repressive regimes. The past year also highlighted the leading role played by netizens in producing and disseminating news.
“Crackdown was the word of the year in 2011. Never has freedom of information been so closely associated with democracy. Never have journalists, through their reporting, vexed the enemies of freedom so much. Never have acts of censorship and physical attacks on journalists seemed so numerous. The equation is simple: the absence or suppression of civil liberties leads necessarily to the suppression of media freedom. Dictatorships fear and ban information, especially when it may undermine them.
“It is no surprise that the same trio of countries, Eritrea, Turkmenistan and North Korea, absolute dictatorships that permit no civil liberties, again occupy the last three places in the index. This year, they are immediately preceded at the bottom by Syria, Iran and China, three countries that seem to have lost contact with reality as they have been sucked into an insane spiral of terror, and by Bahrain and Vietnam, quintessential oppressive regimes. Other countries such as Uganda and Belarus have also become much more repressive.
“This year’s index finds the same group of countries at its head, countries such as Finland, Norway and Netherlands that respect basic freedoms. This serves as a reminder that media independence can only be maintained in strong democracies and that democracy needs media freedom. It is worth noting the entry of Cape Verde and Namibia into the top twenty, two African countries where no attempts to obstruct the media were reported in 2011.”...
Syria, Bahrain and Yemen get worst ever rankings
“This year’s index sees many changes in the rankings, changes that reflect a year that was incredibly rich in developments, especially in the Arab world,” Reporters Without Borders said today as it released its 10th annual press freedom index. “Many media paid dearly for their coverage of democratic aspirations or opposition movements. Control of news and information continued to tempt governments and to be a question of survival for totalitarian and repressive regimes. The past year also highlighted the leading role played by netizens in producing and disseminating news.
“Crackdown was the word of the year in 2011. Never has freedom of information been so closely associated with democracy. Never have journalists, through their reporting, vexed the enemies of freedom so much. Never have acts of censorship and physical attacks on journalists seemed so numerous. The equation is simple: the absence or suppression of civil liberties leads necessarily to the suppression of media freedom. Dictatorships fear and ban information, especially when it may undermine them.
“It is no surprise that the same trio of countries, Eritrea, Turkmenistan and North Korea, absolute dictatorships that permit no civil liberties, again occupy the last three places in the index. This year, they are immediately preceded at the bottom by Syria, Iran and China, three countries that seem to have lost contact with reality as they have been sucked into an insane spiral of terror, and by Bahrain and Vietnam, quintessential oppressive regimes. Other countries such as Uganda and Belarus have also become much more repressive.
“This year’s index finds the same group of countries at its head, countries such as Finland, Norway and Netherlands that respect basic freedoms. This serves as a reminder that media independence can only be maintained in strong democracies and that democracy needs media freedom. It is worth noting the entry of Cape Verde and Namibia into the top twenty, two African countries where no attempts to obstruct the media were reported in 2011.”...
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Journalists—Myself Included—Swept Up in Mass Arrest at Occupy Oakland
Journalists—Myself Included—Swept Up in Mass Arrest at Occupy Oakland
By Gavin Aronsen
Mother Jones
Jan. 29, 2012
Occupy Oakland protesters flee as police attempt to kettle them ahead of Saturday's mass arrest. Glenn Halog/Flickr
On Saturday, Occupy Oakland re-entered the national spotlight during a day-long effort to take over an empty building and transform it into a social center. Oakland police thwarted the efforts, arresting more than 400 people in the process, primarily during a mass nighttime arrest outside a downtown YMCA. That number included at least six journalists, myself included, in direct violation of OPD media relations policy that states "media shall never be targeted for dispersal or enforcement action because of their status."
After an unsuccessful afternoon effort to occupy a former convention center, the more than 1,000 protesters elected to return to the site of their former encampment outside city hall. On the way, they clashed with officers, advancing down a street with makeshift shields of corrogated metal and throwing objects at a police line. Officers responded with smoke grenades, tear gas, and bean bag projectiles. After protesters regrouped, they marched through downtown as police pursued and eventually contained a few hundred of them in an enclosed space outside a YMCA. Some entered the gym and were arrested inside.
As soon as it became clear that I would be kettled with the protesters, I displayed my press credentials to a line of officers and asked where to stand to avoid arrest. In past protests, the technique always proved successful. But this time, no officer said a word. One pointed back in the direction of the protesters, refusing to let me leave. Another issued a notice that everyone in the area was under arrest.
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I wound up in a back corner of the space between the YMCA and a neighboring building, where I met Vivian Ho of the San Francisco Chronicle and Kristin Hanes of KGO Radio. After it became clear that we would probably have to wait for hours there as police arrested hundreds of people packed tightly in front of us, we maneuvered our way to the front of the kettle to display our press credentials once more.
When Hanes displayed hers, an officer shook his head. "That's not an Oakland pass," he told her. "You're getting arrested." (She had a press pass issued by San Francisco, but not Oakland, police.) Another officer rejected my credentials, and I began interviewing soon-to-be-arrested protesters standing nearby. About five minutes later, an officer grabbed my arm and ziptied me. Around the same time, Ho—who did have official OPD credentials—was also apprehended.
As I waited in line to be processed and transported to jail, Ho approached me with an officer who had released her from custody. The two explained to my arresting officer that I was with the media. "Oh, he's with the media?" the officer replied, although I had already repeatedly told him as much and my credentials had been plainly visible all night. He appeared ready to release me, until a nearby officer piped in, without explanation: "He's getting arrested."
Later, before I was loaded on a police bus with 48 protesters, another officer told a protester in front of me that he should have left after police issued dispersal orders. When I told the officer that I had attempted to do just that, he asked, "How long have you been out here today?" "Since about 1:30." Flashing a smile and telling me that he didn't care I was a reporter, he replied, "We've been issuing dispersal orders all day." Kettled protesters claimed that no orders were issued until they had no means of escape, but in either case the orders were difficult to hear over the commotion of the crowd.
As police rounded up protesters into vans outside the YMCA, several occupiers who managed to avoid capture retaliated by vandalizing city hall. Others protested outside an Oakland jail where the officer driving the bus I was escorted onto had promised to take us "if you don't piss me off." Instead, he had to drive to a county jail in Santa Rita about 40 minutes away. (Officers from at least seven outside agencies came to Oakland in response to the day's events.)
After spending about an hour locked up alone in a drunk-tank cellblock, OPD Sergeant Jeff Thomason arrived to release me, thanks to a call from Mother Jones co-editor-in-chief Monika Bauerlein. "You probably shouldn't have been in here to begin with," he told me apologetically as he escorted me in his personal car back to the scene of my arrest to retrieve my backpack where I'd stashed my steno pad. But for the time-being, it was unretrievable under a massive pile of occupiers' bags in the back of a police van.
At least five other reporters were arrested last night: Hanes, Ho, John C. Osborn of the East Bay Express, Yael Chanoff of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and graphic journalist Susie Cagle, who was previously arrested during the short-lived occupation of a vacant downtown building following Occupy Oakland's first port shutdown last November. Chanoff was taken to the Santa Rita jail. The others were all quickly released at the scene (an officer told Cagle that he was doing her a "favor").
Oakland police, who have been instructed ahead of past Occupy Oakland protests not to prevent anyone "claiming media affiliation" from "engag[ing] in activity afforded to media personnel," particularly "during times of civil unrest," have also violated department policy on crowd control responding to previous Occupy protests. The ongoing game of cat-and-mouse between police and protesters has frustrated officers forced to work overtime hours at a department that will likely be placed in federal receivership for civil rights violations that predate the Occupy movement. Last week, a federal judge ruled that the OPD remains "woefully behind its peers around the state and nation."
"The Bay Area Occupy movement has got to stop using Oakland as their playground," Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said in a statement during last night's arrests that made no mention of her police department's lack of regard for journalists' First Amendment protections. Last week, the United States dropped 27 spots in Reporters Without Borders' annual press freedom index due to police treatment of journalists covering the Occupy Wall Street movement. By Josh Stearns's count, more than three dozen reporters have been arrested since the movement began last year in Manhattan.
Editorial Fellow
Gavin Aronsen is an editorial fellow at Mother Jones.
By Gavin Aronsen
Mother Jones
Jan. 29, 2012
Occupy Oakland protesters flee as police attempt to kettle them ahead of Saturday's mass arrest. Glenn Halog/Flickr
On Saturday, Occupy Oakland re-entered the national spotlight during a day-long effort to take over an empty building and transform it into a social center. Oakland police thwarted the efforts, arresting more than 400 people in the process, primarily during a mass nighttime arrest outside a downtown YMCA. That number included at least six journalists, myself included, in direct violation of OPD media relations policy that states "media shall never be targeted for dispersal or enforcement action because of their status."
After an unsuccessful afternoon effort to occupy a former convention center, the more than 1,000 protesters elected to return to the site of their former encampment outside city hall. On the way, they clashed with officers, advancing down a street with makeshift shields of corrogated metal and throwing objects at a police line. Officers responded with smoke grenades, tear gas, and bean bag projectiles. After protesters regrouped, they marched through downtown as police pursued and eventually contained a few hundred of them in an enclosed space outside a YMCA. Some entered the gym and were arrested inside.
As soon as it became clear that I would be kettled with the protesters, I displayed my press credentials to a line of officers and asked where to stand to avoid arrest. In past protests, the technique always proved successful. But this time, no officer said a word. One pointed back in the direction of the protesters, refusing to let me leave. Another issued a notice that everyone in the area was under arrest.
Advertise on MotherJones.com
I wound up in a back corner of the space between the YMCA and a neighboring building, where I met Vivian Ho of the San Francisco Chronicle and Kristin Hanes of KGO Radio. After it became clear that we would probably have to wait for hours there as police arrested hundreds of people packed tightly in front of us, we maneuvered our way to the front of the kettle to display our press credentials once more.
When Hanes displayed hers, an officer shook his head. "That's not an Oakland pass," he told her. "You're getting arrested." (She had a press pass issued by San Francisco, but not Oakland, police.) Another officer rejected my credentials, and I began interviewing soon-to-be-arrested protesters standing nearby. About five minutes later, an officer grabbed my arm and ziptied me. Around the same time, Ho—who did have official OPD credentials—was also apprehended.
As I waited in line to be processed and transported to jail, Ho approached me with an officer who had released her from custody. The two explained to my arresting officer that I was with the media. "Oh, he's with the media?" the officer replied, although I had already repeatedly told him as much and my credentials had been plainly visible all night. He appeared ready to release me, until a nearby officer piped in, without explanation: "He's getting arrested."
Later, before I was loaded on a police bus with 48 protesters, another officer told a protester in front of me that he should have left after police issued dispersal orders. When I told the officer that I had attempted to do just that, he asked, "How long have you been out here today?" "Since about 1:30." Flashing a smile and telling me that he didn't care I was a reporter, he replied, "We've been issuing dispersal orders all day." Kettled protesters claimed that no orders were issued until they had no means of escape, but in either case the orders were difficult to hear over the commotion of the crowd.
As police rounded up protesters into vans outside the YMCA, several occupiers who managed to avoid capture retaliated by vandalizing city hall. Others protested outside an Oakland jail where the officer driving the bus I was escorted onto had promised to take us "if you don't piss me off." Instead, he had to drive to a county jail in Santa Rita about 40 minutes away. (Officers from at least seven outside agencies came to Oakland in response to the day's events.)
After spending about an hour locked up alone in a drunk-tank cellblock, OPD Sergeant Jeff Thomason arrived to release me, thanks to a call from Mother Jones co-editor-in-chief Monika Bauerlein. "You probably shouldn't have been in here to begin with," he told me apologetically as he escorted me in his personal car back to the scene of my arrest to retrieve my backpack where I'd stashed my steno pad. But for the time-being, it was unretrievable under a massive pile of occupiers' bags in the back of a police van.
At least five other reporters were arrested last night: Hanes, Ho, John C. Osborn of the East Bay Express, Yael Chanoff of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and graphic journalist Susie Cagle, who was previously arrested during the short-lived occupation of a vacant downtown building following Occupy Oakland's first port shutdown last November. Chanoff was taken to the Santa Rita jail. The others were all quickly released at the scene (an officer told Cagle that he was doing her a "favor").
Oakland police, who have been instructed ahead of past Occupy Oakland protests not to prevent anyone "claiming media affiliation" from "engag[ing] in activity afforded to media personnel," particularly "during times of civil unrest," have also violated department policy on crowd control responding to previous Occupy protests. The ongoing game of cat-and-mouse between police and protesters has frustrated officers forced to work overtime hours at a department that will likely be placed in federal receivership for civil rights violations that predate the Occupy movement. Last week, a federal judge ruled that the OPD remains "woefully behind its peers around the state and nation."
"The Bay Area Occupy movement has got to stop using Oakland as their playground," Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said in a statement during last night's arrests that made no mention of her police department's lack of regard for journalists' First Amendment protections. Last week, the United States dropped 27 spots in Reporters Without Borders' annual press freedom index due to police treatment of journalists covering the Occupy Wall Street movement. By Josh Stearns's count, more than three dozen reporters have been arrested since the movement began last year in Manhattan.
Editorial Fellow
Gavin Aronsen is an editorial fellow at Mother Jones.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Doug Manchester, the new San Diego Union-Tribune owner, thinks of himself as Richard III
November 18, 2011
Paper Will Call Out Stadium Opponents as 'Obstructionists'
Randy Dotinga
Voice of San Diego
Local hotel magnate Doug Manchester is buying The San Diego Union-Tribune, and heads are going to spin, if not roll: the paper's incoming president and CEO promises big changes.
John Lynch, a former local radio exec who's set to be that top boss, "said he wants the paper to be pro-business. The sports page to be pro-Chargers stadium. And reporters to become stars," our Rob Davis reports. In fact, Lynch said he wants the sports page to "call out those who don't (support a new stadium) as obstructionists."
Wow. However, Lynch said he expects that Manchester will "respect journalistic integrity" and adds that "we'd like to be a cheerleader for all that's good about San Diego."
Manchester says he paid above $110 million for the newspaper. That suggests the Platinum Equity firm, which bought the paper in 2009, made a tidy profit by flipping it.
Both Manchester and Lynch are known for their conservative bona-fides; in 2006, Lynch referred to then-Councilman Donna Frye, an iconoclast politician and hero not only to liberals, as "to the left of Mao."
So who's Manchester? Local reporter Tony Perry of the L.A. Times calls him "a minor league Donald Trump."
He's a polarizing figure, known for the moniker he insists on people using ("Papa Doug"), his stand against gay marriage (although he says he's not anti-gay and supports domestic partnerships), his luxurious hotels (a five-star rating for one of them made a big splash in the U-T this week), his push toward development (a state agency just rejected his mammoth $1.3 billion project planned on Navy property downtown) and his divorce after 43 years of marriage (it was messy).
* Check our reader's guide for a look back at the U-T's road from the glory days of the mid-2000s to post-boom heartache and dashed dreams under Copley ownership.
* News of the sale immediately sparked anger and threats of subscription cancellations. ("Manchester and his politics scare the **** out of me," wrote commenter Bill Paul, while Chris Brewster bemoaned "this unfortunate devolution in San Diego journalism.")
Fred Smith complained that the Copleys were "were extreme libs" (a comment that will send eyebrows rocketing skyward all over town) and says he "refused to read the rag when the Copleys ran it into the ground," while Darrell Thomas referred to "extreme left rags" like... the L.A. Times. (The sound you hear is even more wayward eyebrows.)
And then there's commenter David Hall. He weighed in with a zinger: "I don't think the UT has been consistently left or right. It has, however, been consistently bad."
In the U-T's defense, bashing the local rag has been a national pasttime since the first time headlines met hot type.
For more opinions, check our compilation of Twitter comments.
* And what of U-T employees? They're already sucking up to ... er, greeting their new owner. "We believe this is a step in the right direction for The San Diego Union-Tribune," the U-T's "Team" declared on Facebook. "As Dean Nelson pointed out, Doug Manchester is a brilliant guy. We're excited to have local owners who are in-touch with what's going on in our city and we look forward to the amazing things the future holds for our newspaper."
The U-T's story about the sale included not a discouraging word (or even a slightly non-positive one) about the paper or the owners, but had plenty of things-are-just-peachy verbiage.
We have two principal stories: one immediate analysis looking at the sale and getting reaction, and a second turning to the biggest question: in what direction do Manchester and Lynch take the news and editorial pages.
Tidbits about the U-T's New Owner
* A video on Manchester's website quotes a man identified as Jim Jameson as saying: "If Shakespeare were alive today, Shakespeare wouldn't write about most of us. But he would write about Doug Manchester. In the sense of Richard III or Julius Caesar, Doug has heroic qualities that are just extraordinary. He also has the human frailties that we all have. So that the mentions of these heroic qualities and frailties together, Shakespeare would write about today."
The video is, as San Diego Magazine puts it, "super odd."
Richard III and Julius Caesar, by the way, didn't come to good ends, either in real life or in Shakespeare's plays. (Maybe Manchester should watch his back, beware the ides of March and always keep a horse on hand?)
* As you might glean from the video, Manchester is not the humblest of men. San Diego Magazine found this quote on his website: "He creates and applies the magic that creates positive experiences. His memory-makers have routinely defined and enriched San Diego's skylines and landscapes. And when he reaches beyond San Diego, which he often does, his visions dot the landscape of America. This is what Papa Doug has done and from what he draws satisfaction."
Paper Will Call Out Stadium Opponents as 'Obstructionists'
Randy Dotinga
Voice of San Diego
Local hotel magnate Doug Manchester is buying The San Diego Union-Tribune, and heads are going to spin, if not roll: the paper's incoming president and CEO promises big changes.
John Lynch, a former local radio exec who's set to be that top boss, "said he wants the paper to be pro-business. The sports page to be pro-Chargers stadium. And reporters to become stars," our Rob Davis reports. In fact, Lynch said he wants the sports page to "call out those who don't (support a new stadium) as obstructionists."
Wow. However, Lynch said he expects that Manchester will "respect journalistic integrity" and adds that "we'd like to be a cheerleader for all that's good about San Diego."
Manchester says he paid above $110 million for the newspaper. That suggests the Platinum Equity firm, which bought the paper in 2009, made a tidy profit by flipping it.
Both Manchester and Lynch are known for their conservative bona-fides; in 2006, Lynch referred to then-Councilman Donna Frye, an iconoclast politician and hero not only to liberals, as "to the left of Mao."
So who's Manchester? Local reporter Tony Perry of the L.A. Times calls him "a minor league Donald Trump."
He's a polarizing figure, known for the moniker he insists on people using ("Papa Doug"), his stand against gay marriage (although he says he's not anti-gay and supports domestic partnerships), his luxurious hotels (a five-star rating for one of them made a big splash in the U-T this week), his push toward development (a state agency just rejected his mammoth $1.3 billion project planned on Navy property downtown) and his divorce after 43 years of marriage (it was messy).
* Check our reader's guide for a look back at the U-T's road from the glory days of the mid-2000s to post-boom heartache and dashed dreams under Copley ownership.
* News of the sale immediately sparked anger and threats of subscription cancellations. ("Manchester and his politics scare the **** out of me," wrote commenter Bill Paul, while Chris Brewster bemoaned "this unfortunate devolution in San Diego journalism.")
Fred Smith complained that the Copleys were "were extreme libs" (a comment that will send eyebrows rocketing skyward all over town) and says he "refused to read the rag when the Copleys ran it into the ground," while Darrell Thomas referred to "extreme left rags" like... the L.A. Times. (The sound you hear is even more wayward eyebrows.)
And then there's commenter David Hall. He weighed in with a zinger: "I don't think the UT has been consistently left or right. It has, however, been consistently bad."
In the U-T's defense, bashing the local rag has been a national pasttime since the first time headlines met hot type.
For more opinions, check our compilation of Twitter comments.
* And what of U-T employees? They're already sucking up to ... er, greeting their new owner. "We believe this is a step in the right direction for The San Diego Union-Tribune," the U-T's "Team" declared on Facebook. "As Dean Nelson pointed out, Doug Manchester is a brilliant guy. We're excited to have local owners who are in-touch with what's going on in our city and we look forward to the amazing things the future holds for our newspaper."
The U-T's story about the sale included not a discouraging word (or even a slightly non-positive one) about the paper or the owners, but had plenty of things-are-just-peachy verbiage.
We have two principal stories: one immediate analysis looking at the sale and getting reaction, and a second turning to the biggest question: in what direction do Manchester and Lynch take the news and editorial pages.
Tidbits about the U-T's New Owner
* A video on Manchester's website quotes a man identified as Jim Jameson as saying: "If Shakespeare were alive today, Shakespeare wouldn't write about most of us. But he would write about Doug Manchester. In the sense of Richard III or Julius Caesar, Doug has heroic qualities that are just extraordinary. He also has the human frailties that we all have. So that the mentions of these heroic qualities and frailties together, Shakespeare would write about today."
The video is, as San Diego Magazine puts it, "super odd."
Richard III and Julius Caesar, by the way, didn't come to good ends, either in real life or in Shakespeare's plays. (Maybe Manchester should watch his back, beware the ides of March and always keep a horse on hand?)
* As you might glean from the video, Manchester is not the humblest of men. San Diego Magazine found this quote on his website: "He creates and applies the magic that creates positive experiences. His memory-makers have routinely defined and enriched San Diego's skylines and landscapes. And when he reaches beyond San Diego, which he often does, his visions dot the landscape of America. This is what Papa Doug has done and from what he draws satisfaction."
Saturday, October 08, 2011
Journalist arrested in Milwaukee for filming house fire
Milwaukee Police Dept. v. Clint Fillinger
Posted October 6th, 2011 by CMLP Staff
Summary
Threat Type: Criminal Charge
Date: 09/21/2011
Location: Wisconsin
Party Issuing Legal Threat: Party Receiving Legal Threat:
Milwaukee Police Dept. Clint Fillinger
On September 21, 2011, Clint Fillinger, a photojournalist, was arrested for resisting and obstructing an officer after police confronted Fillinger while he was attempting to film at the scene of a house firm in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Fillinger, a 68-year-old journalist with 45 years of experience, was filming from outside the area that officers had cordoned off with police tape, where several members of the public had also gathered.
Fillinger's raw video of the incident was published by his employer, Fox6 Now. The raw video shows two officers approaching Fillinger and demanding that he step back. The video appears to show Fillinger complying as he stated that he had a right to be there as a member of the public. The officers tell him that he must move for his own safety. Fillinger ultimately falls to the ground, dropping his camera, though the video does not show the cause. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press reports that Fillinger was the only person asked to move away from the scene.
Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn told Fox6 the next day that he felt Fillinger was to blame, saying, "If the cameraman had simply complied with the instructions to back off from a working fire, none of this hullabaloo would be taking place." Fox6 posted the raw video of Flynn's statement on its website.
Several news associations – including the National Press Photographers Association’s Advocacy Committee, the Radio Television Digital News Association, and the Wisconsin News Photographers Association – have sent letters to Flynn demanding the charges be dropped and the officers involved be investigated and face disciplinary charges if necessary.
Posted October 6th, 2011 by CMLP Staff
Summary
Threat Type: Criminal Charge
Date: 09/21/2011
Location: Wisconsin
Party Issuing Legal Threat: Party Receiving Legal Threat:
Milwaukee Police Dept. Clint Fillinger
On September 21, 2011, Clint Fillinger, a photojournalist, was arrested for resisting and obstructing an officer after police confronted Fillinger while he was attempting to film at the scene of a house firm in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Fillinger, a 68-year-old journalist with 45 years of experience, was filming from outside the area that officers had cordoned off with police tape, where several members of the public had also gathered.
Fillinger's raw video of the incident was published by his employer, Fox6 Now. The raw video shows two officers approaching Fillinger and demanding that he step back. The video appears to show Fillinger complying as he stated that he had a right to be there as a member of the public. The officers tell him that he must move for his own safety. Fillinger ultimately falls to the ground, dropping his camera, though the video does not show the cause. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press reports that Fillinger was the only person asked to move away from the scene.
Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn told Fox6 the next day that he felt Fillinger was to blame, saying, "If the cameraman had simply complied with the instructions to back off from a working fire, none of this hullabaloo would be taking place." Fox6 posted the raw video of Flynn's statement on its website.
Several news associations – including the National Press Photographers Association’s Advocacy Committee, the Radio Television Digital News Association, and the Wisconsin News Photographers Association – have sent letters to Flynn demanding the charges be dropped and the officers involved be investigated and face disciplinary charges if necessary.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Meet the Fall 2011 IRP Fellows
Meet the Fall 2011 IRP Fellows
International Reporting Project
2011
Ten U.S. journalists have been awarded International Reporting Project (IRP) Fellowships to report on important global topics, including four reporting projects on global religion. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
The nine-week-long reporting fellowships, which provide U.S. journalists with opportunities to do in-depth overseas stories, will begin in September and end in November. The IRP, now in its 13th year, is based in Washington D.C. at The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of The Johns Hopkins University.
The fall 2011 IRP Fellows, their affiliations and the countries where they will report are:
Emily Alpert, voiceofsandiego -- Bolivia
Alex Daniels, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette -- Benin
David Francis, freelance -- Nigeria
Alex Gallafent, PRI/BBC “The World” -- Swaziland
Matt Jenkins, freelance -- Taiwan
Krista Mahr, TIME Asia -- South Sudan
Megan Verlee, Colorado Public Radio -- Ethiopia
Andrea Wenzel, WAMU-FM -- Thailand
Jennifer Willis, freelance -- Ireland
Jamison York, NPR’s “On the Media” -- Malaysia
International Reporting Project
2011
Ten U.S. journalists have been awarded International Reporting Project (IRP) Fellowships to report on important global topics, including four reporting projects on global religion. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
The nine-week-long reporting fellowships, which provide U.S. journalists with opportunities to do in-depth overseas stories, will begin in September and end in November. The IRP, now in its 13th year, is based in Washington D.C. at The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of The Johns Hopkins University.
The fall 2011 IRP Fellows, their affiliations and the countries where they will report are:
Emily Alpert, voiceofsandiego -- Bolivia
Alex Daniels, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette -- Benin
David Francis, freelance -- Nigeria
Alex Gallafent, PRI/BBC “The World” -- Swaziland
Matt Jenkins, freelance -- Taiwan
Krista Mahr, TIME Asia -- South Sudan
Megan Verlee, Colorado Public Radio -- Ethiopia
Andrea Wenzel, WAMU-FM -- Thailand
Jennifer Willis, freelance -- Ireland
Jamison York, NPR’s “On the Media” -- Malaysia
Friday, August 05, 2011
Who is watching the Watchdog? The San Diego U-T “disappears” its own reporting by moving it
Who is watching the Watchdog? The San Diego U-T “disappears” its own reporting by moving it
by Anna Daniels
OB Rag
August 1, 2011
For those of us who read the news and analysis of the news online, it is not uncommon to find a correction appended to an article or some part of the original text struck through, but still visible, with a modification following it. Online material is uniquely adaptable to quick corrections and updates in the interests of getting a story “right.”
Removing a story, scrubbing it from the site’s archives and replacing it with a completely new version is a jaw dropping breach of journalistic integrity and responsibility. The U-T did precisely that when it wrote that it had “moved” an article written by Wendy Fry on July 25 about the presence of paid “activists” at a series of Chula Vista city council meetings in which rent control in mobile home parks was being deliberated.
I had found Fry’s initial post extremely interesting and wrote about it here. The link that I provided however to Fry’s July 25 article now pulls up a page that says that the story was moved to the Watchdog section and we are invited to read it there.
It is impossible to read that story there because it is not posted there. Instead, there is a rewrite, a total do over dated July 28. It is also authored by Fry but the topic receives a new title and substantively different treatment from the original. This new story was not presented as a correction, update or retraction and the original article has disappeared from the signon archives (Read it here from a non U-T source.) leaving only the reader comments.
It is worth asking why Fry’s South Bay report on a topic that is not a particularly “hot” issue would even merit this kind of treatment. What entity (or entities) was disturbed by the content of the original and capable of exerting sufficient power upon the U-T to receive a rewrite? Who is really involved in this story and to what extent?
The bare bones story presented in both articles is that the Chula Vista city council held two public meetings on an agenda item about current rent control law as it applies to mobile home parks. An overflow crowd of interested parties, a significant number of whom were allegedly compensated by an individual or organization associated with the Republican Party, was able to weigh in on whether to continue rent control for residents or to let that law sunset, and “decontrol” rents with all new tenants. Those compensated individuals were there to oppose the continuance of rent control. The city council voted 4-0 to enable mobile home park owners to increase rent whenever a mobile home is sold, signaling the end of rent control.
If the bare bones of the story were not altered, what did change and why? Fry’s original article used the terms “activists’ and “seat savers” when referring to those who were paid to attend. Both of those terms disappeared completely from her rewrite. Attendees were simply “paid,” provided with “financial incentives” or “compensated,” which creates a significant change in tone from presenting the unusual to the unremarkable. The number of people provided with financial incentives also changed from “about 100” in the original to “at least 50,” which alters the degree of relevance of those compensated.
The question of who was doing the paying has been substantively reworked. She writes in her original article —“In the crowd July 12, a large group of young people wore green ‘Yes on Vacancy Decontrol’ stickers in support of the changes. Some of those attendees told other audience member they were with ‘the Young Republicans of El Cajon’ and that they were each paid $20 to attend.” Yet all allusions to this group as well as to the San Diego County Young Republicans, also quoted, disappear in the subsequent article. Why is that?
In Fry’s second shot at this, she presents a statement from Derrick Roach, the secretary for the Republican Party of San Diego “Roach, a Chula Vista resident, confirmed he helped recruit and pay 50 mobile-home residents to attend the meeting and gave McMurty $40 cash.” These 50 residents were the “seat savers” in Fry’s original article.
Fry goes on to write “Chairman Tony Krvaric said the Republican Party of San Diego County was not responsible for compensating people at the meeting.” This leaves the reader with the mystifying feeling that Krvaric, president, and Roach, secretary of the Republican Party, have never met each other, let alone spoken to each other. When Kravic outrageously responds to her question about who provided the cash behind the handout with “’What do you think? Who had the financial interest in the item? What was the issue being pushed and probably the people pushing the payments,’” and she lets go of that bald contradiction to Roach’s admission, you know it’s all over for the U-T’s reporting. Roach admitted to providing the money and he represents the obvious financial interest. Is Krvaric really trying to obfuscate that fact and why did Fry let him get away with it?
Roach is the fall guy in all this—the rewritten title states “GOP officer paid people to attend council meeting” and his picture is prominently displayed; Krvaric is obviously a person of influence; and it remains unclear whether the “South Bay campaign consultant who runs the politically involved San Diego Group” is a significant player; and there were no interviews in either of the articles of the actual mobile park owners who have a great deal at stake in the issue.
Ray McMurty, age 62 and living on social security disability is grateful for the forty bucks he was paid by the Republican Party and which helped out with his weekly groceries. He publicly states he sees no problem in attending those city council meetings, wearing a sticker in support of “decontrol,” even though he lives in one of the affected mobile home parks. His statements, one of the few included in both articles, provide a transparency lacking in the other interviews. We can assume that he is not the entity which has exerted the power over the U-T for a rewrite.
I do not understand why Fry was given a second chance to “get it right.” It strikes me as an odd opportunity for journalistic redemption, tantamount to writing “I was bad and will never be bad again” on the blackboard 100 times, yet the rewrite still stirs up the soup.
The U-T Watchdog wants us to know that it stands for “Journalism that upholds the public trust, regularly.” The cavalier acts of rewriting its own news and expunging all evidence to the contrary exemplifies an appalling disregard of what constitutes upholding that trust—and the very basis for reporting the news.
by Anna Daniels
OB Rag
August 1, 2011
For those of us who read the news and analysis of the news online, it is not uncommon to find a correction appended to an article or some part of the original text struck through, but still visible, with a modification following it. Online material is uniquely adaptable to quick corrections and updates in the interests of getting a story “right.”
Removing a story, scrubbing it from the site’s archives and replacing it with a completely new version is a jaw dropping breach of journalistic integrity and responsibility. The U-T did precisely that when it wrote that it had “moved” an article written by Wendy Fry on July 25 about the presence of paid “activists” at a series of Chula Vista city council meetings in which rent control in mobile home parks was being deliberated.
I had found Fry’s initial post extremely interesting and wrote about it here. The link that I provided however to Fry’s July 25 article now pulls up a page that says that the story was moved to the Watchdog section and we are invited to read it there.
It is impossible to read that story there because it is not posted there. Instead, there is a rewrite, a total do over dated July 28. It is also authored by Fry but the topic receives a new title and substantively different treatment from the original. This new story was not presented as a correction, update or retraction and the original article has disappeared from the signon archives (Read it here from a non U-T source.) leaving only the reader comments.
It is worth asking why Fry’s South Bay report on a topic that is not a particularly “hot” issue would even merit this kind of treatment. What entity (or entities) was disturbed by the content of the original and capable of exerting sufficient power upon the U-T to receive a rewrite? Who is really involved in this story and to what extent?
The bare bones story presented in both articles is that the Chula Vista city council held two public meetings on an agenda item about current rent control law as it applies to mobile home parks. An overflow crowd of interested parties, a significant number of whom were allegedly compensated by an individual or organization associated with the Republican Party, was able to weigh in on whether to continue rent control for residents or to let that law sunset, and “decontrol” rents with all new tenants. Those compensated individuals were there to oppose the continuance of rent control. The city council voted 4-0 to enable mobile home park owners to increase rent whenever a mobile home is sold, signaling the end of rent control.
If the bare bones of the story were not altered, what did change and why? Fry’s original article used the terms “activists’ and “seat savers” when referring to those who were paid to attend. Both of those terms disappeared completely from her rewrite. Attendees were simply “paid,” provided with “financial incentives” or “compensated,” which creates a significant change in tone from presenting the unusual to the unremarkable. The number of people provided with financial incentives also changed from “about 100” in the original to “at least 50,” which alters the degree of relevance of those compensated.
The question of who was doing the paying has been substantively reworked. She writes in her original article —“In the crowd July 12, a large group of young people wore green ‘Yes on Vacancy Decontrol’ stickers in support of the changes. Some of those attendees told other audience member they were with ‘the Young Republicans of El Cajon’ and that they were each paid $20 to attend.” Yet all allusions to this group as well as to the San Diego County Young Republicans, also quoted, disappear in the subsequent article. Why is that?
In Fry’s second shot at this, she presents a statement from Derrick Roach, the secretary for the Republican Party of San Diego “Roach, a Chula Vista resident, confirmed he helped recruit and pay 50 mobile-home residents to attend the meeting and gave McMurty $40 cash.” These 50 residents were the “seat savers” in Fry’s original article.
Fry goes on to write “Chairman Tony Krvaric said the Republican Party of San Diego County was not responsible for compensating people at the meeting.” This leaves the reader with the mystifying feeling that Krvaric, president, and Roach, secretary of the Republican Party, have never met each other, let alone spoken to each other. When Kravic outrageously responds to her question about who provided the cash behind the handout with “’What do you think? Who had the financial interest in the item? What was the issue being pushed and probably the people pushing the payments,’” and she lets go of that bald contradiction to Roach’s admission, you know it’s all over for the U-T’s reporting. Roach admitted to providing the money and he represents the obvious financial interest. Is Krvaric really trying to obfuscate that fact and why did Fry let him get away with it?
Roach is the fall guy in all this—the rewritten title states “GOP officer paid people to attend council meeting” and his picture is prominently displayed; Krvaric is obviously a person of influence; and it remains unclear whether the “South Bay campaign consultant who runs the politically involved San Diego Group” is a significant player; and there were no interviews in either of the articles of the actual mobile park owners who have a great deal at stake in the issue.
Ray McMurty, age 62 and living on social security disability is grateful for the forty bucks he was paid by the Republican Party and which helped out with his weekly groceries. He publicly states he sees no problem in attending those city council meetings, wearing a sticker in support of “decontrol,” even though he lives in one of the affected mobile home parks. His statements, one of the few included in both articles, provide a transparency lacking in the other interviews. We can assume that he is not the entity which has exerted the power over the U-T for a rewrite.
I do not understand why Fry was given a second chance to “get it right.” It strikes me as an odd opportunity for journalistic redemption, tantamount to writing “I was bad and will never be bad again” on the blackboard 100 times, yet the rewrite still stirs up the soup.
The U-T Watchdog wants us to know that it stands for “Journalism that upholds the public trust, regularly.” The cavalier acts of rewriting its own news and expunging all evidence to the contrary exemplifies an appalling disregard of what constitutes upholding that trust—and the very basis for reporting the news.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
It looks like Voice of San Diego might be taking some cards out of the deck before it begins to play
Has Voice of San Diego given up on journalistic ethics? They're starting to make the SDUT look good! I'm beginning to think VOSD is just a mouthpiece for a few people with money and/or influence who wanted some control over which voices are heard in San Diego. But apparently they didn't just want to give some new people a voice. They also want to keep some new voices silent.
Last night I sent two comments to VOSD about the Jackson story in Voice of San Diego:
To VOSD:
You guys are doing something wrong. I don't think your decisions are motivated by race, but the unbalanced racial makeup of the people you choose to attack exposes a problem. I'm not talking about the top elected officials. I am talking about how VOSD chooses which of the other 3 million people in San Diego to attack, protect, or discuss. There's something wrong with your methodology when so many of the people attacked are black women. There is something arbitrary and inequitable about your methods. The law of probability indicates that you are somehow pulling some of the cards out of the deck before the game begins.
You are exposing your methods unintentionally. The same thing happens with people who cheat on their taxes. The IRS spots them by looking for certain numbers that tend to pop up more frequently in the tax filings of people who are cheating. They use statistics to spot the fraud, without even looking at the reasons given for deductions.
VOSD has stepped gingerly around some stories, and stepped heavily into other stories.
The people that get the gentler treatment from VOSD tend to be white, not because VOSD is racist, but because, I suspect, the people whom Buzz Woolley and the rest of the top dogs at VOSD want to protect happen to be white. People high up on the food chain in San Diego schools are treated gently (and the superintendent there is a black man), while people who rank lower take the heat. Also, people down at SEDC get harsh handling.
Obviously, commenter "bigfan" doesn't like Shelia Jackson, and doesn't want to question VOSD's motives for choosing to attack Jackson while staying silent on more important issues in schools.
My point is that I think VOSD chooses stories for the wrong reasons, but not necessarily for racial reasons. But one must suspect that something is wrong when there is such a surfeit of black women being attacked. The laws of probability are being violated. The choices seem arbitrary. It appears that people are attacked if they are not on the protected list.
Let's look at the facts. When Regina Petty at SEDC wouldn't turn over public records, VOSD went after her with a vengeance. We were treated to 13 "Petty Watch" posts. It took two months of "almost constant hounding" to get SEDC to release public records.
But VOSD reported that when it asked for records from the County Office of Education "that would show if the trips were given to the agency rather than the employee, it didn't provide any." VOSD didn't begin an aggressive "Crosier Watch." No constant hounding. The difference in treatment was not due to the fact that the SEDC lawyer was black and Diane Crosier, the lawyer in charge of keeping public records out of public view at the County Office of Education, was white. It's because Petty had no friends at VOSD, and Crosier apparently does. I call it friendship when you meekly accept a "no" answer to a public records request instead of doing all you can to shame Diane Crosier into turning over the records.
I'm not saying VOSD shouldn't cover the Jackson story. I'm saying that we can clearly see that there is a problem when racial patterns emerge so clearly in VOSD stories. I'm saying VOSD needs to start telling the whole truth about schools in San Diego. And it should start with a "Crosier Watch."
At almost 5 p.m. today (July 30, 2011), my comments are not posted. Here's what I just wrote to Scott Lewis and Andrew Donohue.
Scott Lewis, Andrew Donohue:
You allowed a commenter to call me "pathetic" and say she was LMAO (laughing her ass off). Not coincidentally, I believe, she was defending VOSD's choice of subject for investigation.
Then you failed to publish my two comments explaining myself.
You're not even pretending any more, are you?
I'm beginning to think that although VOSD does cover some stories that the SDUT doesn't, it isn't because VOSD is more fair in who it attacks. It's simply that VOSD is politically motivated to attack different people. The main problem I see with both VOSD and SDUT is that they like to go after little stories of small corruption in which the taxpayers lose a small amount of cash to someone with sticky fingers, while at the same time both these newspapers leave unmolested the big guys who undermines society itself by corrupting the system to make the entire operation of government subservient to their wishes.
Last night I sent two comments to VOSD about the Jackson story in Voice of San Diego:
To VOSD:
You guys are doing something wrong. I don't think your decisions are motivated by race, but the unbalanced racial makeup of the people you choose to attack exposes a problem. I'm not talking about the top elected officials. I am talking about how VOSD chooses which of the other 3 million people in San Diego to attack, protect, or discuss. There's something wrong with your methodology when so many of the people attacked are black women. There is something arbitrary and inequitable about your methods. The law of probability indicates that you are somehow pulling some of the cards out of the deck before the game begins.
You are exposing your methods unintentionally. The same thing happens with people who cheat on their taxes. The IRS spots them by looking for certain numbers that tend to pop up more frequently in the tax filings of people who are cheating. They use statistics to spot the fraud, without even looking at the reasons given for deductions.
VOSD has stepped gingerly around some stories, and stepped heavily into other stories.
The people that get the gentler treatment from VOSD tend to be white, not because VOSD is racist, but because, I suspect, the people whom Buzz Woolley and the rest of the top dogs at VOSD want to protect happen to be white. People high up on the food chain in San Diego schools are treated gently (and the superintendent there is a black man), while people who rank lower take the heat. Also, people down at SEDC get harsh handling.
Obviously, commenter "bigfan" doesn't like Shelia Jackson, and doesn't want to question VOSD's motives for choosing to attack Jackson while staying silent on more important issues in schools.
My point is that I think VOSD chooses stories for the wrong reasons, but not necessarily for racial reasons. But one must suspect that something is wrong when there is such a surfeit of black women being attacked. The laws of probability are being violated. The choices seem arbitrary. It appears that people are attacked if they are not on the protected list.
Let's look at the facts. When Regina Petty at SEDC wouldn't turn over public records, VOSD went after her with a vengeance. We were treated to 13 "Petty Watch" posts. It took two months of "almost constant hounding" to get SEDC to release public records.
But VOSD reported that when it asked for records from the County Office of Education "that would show if the trips were given to the agency rather than the employee, it didn't provide any." VOSD didn't begin an aggressive "Crosier Watch." No constant hounding. The difference in treatment was not due to the fact that the SEDC lawyer was black and Diane Crosier, the lawyer in charge of keeping public records out of public view at the County Office of Education, was white. It's because Petty had no friends at VOSD, and Crosier apparently does. I call it friendship when you meekly accept a "no" answer to a public records request instead of doing all you can to shame Diane Crosier into turning over the records.
I'm not saying VOSD shouldn't cover the Jackson story. I'm saying that we can clearly see that there is a problem when racial patterns emerge so clearly in VOSD stories. I'm saying VOSD needs to start telling the whole truth about schools in San Diego. And it should start with a "Crosier Watch."
At almost 5 p.m. today (July 30, 2011), my comments are not posted. Here's what I just wrote to Scott Lewis and Andrew Donohue.
Scott Lewis, Andrew Donohue:
You allowed a commenter to call me "pathetic" and say she was LMAO (laughing her ass off). Not coincidentally, I believe, she was defending VOSD's choice of subject for investigation.
Then you failed to publish my two comments explaining myself.
You're not even pretending any more, are you?
I'm beginning to think that although VOSD does cover some stories that the SDUT doesn't, it isn't because VOSD is more fair in who it attacks. It's simply that VOSD is politically motivated to attack different people. The main problem I see with both VOSD and SDUT is that they like to go after little stories of small corruption in which the taxpayers lose a small amount of cash to someone with sticky fingers, while at the same time both these newspapers leave unmolested the big guys who undermines society itself by corrupting the system to make the entire operation of government subservient to their wishes.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Anatomy of a Journalistic Success and a Journalistic Failure at Voice of San Diego (VOSD)
Will Carless triumphs but Emily Alpert fails to get public records from local agencies. Click here for comparison.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Now Two Murdoch Whistleblowers Dead
Now Two Murdoch Whistleblowers Dead
By John Romano
Yes, But, However
(YBH)
July 24th 2011
First it was Big George Webley who relayed a fear of the Murdoch machine and wound up dead. Now it’s Sean Hoare. Two British media whistleblowers. Two untimely deaths.
Let’s assume that neither was killed by Rupert Murdoch (toxicology reports haven’t been made available; foul play isn’t suspected by British authorities in either case), but something happened that put the fear of God into both men. Neither was known as a lunatic before their demise, both simply told the truth to British authorities about what they knew of Mr. Murdoch’s enterprises and died afterward at a relatively young age.
Sean Hoare
Mr. Hoare’s role in the evolving scandal is obvious: he worked at News of the World and broke the scandal wide open by charging his former editor, and then Prime Minister David Cameron’s Communications Director Andy Coulson, with lying about his role in NOTW’s phone hacking. Big George, for his part, allegedly revealed in private testimony to British authorities the fact that the Sky TV show he worked on in the early 90′s ,”Jameson Tonight”, had routinely bugged the dressing rooms of guests looking for scoops. Mr Webley’s charge was relevant because News Corp.’s initial defense was that the hacking at NOTW was the work of a rogue reporter. Big George’s charge threw cold water on that defense by helping to establish a pattern of subterfuge over many years at Murdoch-owned enterprises.
At first, Big George’s April 29th frantic phone call to me (eight days before his death at age 53, details here) didn’t make much sense. Now that the scandal has broken wide open a few things are much clearer:
The hacking/bugging taking place at News Corp. businesses was far more widespread than previously known.
Based on their dismissals from News Corp. it is shown that the hacking went far up the food chain all the way to Les Hinton, who resigned as head of Dow Jones last week.
The police were involved, as evidenced by the resignation of two of Scotland Yard’s top cops.
Prime Minister David Cameron’s Communication Director was a former Murdoch employee and News of the World editor.
The United Kingdom is the closest western country to a de facto police state. Surveillance cameras are everywhere. No Bill of Rights (in law or practice), and by living there you acknowledge that you are a subject of the British Crown. Britain is a great place, but it is not exactly a place where freedom flourishes compared with the United States, France or Canada.
Given the above, it is very easy to envision a scenario where the police could and would build a campaign of quiet intimidation against men like Mr. Webley and Mr. Hoare. London police were on the payroll of a Murdoch enterprise; why wouldn’t they act to protect their racket?
The Murdoch empire is fighting for its life, but let’s not forget both Sean Hoare and Big George Webley, two men that it would seem either directly or indirectly are collateral damage in the whole affair. Someone needs to speak for them.
By John Romano
Yes, But, However
(YBH)
July 24th 2011
First it was Big George Webley who relayed a fear of the Murdoch machine and wound up dead. Now it’s Sean Hoare. Two British media whistleblowers. Two untimely deaths.
Let’s assume that neither was killed by Rupert Murdoch (toxicology reports haven’t been made available; foul play isn’t suspected by British authorities in either case), but something happened that put the fear of God into both men. Neither was known as a lunatic before their demise, both simply told the truth to British authorities about what they knew of Mr. Murdoch’s enterprises and died afterward at a relatively young age.
Sean Hoare
Mr. Hoare’s role in the evolving scandal is obvious: he worked at News of the World and broke the scandal wide open by charging his former editor, and then Prime Minister David Cameron’s Communications Director Andy Coulson, with lying about his role in NOTW’s phone hacking. Big George, for his part, allegedly revealed in private testimony to British authorities the fact that the Sky TV show he worked on in the early 90′s ,”Jameson Tonight”, had routinely bugged the dressing rooms of guests looking for scoops. Mr Webley’s charge was relevant because News Corp.’s initial defense was that the hacking at NOTW was the work of a rogue reporter. Big George’s charge threw cold water on that defense by helping to establish a pattern of subterfuge over many years at Murdoch-owned enterprises.
At first, Big George’s April 29th frantic phone call to me (eight days before his death at age 53, details here) didn’t make much sense. Now that the scandal has broken wide open a few things are much clearer:
The hacking/bugging taking place at News Corp. businesses was far more widespread than previously known.
Based on their dismissals from News Corp. it is shown that the hacking went far up the food chain all the way to Les Hinton, who resigned as head of Dow Jones last week.
The police were involved, as evidenced by the resignation of two of Scotland Yard’s top cops.
Prime Minister David Cameron’s Communication Director was a former Murdoch employee and News of the World editor.
The United Kingdom is the closest western country to a de facto police state. Surveillance cameras are everywhere. No Bill of Rights (in law or practice), and by living there you acknowledge that you are a subject of the British Crown. Britain is a great place, but it is not exactly a place where freedom flourishes compared with the United States, France or Canada.
Given the above, it is very easy to envision a scenario where the police could and would build a campaign of quiet intimidation against men like Mr. Webley and Mr. Hoare. London police were on the payroll of a Murdoch enterprise; why wouldn’t they act to protect their racket?
The Murdoch empire is fighting for its life, but let’s not forget both Sean Hoare and Big George Webley, two men that it would seem either directly or indirectly are collateral damage in the whole affair. Someone needs to speak for them.
Friday, July 22, 2011
UK lawmaker calls for police investigation of claim contradicting James Murdoch
UK lawmaker calls for police investigation of claim contradicting James Murdoch testimony
By Associated Press
July 22, 2011
LONDON — James Murdoch was under pressure Friday over claims he misled lawmakers about Britain’s phone hacking scandal, as a lawmaker called for a police investigation and Prime Minister David Cameron insisted the media scion had “questions to answer” about what he knew and when he knew it.
The presumed heir to Rupert Murdoch’s media empire testified before a parliamentary committee that he was not aware of evidence that eavesdropping at the News of the world went beyond a jailed rogue reporter. But in a sign that executives are starting to turn against the company, two former top staffers said late Thursday they told him years ago about an email that suggested wrongdoing at the paper was more widespread than the company let on.
32
Comments
Weigh In
Corrections?
Graphic
The sequence of events at News Corp.
The sequence of events at News Corp.
Video
A British lawmaker wants police to investigate whether James Murdoch, son of Rupert Murdoch, lied to Parliament. (July 22)
A British lawmaker wants police to investigate whether James Murdoch, son of Rupert Murdoch, lied to Parliament. (July 22)
More on this Story
British PM adds to pressure on James Murdoch
Former execs accuse James Murdoch of lying
News Corp. PAC boosted donations in June
Michael Regan, Murdoch's man in Washington
View all Items in this Story
The claim brings more trouble for the embattled James Murdoch, who heads the Europe and Asia operations of his father’s News Corp., as his family fights a scandal that has already cost it one of its British tabloids, two top executives and a $12 billion-dollar bid for control of lucrative satellite broadcaster British Sky Broadcasting.
Tom Watson, a legislator from the opposition Labour Party, called for Scotland Yard to look into the allegation and said it “marks a major step forward in getting to the facts of this case.”
“If their version of events is accurate, it doesn’t just mean that Parliament has been misled, it means police have another investigation on their hands,” Watson told the BBC.
James Murdoch, who was not testifying under oath at Tuesday’s parliamentary hearing, could face sanction if it becomes clear he deliberately misled lawmakers — but the prospect is highly unlikely. The last time the House of Commons fined anyone was in 1666.
The House of Commons no longer has the power to imprison a nonmember, but it could refer a case to the Metropolitan Police...
By Associated Press
July 22, 2011
LONDON — James Murdoch was under pressure Friday over claims he misled lawmakers about Britain’s phone hacking scandal, as a lawmaker called for a police investigation and Prime Minister David Cameron insisted the media scion had “questions to answer” about what he knew and when he knew it.
The presumed heir to Rupert Murdoch’s media empire testified before a parliamentary committee that he was not aware of evidence that eavesdropping at the News of the world went beyond a jailed rogue reporter. But in a sign that executives are starting to turn against the company, two former top staffers said late Thursday they told him years ago about an email that suggested wrongdoing at the paper was more widespread than the company let on.
32
Comments
Weigh In
Corrections?
Graphic
The sequence of events at News Corp.
The sequence of events at News Corp.
Video
A British lawmaker wants police to investigate whether James Murdoch, son of Rupert Murdoch, lied to Parliament. (July 22)
A British lawmaker wants police to investigate whether James Murdoch, son of Rupert Murdoch, lied to Parliament. (July 22)
British PM adds to pressure on James Murdoch
Former execs accuse James Murdoch of lying
News Corp. PAC boosted donations in June
Michael Regan, Murdoch's man in Washington
View all Items in this Story
The claim brings more trouble for the embattled James Murdoch, who heads the Europe and Asia operations of his father’s News Corp., as his family fights a scandal that has already cost it one of its British tabloids, two top executives and a $12 billion-dollar bid for control of lucrative satellite broadcaster British Sky Broadcasting.
Tom Watson, a legislator from the opposition Labour Party, called for Scotland Yard to look into the allegation and said it “marks a major step forward in getting to the facts of this case.”
“If their version of events is accurate, it doesn’t just mean that Parliament has been misled, it means police have another investigation on their hands,” Watson told the BBC.
James Murdoch, who was not testifying under oath at Tuesday’s parliamentary hearing, could face sanction if it becomes clear he deliberately misled lawmakers — but the prospect is highly unlikely. The last time the House of Commons fined anyone was in 1666.
The House of Commons no longer has the power to imprison a nonmember, but it could refer a case to the Metropolitan Police...
Sunday, March 06, 2011
Righthaven LLC v. Hyatt Copyright Infringement
Righthaven LLC v. Hyatt
Citizen Media Law Project
Threat Type: Lawsuit
Date: 10/06/2010
Status: Pending
Location: Nevada
Legal Claims: Copyright Infringement
Righthaven LLC, a Las Vegas company associated with Las Vegas Review-Journal owner Stephens Media LLC, filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Bill Hyatt, a New York blogger. Righthaven alleged that Hyatt copied an article from the Las Vegas Review-Journal without permission and posted it on his website, 1ce.org.
After Hyatt did not respond to Righthaven's lawsuit, on February 10, 2011, Righthaven filed a motion for default judgment and demanded it be awarded attorney fees, $150,000 in statutory damages, and an order that 1ce.org be transferred from Hyatt to Righthaven.
Update:
2/23/2011 - The Media Bloggers Association ("MBA") moved to file an amicus brief with the court. In the brief, the MBA argued that Righthaven's claim to ownership of the copyright in the article in question is dubious, as the copyright assignment appears to be invalid. The MBA also argued that Righthaven should not be awarded any more than nominal damages at most, as it "is not a content producer trying to preserve ts relevant market from the unceasing raids of content pirates, but a dedicated litigation house that acquires rights from other entities solely to sue essentially defenseless 'infringers' for their supposed infringement." And the MBA argued that the court lacked jurisdiction to order the transfer of 1ce.org to Righthaven, as such an award is only an appropriate remedy in cybersquatting cases, which this is not.
Citizen Media Law Project
Threat Type: Lawsuit
Date: 10/06/2010
Status: Pending
Location: Nevada
Legal Claims: Copyright Infringement
Righthaven LLC, a Las Vegas company associated with Las Vegas Review-Journal owner Stephens Media LLC, filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Bill Hyatt, a New York blogger. Righthaven alleged that Hyatt copied an article from the Las Vegas Review-Journal without permission and posted it on his website, 1ce.org.
After Hyatt did not respond to Righthaven's lawsuit, on February 10, 2011, Righthaven filed a motion for default judgment and demanded it be awarded attorney fees, $150,000 in statutory damages, and an order that 1ce.org be transferred from Hyatt to Righthaven.
Update:
2/23/2011 - The Media Bloggers Association ("MBA") moved to file an amicus brief with the court. In the brief, the MBA argued that Righthaven's claim to ownership of the copyright in the article in question is dubious, as the copyright assignment appears to be invalid. The MBA also argued that Righthaven should not be awarded any more than nominal damages at most, as it "is not a content producer trying to preserve ts relevant market from the unceasing raids of content pirates, but a dedicated litigation house that acquires rights from other entities solely to sue essentially defenseless 'infringers' for their supposed infringement." And the MBA argued that the court lacked jurisdiction to order the transfer of 1ce.org to Righthaven, as such an award is only an appropriate remedy in cybersquatting cases, which this is not.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
San Diego Union-Tribune Watchdog highlights this question: "Should there be any pension for [teacher] retirees?"
Clearly, Les Birdsall of San Diego is not interested in attracting the best and brightest to work as teachers in San Diego. Since teachers don't pay for, or receive, Social Security benefits, Mr. Birdsall seems to be asking if retired teachers should perhaps live in homeless shelters and collect food stamps. Why would the SDUT Watchdog print such a silly comment while at the same time failing to investigate costly shenanigans of insurance companies and lawyers at the San Diego County Office of Education? Has the Watchdog received any rabies shots? Is it mad?
See Slaying the Mythical Tax-Fattened Hog regarding public sector pay.
Educator pensions report raised questions
“The average education pension in $40,663. Is this too high?“
By Maureen Magee
SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
January 31, 2011
Underfunded public pensions have made big headlines in San Diego and elsewhere, igniting a debate over the cost of retirement packages that often pits taxpayer groups against public employees, with the public somewhere in the middle.
A recent report by The Watchdog on educator pensions contributed to the debate. Some readers wrote to raise questions and voice their views — from outrage over what they call excessive pensions to sympathy for public employees whose retirement packages they believe have been unfairly called into question.
Mary Jean Word, a retired San Diego teacher, objected to our report claiming the educator pension system, like other public funds, offers “high benefits with no clear way to pay them.” She said the broad brush was unfair to those on the lower end.
“Do not include administrators with teachers,” said Word, who retired with 25 years service credit in California and receives an annual pension of $24,000. “They do not teach 20 to 150 students a day.”
Public educators from counselors to superintendents pay into the California State Teachers Retirement System. The program does not classify them by position, however, so separate data analysis was not possible. Although the top pension for a retired San Diego County educator is $281,034, the average retired educator in the county takes home just over $40,000 annually.
Much of the response to our story centered around whether that is a high number. For perspective, recent U.S. Census Bureau estimates show the average person of retirement age receives about $19,000 from retirement, pension and/or Social Security benefits.
Teacher fund status
Jim Wirt of San Diego wanted to know more about the state of the teacher pension fund. “You could have at least mentioned that CalSTRS assets have fallen...”
The fund reported good news last month when it posted 12.7 percent investment returns for 2010, raising its portfolio to $146.4 billion. The fund peaked at $180 billion in 2007 and had fallen to $112 billion in early 2009.
Even so, the system is expected to go broke by 2045 unless contributions are increased by the state, school districts and California educators. Officials say the fund needs a 15 percent hike in employer contributions this year. Only the state Legislature has the authority to approve such an increase. Since the state faces a $20 billion budget deficit, many say it’s unlikely to happen this year.
Who’s to blame?
Marty McGee of La Jolla wants to know how California got into this mess. She wrote, “In order for your watchdog reports to lead to meaningful changes, the people need to know who did it.”
Some of the blame goes to California voters.
“A little-known ballot measure a quarter century ago, Proposition 21 in 1984, opened the door for much of the current controversy over California’s public employee pensions,” former Union-Tribune reporter and pension expert Ed Mendel wrote last year. The measure passed with 53 percent of the vote.
Before Proposition 21, pension funds had been required to put most of their money into bonds. The ballot measure allowed pension funds to shift most money to stocks and other riskier investments. Some have said that public pensions would be more manageable today if the funds had stuck with safer investments.
Other changes to CalSTRS have also contributed to the funding gap.
In an effort to address teacher shortages and convince veteran educators to put off retirement, CalSTRS benefits were sweetened about a decade ago under AB 1509, legislation sponsored by Mike Machado, D-Stockton.
To fund the added benefits, the legislation took a fourth of the money teachers had been contributing to their pensions and used it to seed the added benefit. The teachers no longer pay into the supplemental benefit fund, but they draw from it.
What about Social Security?
Tom Helmantoler, a retired Julian High School teacher, asks this: “What about Social Security? Why can’t someone who has qualified for Social Security in the private sector turn to teaching as a second career and keep the Social Security benefit they earned?”
More than two decades before the Social Security Act was signed, the Teachers’ Retirement Law took effect in California in 1913. Public educators decided to continue to opt out of Social Security in 1955 because CalSTRS offered better benefits. California teachers do not pay into Social Security while they pay into CalSTRS. But some have paid enough toward Social Security to qualify for the benefit from other jobs. Those retired educators see a significant reduction in Social Security benefits under a law designed to prevent double-dipping. Similarly, retired educators who qualify for Social Security as the spouse or widow/widower of a worker who was covered by Social Security also see a reduction in that benefit under the law.
Should taxpayers contribute anything?
Les Birdsall of San Diego asked broader, philosophical questions. “The story tells us the average education pension in $40,663. Is this too high? What would be a reasonable pension? Should there be any pension for retirees?”
Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, said governments must compete with private sector salaries and benefits or it will not attract a qualified work force. And that means offering a decent retirement.
“It’s very easy to say that public sector defined benefit programs are more generous than what most people get in the private sector,” she said. “But it’s really hard to say.”
See Slaying the Mythical Tax-Fattened Hog regarding public sector pay.
Educator pensions report raised questions
“The average education pension in $40,663. Is this too high?“
By Maureen Magee
SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
January 31, 2011
Underfunded public pensions have made big headlines in San Diego and elsewhere, igniting a debate over the cost of retirement packages that often pits taxpayer groups against public employees, with the public somewhere in the middle.
A recent report by The Watchdog on educator pensions contributed to the debate. Some readers wrote to raise questions and voice their views — from outrage over what they call excessive pensions to sympathy for public employees whose retirement packages they believe have been unfairly called into question.
Mary Jean Word, a retired San Diego teacher, objected to our report claiming the educator pension system, like other public funds, offers “high benefits with no clear way to pay them.” She said the broad brush was unfair to those on the lower end.
“Do not include administrators with teachers,” said Word, who retired with 25 years service credit in California and receives an annual pension of $24,000. “They do not teach 20 to 150 students a day.”
Public educators from counselors to superintendents pay into the California State Teachers Retirement System. The program does not classify them by position, however, so separate data analysis was not possible. Although the top pension for a retired San Diego County educator is $281,034, the average retired educator in the county takes home just over $40,000 annually.
Much of the response to our story centered around whether that is a high number. For perspective, recent U.S. Census Bureau estimates show the average person of retirement age receives about $19,000 from retirement, pension and/or Social Security benefits.
Teacher fund status
Jim Wirt of San Diego wanted to know more about the state of the teacher pension fund. “You could have at least mentioned that CalSTRS assets have fallen...”
The fund reported good news last month when it posted 12.7 percent investment returns for 2010, raising its portfolio to $146.4 billion. The fund peaked at $180 billion in 2007 and had fallen to $112 billion in early 2009.
Even so, the system is expected to go broke by 2045 unless contributions are increased by the state, school districts and California educators. Officials say the fund needs a 15 percent hike in employer contributions this year. Only the state Legislature has the authority to approve such an increase. Since the state faces a $20 billion budget deficit, many say it’s unlikely to happen this year.
Who’s to blame?
Marty McGee of La Jolla wants to know how California got into this mess. She wrote, “In order for your watchdog reports to lead to meaningful changes, the people need to know who did it.”
Some of the blame goes to California voters.
“A little-known ballot measure a quarter century ago, Proposition 21 in 1984, opened the door for much of the current controversy over California’s public employee pensions,” former Union-Tribune reporter and pension expert Ed Mendel wrote last year. The measure passed with 53 percent of the vote.
Before Proposition 21, pension funds had been required to put most of their money into bonds. The ballot measure allowed pension funds to shift most money to stocks and other riskier investments. Some have said that public pensions would be more manageable today if the funds had stuck with safer investments.
Other changes to CalSTRS have also contributed to the funding gap.
In an effort to address teacher shortages and convince veteran educators to put off retirement, CalSTRS benefits were sweetened about a decade ago under AB 1509, legislation sponsored by Mike Machado, D-Stockton.
To fund the added benefits, the legislation took a fourth of the money teachers had been contributing to their pensions and used it to seed the added benefit. The teachers no longer pay into the supplemental benefit fund, but they draw from it.
What about Social Security?
Tom Helmantoler, a retired Julian High School teacher, asks this: “What about Social Security? Why can’t someone who has qualified for Social Security in the private sector turn to teaching as a second career and keep the Social Security benefit they earned?”
More than two decades before the Social Security Act was signed, the Teachers’ Retirement Law took effect in California in 1913. Public educators decided to continue to opt out of Social Security in 1955 because CalSTRS offered better benefits. California teachers do not pay into Social Security while they pay into CalSTRS. But some have paid enough toward Social Security to qualify for the benefit from other jobs. Those retired educators see a significant reduction in Social Security benefits under a law designed to prevent double-dipping. Similarly, retired educators who qualify for Social Security as the spouse or widow/widower of a worker who was covered by Social Security also see a reduction in that benefit under the law.
Should taxpayers contribute anything?
Les Birdsall of San Diego asked broader, philosophical questions. “The story tells us the average education pension in $40,663. Is this too high? What would be a reasonable pension? Should there be any pension for retirees?”
Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, said governments must compete with private sector salaries and benefits or it will not attract a qualified work force. And that means offering a decent retirement.
“It’s very easy to say that public sector defined benefit programs are more generous than what most people get in the private sector,” she said. “But it’s really hard to say.”
The military/media attacks on the Hastings article
Feb 27, 2011
The military/media attacks on the Hastings article
By Glenn Greenwald
Salon.com
Last June, when Rolling Stone published Michael Hastings' article which ended the career of Obama's Afghanistan commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal -- an article which was just awarded the prestigious Polk Award -- the attacks on Hastings were led not by military officials but by some of Hastings' most celebrated journalistic colleagues. The New York Times' John Burns fretted that the article "has impacted, and will impact so adversely, on what had been pretty good military/media relations" and accused Hastings of violating "a kind of trust" which war reporters "build up" with war Generals; Politico observed that a "beat reporter" -- unlike the freelancing Hastings -- "would not risk burning bridges by publishing many of McChrystal’s remarks"; and an obviously angry Lara Logan of CBS News strongly insinuated (with no evidence) that Hastings had lied about whether the comments were on-the-record and then infamously sneered: "Michael Hastings has never served his country the way McChrystal has." Here's Jon Stewart last year mocking the revealing media disdain for Rolling Stone and Hastings in the wake of their McChrystal story.
* Continue reading
Hastings has now written another Rolling Stone article that reflects poorly on a U.S. General in Afghanistan. The new article details how Lt. Gen. William Caldwell "illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in 'psychological operations' to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war" and then railroaded the whistle-blowing officer who objected to the program. Now, the same type of smear campaign is being launched at Hastings as well as at his primary source, Lt. Col. Michael Holmes: from military officials and their dutiful media-servants.
Ever since publication of this new article, military-subservient "reporters" have disseminated personal attacks on Hastings and his journalism as well as on Holmes and his claims, all while inexcusably granting anonymity to the military leaders launching those attacks and uncritically repeating them.
As usual, anyone who makes powerful government or military leaders look bad -- by reporting the truth -- becomes the target of character assassination, and the weapon of choice are the loyal, vapid media stars who will uncritically repeat whatever powerful officials say all while shielding them from accountability through the use of anonymity...
The military/media attacks on the Hastings article
By Glenn Greenwald
Salon.com
Last June, when Rolling Stone published Michael Hastings' article which ended the career of Obama's Afghanistan commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal -- an article which was just awarded the prestigious Polk Award -- the attacks on Hastings were led not by military officials but by some of Hastings' most celebrated journalistic colleagues. The New York Times' John Burns fretted that the article "has impacted, and will impact so adversely, on what had been pretty good military/media relations" and accused Hastings of violating "a kind of trust" which war reporters "build up" with war Generals; Politico observed that a "beat reporter" -- unlike the freelancing Hastings -- "would not risk burning bridges by publishing many of McChrystal’s remarks"; and an obviously angry Lara Logan of CBS News strongly insinuated (with no evidence) that Hastings had lied about whether the comments were on-the-record and then infamously sneered: "Michael Hastings has never served his country the way McChrystal has." Here's Jon Stewart last year mocking the revealing media disdain for Rolling Stone and Hastings in the wake of their McChrystal story.
* Continue reading
Hastings has now written another Rolling Stone article that reflects poorly on a U.S. General in Afghanistan. The new article details how Lt. Gen. William Caldwell "illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in 'psychological operations' to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war" and then railroaded the whistle-blowing officer who objected to the program. Now, the same type of smear campaign is being launched at Hastings as well as at his primary source, Lt. Col. Michael Holmes: from military officials and their dutiful media-servants.
Ever since publication of this new article, military-subservient "reporters" have disseminated personal attacks on Hastings and his journalism as well as on Holmes and his claims, all while inexcusably granting anonymity to the military leaders launching those attacks and uncritically repeating them.
As usual, anyone who makes powerful government or military leaders look bad -- by reporting the truth -- becomes the target of character assassination, and the weapon of choice are the loyal, vapid media stars who will uncritically repeat whatever powerful officials say all while shielding them from accountability through the use of anonymity...
Sunday, February 20, 2011
San Diego Union-Tribune Watchdog highlights this question: "Should there be any pension for [teacher] retirees?"
Clearly, Les Birdsall of San Diego is not interested in attracting the best and brightest to work as teachers in San Diego. Since teachers don't pay for, or receive, Social Security benefits, Mr. Birdsall seems to be asking if retired teachers should perhaps live in homeless shelters and collect food stamps. Why would the SDUT Watchdog print such a silly comment while at the same time failing to investigate costly shenanigans of insurance companies and lawyers at the San Diego County Office of Education? Has the Watchdog received any rabies shots? Is it mad?
See Slaying the Mythical Tax-Fattened Hog regarding public sector pay.
Educator pensions report raised questions
“The average education pension in $40,663. Is this too high?“
By Maureen Magee
SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
January 31, 2011
Underfunded public pensions have made big headlines in San Diego and elsewhere, igniting a debate over the cost of retirement packages that often pits taxpayer groups against public employees, with the public somewhere in the middle.
A recent report by The Watchdog on educator pensions contributed to the debate. Some readers wrote to raise questions and voice their views — from outrage over what they call excessive pensions to sympathy for public employees whose retirement packages they believe have been unfairly called into question.
Mary Jean Word, a retired San Diego teacher, objected to our report claiming the educator pension system, like other public funds, offers “high benefits with no clear way to pay them.” She said the broad brush was unfair to those on the lower end.
“Do not include administrators with teachers,” said Word, who retired with 25 years service credit in California and receives an annual pension of $24,000. “They do not teach 20 to 150 students a day.”
Public educators from counselors to superintendents pay into the California State Teachers Retirement System. The program does not classify them by position, however, so separate data analysis was not possible. Although the top pension for a retired San Diego County educator is $281,034, the average retired educator in the county takes home just over $40,000 annually.
Much of the response to our story centered around whether that is a high number. For perspective, recent U.S. Census Bureau estimates show the average person of retirement age receives about $19,000 from retirement, pension and/or Social Security benefits.
Teacher fund status
Jim Wirt of San Diego wanted to know more about the state of the teacher pension fund. “You could have at least mentioned that CalSTRS assets have fallen...”
The fund reported good news last month when it posted 12.7 percent investment returns for 2010, raising its portfolio to $146.4 billion. The fund peaked at $180 billion in 2007 and had fallen to $112 billion in early 2009.
Even so, the system is expected to go broke by 2045 unless contributions are increased by the state, school districts and California educators. Officials say the fund needs a 15 percent hike in employer contributions this year. Only the state Legislature has the authority to approve such an increase. Since the state faces a $20 billion budget deficit, many say it’s unlikely to happen this year.
Who’s to blame?
Marty McGee of La Jolla wants to know how California got into this mess. She wrote, “In order for your watchdog reports to lead to meaningful changes, the people need to know who did it.”
Some of the blame goes to California voters.
“A little-known ballot measure a quarter century ago, Proposition 21 in 1984, opened the door for much of the current controversy over California’s public employee pensions,” former Union-Tribune reporter and pension expert Ed Mendel wrote last year. The measure passed with 53 percent of the vote.
Before Proposition 21, pension funds had been required to put most of their money into bonds. The ballot measure allowed pension funds to shift most money to stocks and other riskier investments. Some have said that public pensions would be more manageable today if the funds had stuck with safer investments.
Other changes to CalSTRS have also contributed to the funding gap.
In an effort to address teacher shortages and convince veteran educators to put off retirement, CalSTRS benefits were sweetened about a decade ago under AB 1509, legislation sponsored by Mike Machado, D-Stockton.
To fund the added benefits, the legislation took a fourth of the money teachers had been contributing to their pensions and used it to seed the added benefit. The teachers no longer pay into the supplemental benefit fund, but they draw from it.
What about Social Security?
Tom Helmantoler, a retired Julian High School teacher, asks this: “What about Social Security? Why can’t someone who has qualified for Social Security in the private sector turn to teaching as a second career and keep the Social Security benefit they earned?”
More than two decades before the Social Security Act was signed, the Teachers’ Retirement Law took effect in California in 1913. Public educators decided to continue to opt out of Social Security in 1955 because CalSTRS offered better benefits. California teachers do not pay into Social Security while they pay into CalSTRS. But some have paid enough toward Social Security to qualify for the benefit from other jobs. Those retired educators see a significant reduction in Social Security benefits under a law designed to prevent double-dipping. Similarly, retired educators who qualify for Social Security as the spouse or widow/widower of a worker who was covered by Social Security also see a reduction in that benefit under the law.
Should taxpayers contribute anything?
Les Birdsall of San Diego asked broader, philosophical questions. “The story tells us the average education pension in $40,663. Is this too high? What would be a reasonable pension? Should there be any pension for retirees?”
Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, said governments must compete with private sector salaries and benefits or it will not attract a qualified work force. And that means offering a decent retirement.
“It’s very easy to say that public sector defined benefit programs are more generous than what most people get in the private sector,” she said. “But it’s really hard to say.”
See Slaying the Mythical Tax-Fattened Hog regarding public sector pay.
Educator pensions report raised questions
“The average education pension in $40,663. Is this too high?“
By Maureen Magee
SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
January 31, 2011
Underfunded public pensions have made big headlines in San Diego and elsewhere, igniting a debate over the cost of retirement packages that often pits taxpayer groups against public employees, with the public somewhere in the middle.
A recent report by The Watchdog on educator pensions contributed to the debate. Some readers wrote to raise questions and voice their views — from outrage over what they call excessive pensions to sympathy for public employees whose retirement packages they believe have been unfairly called into question.
Mary Jean Word, a retired San Diego teacher, objected to our report claiming the educator pension system, like other public funds, offers “high benefits with no clear way to pay them.” She said the broad brush was unfair to those on the lower end.
“Do not include administrators with teachers,” said Word, who retired with 25 years service credit in California and receives an annual pension of $24,000. “They do not teach 20 to 150 students a day.”
Public educators from counselors to superintendents pay into the California State Teachers Retirement System. The program does not classify them by position, however, so separate data analysis was not possible. Although the top pension for a retired San Diego County educator is $281,034, the average retired educator in the county takes home just over $40,000 annually.
Much of the response to our story centered around whether that is a high number. For perspective, recent U.S. Census Bureau estimates show the average person of retirement age receives about $19,000 from retirement, pension and/or Social Security benefits.
Teacher fund status
Jim Wirt of San Diego wanted to know more about the state of the teacher pension fund. “You could have at least mentioned that CalSTRS assets have fallen...”
The fund reported good news last month when it posted 12.7 percent investment returns for 2010, raising its portfolio to $146.4 billion. The fund peaked at $180 billion in 2007 and had fallen to $112 billion in early 2009.
Even so, the system is expected to go broke by 2045 unless contributions are increased by the state, school districts and California educators. Officials say the fund needs a 15 percent hike in employer contributions this year. Only the state Legislature has the authority to approve such an increase. Since the state faces a $20 billion budget deficit, many say it’s unlikely to happen this year.
Who’s to blame?
Marty McGee of La Jolla wants to know how California got into this mess. She wrote, “In order for your watchdog reports to lead to meaningful changes, the people need to know who did it.”
Some of the blame goes to California voters.
“A little-known ballot measure a quarter century ago, Proposition 21 in 1984, opened the door for much of the current controversy over California’s public employee pensions,” former Union-Tribune reporter and pension expert Ed Mendel wrote last year. The measure passed with 53 percent of the vote.
Before Proposition 21, pension funds had been required to put most of their money into bonds. The ballot measure allowed pension funds to shift most money to stocks and other riskier investments. Some have said that public pensions would be more manageable today if the funds had stuck with safer investments.
Other changes to CalSTRS have also contributed to the funding gap.
In an effort to address teacher shortages and convince veteran educators to put off retirement, CalSTRS benefits were sweetened about a decade ago under AB 1509, legislation sponsored by Mike Machado, D-Stockton.
To fund the added benefits, the legislation took a fourth of the money teachers had been contributing to their pensions and used it to seed the added benefit. The teachers no longer pay into the supplemental benefit fund, but they draw from it.
What about Social Security?
Tom Helmantoler, a retired Julian High School teacher, asks this: “What about Social Security? Why can’t someone who has qualified for Social Security in the private sector turn to teaching as a second career and keep the Social Security benefit they earned?”
More than two decades before the Social Security Act was signed, the Teachers’ Retirement Law took effect in California in 1913. Public educators decided to continue to opt out of Social Security in 1955 because CalSTRS offered better benefits. California teachers do not pay into Social Security while they pay into CalSTRS. But some have paid enough toward Social Security to qualify for the benefit from other jobs. Those retired educators see a significant reduction in Social Security benefits under a law designed to prevent double-dipping. Similarly, retired educators who qualify for Social Security as the spouse or widow/widower of a worker who was covered by Social Security also see a reduction in that benefit under the law.
Should taxpayers contribute anything?
Les Birdsall of San Diego asked broader, philosophical questions. “The story tells us the average education pension in $40,663. Is this too high? What would be a reasonable pension? Should there be any pension for retirees?”
Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, said governments must compete with private sector salaries and benefits or it will not attract a qualified work force. And that means offering a decent retirement.
“It’s very easy to say that public sector defined benefit programs are more generous than what most people get in the private sector,” she said. “But it’s really hard to say.”
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
KUSI reports campaign allegations as fact; is Prop D so incendiary that it causes KUSI to compromise its journalistic integrity?
How Political Spin Became Fact on KUSI
Keegan Kyle
Voice of San Diego
August 31, 2010
Here's a lesson from the budding campaign over Proposition D that shows how quickly political spin can become accepted fact.
Last week, journalists received an e-mail blast from opponents of Proposition D, the sales tax measure on November's ballot. The opponents announced a meeting with "over 300 business and community leaders" for the "launch of (a) grassroots effort." They took a stab at Proposition D supporters, too.
[Excerpt from email:] Proponents of Prop D will have $1 million or more from labor unions and special interests to spend in their campaign ... We cannot match that special interest money. Fortunately, our "No on Prop D" campaign has the support of the grassroots in San Diego -- a broad spectrum of hardworking small business owners, neighborhood activists and community leaders.
KUSI covered the meeting live and reported the campaign's claims to its audiences as fact. Here's one excerpt from the exchange between anchor and news reporter (emphasis is ours):
Anchor: I understand the Prop. D campaign has quite a bit of money behind it to see it through.
Reporter: They do. They have about a million dollars for those supporting Proposition D, for their campaigns. Some of that is funded by some of the unions around San Diego city and county as well. The campaign here, the No on Prop. D campaign, does not have that kind of money. This is a purely grassroot effort. This is a fundraiser tonight so they're actually trying to get some people to donate to their campaign, but what they're to do is get as much support behind this as they can. They've already got a substantial portion of the business community supporting the No on Prop D campaign.
Anchor: Sounds like they're putting up a pretty good fight, though. Alright, Tom, thank you.
In those four highlighted sections, the reporter presented the same talking points about unions, special interests, business and grassroots efforts that came from the anti-Prop. D press release. He claimed the pro-Prop. D campaign had $1 million, which actually went a step further from the press release, which only forecasted that sum...
Keegan Kyle
Voice of San Diego
August 31, 2010
Here's a lesson from the budding campaign over Proposition D that shows how quickly political spin can become accepted fact.
Last week, journalists received an e-mail blast from opponents of Proposition D, the sales tax measure on November's ballot. The opponents announced a meeting with "over 300 business and community leaders" for the "launch of (a) grassroots effort." They took a stab at Proposition D supporters, too.
[Excerpt from email:] Proponents of Prop D will have $1 million or more from labor unions and special interests to spend in their campaign ... We cannot match that special interest money. Fortunately, our "No on Prop D" campaign has the support of the grassroots in San Diego -- a broad spectrum of hardworking small business owners, neighborhood activists and community leaders.
KUSI covered the meeting live and reported the campaign's claims to its audiences as fact. Here's one excerpt from the exchange between anchor and news reporter (emphasis is ours):
Anchor: I understand the Prop. D campaign has quite a bit of money behind it to see it through.
Reporter: They do. They have about a million dollars for those supporting Proposition D, for their campaigns. Some of that is funded by some of the unions around San Diego city and county as well. The campaign here, the No on Prop. D campaign, does not have that kind of money. This is a purely grassroot effort. This is a fundraiser tonight so they're actually trying to get some people to donate to their campaign, but what they're to do is get as much support behind this as they can. They've already got a substantial portion of the business community supporting the No on Prop D campaign.
Anchor: Sounds like they're putting up a pretty good fight, though. Alright, Tom, thank you.
In those four highlighted sections, the reporter presented the same talking points about unions, special interests, business and grassroots efforts that came from the anti-Prop. D press release. He claimed the pro-Prop. D campaign had $1 million, which actually went a step further from the press release, which only forecasted that sum...
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Fox news hammers another nail in the coffin of fair and balanced reporting: $1M gift to Republican Governors Association
News Corp. defends $1M gift to Republican Governors Association
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
August 17, 2010
Rupert Murdoch, who has never been shy about making his political views known, has voted with his sizable checkbook.
Murdoch's News Corp. has made a $1 million donation to the Republican Governors Association, triggering swift criticism from Democrats that a contribution of that magnitude casts a shadow on his media properties, particularly Fox News.
"For a media company -- particularly one whose slogan is 'fair and balanced' -- to be injecting themselves into the outcome of races is stunning," Nathan Daschle, executive director of the Democratic Governors Association, said Tuesday. "The people owning Fox News have made a decision that they want to see Democratic governors go down to defeat. It's a jaw-dropping violation of the boundary between the media and corporate realm." ...
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
August 17, 2010
Rupert Murdoch, who has never been shy about making his political views known, has voted with his sizable checkbook.
Murdoch's News Corp. has made a $1 million donation to the Republican Governors Association, triggering swift criticism from Democrats that a contribution of that magnitude casts a shadow on his media properties, particularly Fox News.
"For a media company -- particularly one whose slogan is 'fair and balanced' -- to be injecting themselves into the outcome of races is stunning," Nathan Daschle, executive director of the Democratic Governors Association, said Tuesday. "The people owning Fox News have made a decision that they want to see Democratic governors go down to defeat. It's a jaw-dropping violation of the boundary between the media and corporate realm." ...
The NCT may have fooled some readers into thinking that a MiraCosta College mediator spoke with the authority of a judge
See MiraCosta College posts.
San Diego's retired judge David B. Moon, Jr. is not a judge, he's a mediator-for-hire. He is famous in some circles for his successful efforts to help employers get away with mistreating employees. However, when the employee in question is someone who has run an organization, and has worked closely with the lawyers for the organization, it seems that Mr. Moon does his best to get the employee an extremely good deal. In the case of MiraCosta College, a appeals court has ruled that the deal Moon got for former college president Victoria Richart was so generous that it was illegal.
Mr. Moon's statements should be given no more weight than those of any other mediator who is paid to be biased. But the North County Times, by focusing on his status as a retired judge, makes it sound like his personal opinion has some special value:
"...before the 2007 settlement, a retired judge retained by the college board found that Richart had a valid claim for damages against MiraCosta and some of its trustees worth 'in excess of $2 million'" (emphasis added).
Reporter Paul Sisson should have described Moon as a mediator, not a judge.
Across town, the San Diego Union-Tribune has broken the link to the following story it published on the same subject:
"This is Google's cache of http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/aug/13/judge-says-former-miracosta-president-must-repay/. It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on Aug 14, 2010 00:28:07 GMT. The current page could have changed in the meantime.
Judge says former MiraCosta president must repay $1.3 million
By Pat Flynn, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Friday, August 13, 2010 at 5:05 p.m.
A judge has ordered the former president of MiraCosta College to repay about $1.3 million in compensation she has received from the college district under a 2007 settlement in which she agreed to step down and waive her right to sue over employment issues.
Victoria Muñoz Richart and the district agreed to a $1.6 million settlement after the faculty cast a no-confidence vote against her over her investigation into the illegal sale of palm trees that belonged to the college.
Leon Page, an attorney who lives in Carlsbad, quickly sued, contending that state law prohibits public agencies from granting more than 18 months’ worth of salary and benefits in terminating contracts.
He lost at the trial level, but in November the 4th District Court of Appeal agreed that the deal was an unconstitutional gift of public funds and declared the settlement contract void. The appellate court sent the case back to Superior Court to sort out what to do next.
In his ruling, Judge William S. Dato said the solution is to return the parties to the status they had before the agreement was reached, ordering Richart to repay the money within 90 days and reinstating her right to pursue legal claims against the district.
“Technically, she is also relieved of her obligation to step down as president of the district, but the significance of that fact is far from clear,” Dato wrote, noting that the college has a new president (since March 2009) and that “it is unlikely Richart would want to resume the position even if the district board was willing to permit it.”
The ruling also ordered the district to withhold the approximately $300,000 remaining to be paid under the settlement.
Neither Richart nor her attorneys could be reached for comment Friday.
“This was an abusive, corrupt bargain,” Page said of the deal he torpedoed, saying his role was to stand up for the college and taxpayers “since nobody else did.”
Although he has no role in any future dealings between Richart and the Oceanside-based district, Page said, “I think now this can very easily be settled.”
He said he envisions a scenario in which Richart is able to “hold back” some of what she has been paid.
“I don’t think it’s necessary to squeeze every last penny out of Victoria,” Page said.
Michael Gibbs, an attorney for the college district, said that while there have been no discussions since Dato released his ruling Thursday, a settlement is possible.
“I am sure there will be a good-faith effort to reach a resolution,” he said.
And if that doesn’t happen, there “may well be” more litigation in the case, he said.
San Diego's retired judge David B. Moon, Jr. is not a judge, he's a mediator-for-hire. He is famous in some circles for his successful efforts to help employers get away with mistreating employees. However, when the employee in question is someone who has run an organization, and has worked closely with the lawyers for the organization, it seems that Mr. Moon does his best to get the employee an extremely good deal. In the case of MiraCosta College, a appeals court has ruled that the deal Moon got for former college president Victoria Richart was so generous that it was illegal.
Mr. Moon's statements should be given no more weight than those of any other mediator who is paid to be biased. But the North County Times, by focusing on his status as a retired judge, makes it sound like his personal opinion has some special value:
"...before the 2007 settlement, a retired judge retained by the college board found that Richart had a valid claim for damages against MiraCosta and some of its trustees worth 'in excess of $2 million'" (emphasis added).
Reporter Paul Sisson should have described Moon as a mediator, not a judge.
Across town, the San Diego Union-Tribune has broken the link to the following story it published on the same subject:
"This is Google's cache of http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/aug/13/judge-says-former-miracosta-president-must-repay/. It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on Aug 14, 2010 00:28:07 GMT. The current page could have changed in the meantime.
Judge says former MiraCosta president must repay $1.3 million
By Pat Flynn, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Friday, August 13, 2010 at 5:05 p.m.
A judge has ordered the former president of MiraCosta College to repay about $1.3 million in compensation she has received from the college district under a 2007 settlement in which she agreed to step down and waive her right to sue over employment issues.
Victoria Muñoz Richart and the district agreed to a $1.6 million settlement after the faculty cast a no-confidence vote against her over her investigation into the illegal sale of palm trees that belonged to the college.
Leon Page, an attorney who lives in Carlsbad, quickly sued, contending that state law prohibits public agencies from granting more than 18 months’ worth of salary and benefits in terminating contracts.
He lost at the trial level, but in November the 4th District Court of Appeal agreed that the deal was an unconstitutional gift of public funds and declared the settlement contract void. The appellate court sent the case back to Superior Court to sort out what to do next.
In his ruling, Judge William S. Dato said the solution is to return the parties to the status they had before the agreement was reached, ordering Richart to repay the money within 90 days and reinstating her right to pursue legal claims against the district.
“Technically, she is also relieved of her obligation to step down as president of the district, but the significance of that fact is far from clear,” Dato wrote, noting that the college has a new president (since March 2009) and that “it is unlikely Richart would want to resume the position even if the district board was willing to permit it.”
The ruling also ordered the district to withhold the approximately $300,000 remaining to be paid under the settlement.
Neither Richart nor her attorneys could be reached for comment Friday.
“This was an abusive, corrupt bargain,” Page said of the deal he torpedoed, saying his role was to stand up for the college and taxpayers “since nobody else did.”
Although he has no role in any future dealings between Richart and the Oceanside-based district, Page said, “I think now this can very easily be settled.”
He said he envisions a scenario in which Richart is able to “hold back” some of what she has been paid.
“I don’t think it’s necessary to squeeze every last penny out of Victoria,” Page said.
Michael Gibbs, an attorney for the college district, said that while there have been no discussions since Dato released his ruling Thursday, a settlement is possible.
“I am sure there will be a good-faith effort to reach a resolution,” he said.
And if that doesn’t happen, there “may well be” more litigation in the case, he said.
Friday, August 06, 2010
My apology regarding SDUT's Sign On San Diego website
San Diego Union-Tribune
I apologize for my mistake about how
the SDUT published comments. I've
erased this page, and am working on
a full explanation which I will
publish in this space. I mistakenly
thought I posted a comment on one
web page of the SDUT, but I had
actually posted my comment on
another page. I kept looking at the
first page (the one that had everyone
else's comments), waiting to see my
comment, and, of course, my
comment never appeared.
I apologize for my mistake about how
the SDUT published comments. I've
erased this page, and am working on
a full explanation which I will
publish in this space. I mistakenly
thought I posted a comment on one
web page of the SDUT, but I had
actually posted my comment on
another page. I kept looking at the
first page (the one that had everyone
else's comments), waiting to see my
comment, and, of course, my
comment never appeared.
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
Why did the San Diego Union Tribune talk about Francisco Escobedo's other school district, but never mentioned Lowell Billings' other district?
New CVESD superintendent Francisco EscobedoWho is in charge of the San Diego Union-Tribune's editorial policy regarding Chula Vista Elementary School District? The editor who (mis)handled the story of the "Castle Park Five" was Don Sevrens.
Once again, the SDUT fails to give the full story about Chula Vista Elementary School District. Until he was voted out of office in 2008 (and replaced by Russell Coronado), CVESD board member Patrick Judd was an employee of CVESD Superintendent Lowell Billings in another school district, The Accelerated School (TAS) in Los Angeles. At TAS, Lowell Billings was on the board that chose Patrick Judd as executive director of the school.
But here's the big difference between the two situations: Escobedo didn't personally hire Coronado. Lowell Billings, on the other hand, was personally involved in the hiring of Patrick Judd, and Judd was personally involved in hiring Lowell Billings.
The board minutes for CVESD do not indicate that Patrick Judd recused himself from voting for Lowell Billings' employment, nor does it appear that Billings recused himself from voting for Judd's employment.
See blog posts about The Accelerated School (TAS) in Los Angeles.
Shame on the San Diego Union Tribune for cherry-picking the facts it gives to readers. This story reminds me of the "Castle Park Five" story, in which the SDUT was outraged that five teachers were transferred, but never told readers that several of those teachers were deeply involved in illegal actions. The district had paid $100,000s to defend them. The teachers weren't grateful for the district's assistance in covering up their wrongdoing, however. When they were transferred, they filed a complaint against the district!
Chula Vista superintendent candidate had inside track
The president of the school board works for him at another district
San Diego Union Tribune
By ASHLY McGLONE
August 2, 2010
One candidate for superintendent of Chula Vista’s elementary school district had an inside track — one of his employees is the president of the school board.
Francisco Escobedo last week was named the sole finalist for the job, which paid its last occupant $247,000...
It wasn’t mentioned in the news release, but The Watchdog has learned that Escobedo is Coronado’s boss at the South Bay Union School District. Escobedo is assistant superintendent of educational leadership there, a post he has held since 2007. Coronado is the director of student services.
Coronado was one of two board members on a selection committee, which also included a parent, a principal, a labor representative and a taxpayer. That committee passed along three finalists to the board, which narrowed the field to one by a unanimous vote that included Coronado.
Coronado on Monday said his relationship with Escobedo at the South Bay district was not a conflict-of-interest and had no bearing on the recruitment at the Chula Vista Elementary district...
Still, Coronado said, he has decided to recuse himself from the final vote to hire a superintendent, possibly on Aug. 17, “so that there wouldn’t be any misinterpretation.”
Escobedo said he sees no conflict with applying for a job controlled in part by a subordinate.
“I wouldn’t say that is the case,” Escobedo said. “[Coronado] has two roles to play: one as the school board president when he works for Chula Vista. He does an exceptional job at differentiating what his roles are in those two positions.”
Larry Cunningham, the other board member who served on the selection committee, said the relationship between Coronado and Escobedo was “not a discussion item” but that he was aware that they worked together. Asked whether he knew that Escobedo was Coronado’s boss, he said, “I don’t know what the structure is.”
[Maura Larkins' comment: Come on, Larry. Don't be so afraid to admit the truth. If Escobedo is the superintendent, then he's the boss of every employee in the district. I wish you would start giving straight answers to questions. This evasiveness is getting to be a very bad habit.]
Jim Groth, former president of the teacher’s union for the district, said he was unaware of the connection.
“As far as my reaction to it, it’s not uncommon, but it would be proper for a board member not to vote on the process,” said Groth, now a member of the California Teachers Association board. “Everybody in leadership kind of knows everybody else in leadership. To directly supervise them though, in the state of California, I am sure it happens, but as an elected official, you need to be very careful.”
[Maura Larkins comment: But you didn't want Lowell Billings to be careful, did you, Jim? At least not regarding issues that you and he were hiding from teachers and voters, right?]
The successful candidate will replace Lowell Billings, who will retire midway through his ninth year as district superintendent in December. His salary is $247,000, although a replacement with less experience might be paid less.
At South Bay Union, Escobedo’s salary stands at $144,000, and Coronado’s is $124,000.
Escobedo, who has a doctorate in education and has worked in education for 22 years, should not be excluded from the Chula Vista job because a board member happens to work for him, Billings said.
“Do you exclude someone that you really really like because you have a history with them? He is a really good educator,” Billings said. “You have to look at the track record of the candidate that has been selected, and it is immaculate.”
Billings said there was no problem with the news release quoting Coronado praising Escobedo, without disclosing their outside relationship.
“I think you have to put it in the context of how pleased the other board members are,” Billings said. “One board member is not the board. He is not giving his sole opinion. He is voicing the consolidated opinion of the board. He doesn’t speak for himself.”...
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