Opinion shaped by WFMY's Mark Geary: "Time for a mass arrest - mace them, taze them, spray them if necessary,"

GREENSBORO, NC -- Yesterday, WFMY's Mark Geary aired and published to the web a story that claimed police are battling violent flash mobs in downtown Greensboro -- mobs of people organized by social media for the purpose of "meeting up on the weekends and wreaking havoc downtown," reported Geary, citing unnamed sources. "Every weekend in July, Greensboro police have battled large, flash-mob beatings and vandalism," says Geary with no source or documentation.

Greensboro Police Chief Ken Miller and a police spokesperson have refuted Geary's reporting. Indeed, it doesn't take too careful a read to notice that Geary's story is full of holes to begin with: unnamed sources, exaggerations and the reporter's assertions untethered to any facts. Typical of WFMY's terrible standards, Geary will likely, as his colleagues before him, not correct his errors and hide from public commentary on his mistakes.

Regardless of Geary's failure to publicly correct his mistakes, Geary should come to understand why this kind of sensational lying is bad, even if only in a private moment. Just read the comments to Geary's story while keeping in mind that for every commenter, there are probably another hundred like-minded couch potatoes. Not to be missed is the authority WFMY's audience bestows upon WFMY reporters. Only one or two of the commenters notice the holes in Geary's story. The rest buy it, hook line and sinker.

Here is where it gets sad -- and important. Those commenters then proceed to form all manner of broken opinions based on Geary's fabrications. Fear and paranoia abound. Is that a good thing? A responsible thing? To make people fearful and afraid of their community because of things that are not real? I think not. Certainly Mr Geary must agree.

Here's a sampling of the idiocy spawned by Geary's exaggerations:

• "Sounds to me like citizens are gonna start protecting themselves and people are gonna end up getting shot."
• "Time for a mass arrest - mace them, taze them, spray them if necessary"
• "The fact that these "Young People" are NOT identified by their race, tells you all you need to know."
• "Mayor, get you police chief to park the paddy wagons downtown and start making arrests."
• "Vigilante justice is going to grow fast if this keeps up! If they want to keep that from happening they need to take drastic steps like having the National Guard waiting to pounce on one of these groups."

And there you have it, when it comes to public policy and civic life -- how we treat each other, who we vote for, the services we demand from government -- we have a pile of WFMY-informed ignoramuses reducing our chances for thoughtful progress.

Red Mike's murder trial

99 Blocks' Bill Hancock is in the courtroom and reporting in intriguing detail the trial of Charles Antoine McKenzie for the 2008 murder of Mike Ali, former owner of Red Mike's Grocery in downtown Greensboro.

In testimony Wednesday, police had said a dark zippered pullover, a black zippered jacket, a pair of sunglasses and a black baseball hat were found in the garbage cans along with a handgun.

[Detective Michael G.] Terry told the court Thursday that a .44-Magnum handgun was found in the pocket of the jacket. In earlier testimony, the handgun was shown to be the one that fired four shots in the Red Mike Grocery. And DNA found on some of the clothing was identified as that of the defendant.

WFMY's Mark Geary takes a steamy stinky dump and puts it on the air

GREENSBORO, NC --- WFMY's Mark Geary:

Every weekend in July, Greensboro police have battled large, flash-mob beatings and vandalism.

Not really, but WFMY has a strong tradition of telling its viewers the most flagrant of lies. Geary will fit right in.

Black Book faker Mac Ingraham tries to come to Geary's defense, but his effort has already been retitled three times and scrubbed of it's original:

"No matter what you call what's happening in Center City Park on weekend nights, police say it's a problem."

You can't poop out made up crap, no matter how wonderfully sensational, and walk it back. That's a lesson WFMY should have learned by now (not to broadcast poop would be the real lesson.)

Guiflord County Schools safety and discipline stats

Morgan Josey Glover has a document rich post about new information from the Guilford County Schools regarding suspensions and disciplinary actions.

Invisible city council candidates

GREENSBORO, NC -- A candidate's presence on the web is a measure of their preparation, accessibility and modernity. Points are deducted for filing to run for office and not having a campaign website.

The following candidates have filed to run and DO HAVE websites:

• Robert V. (Robbie) Perkins (mayor)
• Wayne Abraham (at-large)
• Cyndy Hayworth (at-large)
• Chris Lawyer (at-large)
• Zack Matheny (dist. 3)
• Mary Rakestraw (dist. 4)

The following candidates DO NOT appear to have a website (a search for their names followed by "greensboro council candidate" fails to find a campaign website):

• T. Daine Bellamy Small (mayor)
• Tom Phillips (mayor)
• Yvonne Johnson (at-large)
• Sal Leone (at-large)
• C. Bradley Hunt II (dist. 2)
• Nancy Hoffman (dist. 4)

For a guide to the 2011 municipal election, including candidate profiles and the latest election news and commentary, visit GreensboroCouncilCandidates.com.

Greensboro mayor's race gets more interesting on first day of filing.

GREENSBORO, NC -- T. Diann Bellamy-Small, current district 1 Greensboro city council representative, has filed to run for mayor.

Letter writer makes it up, fact checking fun

The News & Record publishes a letter to the editor on the subject of the White Street Landfill from Ryan Routh. Routh asserts a number of "facts" that are just plain wrong:

"This is a 1,000-acre facility."
It is 767 acres.

"The landfill is more than 2 miles wide in any direction."
At its widest point, the landfill is 1.2 miles wide east to west.

"The nearest White Street house is more than a mile from its gates  "
There are homes within 2,800 feet of the landfill gates, others are even closer to its borders.

"The new dump site is more than a half a mile in from the gates..."
There is no new dump site, the discussion is about reopening existing phase three to household waste. It is 1,200 feet from nearby homes.

In his letter, Mr. Routh writes, "We can easily study the facts when calling for a rational debate." Indeed, and Mr. Routh is not the source.

WFMY's Liz Palka's schlock

GREENSBORO, NC -- In a story about synthetic marijuana (K2), WFMY's Liz Palka, "reports:"

• "Therapists" say people are developing addictions to K2, and proceeds to cite exactly one therapist.

• That "according to WebMD, withdrawal symptoms can last a week," the link leading not to any kind of medical substantiation, but to an anecdote about a single person who "went through classic withdrawal symptoms that lasted a week.."

Dining gems in Brevard, NC

At the tail end of our recent camping trip, Kathy and I stayed in a little cabin at the edge of the Dupont State Forest, about 15 minutes from Brevard, NC. On Saturday night, we ventured into town and found two interesting looking restaurants on a residential side street between the small but active downtown and the Brevard Music Center. With both menus looking delicious, we had a hard time deciding which one to patronize. As a "compromise" we left the one that served brunch until the morning and chose Hobnob for dinner.

Seated on the front porch, we were waited on by a most excellent server. Familiar with the food in every detail, knowledgeable about the available spirits and attentive without being obsequious, it was a delight to have her guide us through our selections, starting with a smooth but robust local ale (Asheville -- Highland Gaelic Ale).

The temptation of ingredients grown down the block inspired me to try the gazpacho and my date the green tomato soup. We really liked both, but the chimichurri with the accompanying bread was out of this world. "Olive oil, parsley, carrots and the rest they won't tell us," our waitress explained.

For our entrees, Kathy had the daily trout special, a generous encrusted fillet drizzled with a tomato caper sauce. I had the Coque au Vin. Everything was cooked to the perfect doneness (including the tricky spinach) and expertly flavored.

Coque au Vin at Hobnob in Brevard, NC.

Sorbets, cakes and puddings were offered for desert, but I had my heart set on a chocolate dipped soft serve from the roadside dairy bar -- called "Dairy Bar" -- we had seen on the way in.

The next morning, we returned to try Marco Trattoria next door. We had Keanu Reeves for a waiter, but he was friendly, prompt and made us feel right at home. He recommended home fries as a side, advice I took and which Kathy ignored in favor of the polenta; rich and creamy, Kathy made the better choice.

Kathy ordered the eggs benedict with beef tenderloin and béarnaise sauce and I the poached eggs on crab cake with dill hollandaise sauce. Kathy said her's was the best meal of our trip (my campfire grilled burgers didn't stand a chance). Dill is one of my favorite flavors and it, the runny yolk and the chunky crab meat were in glorious culinary harmony.

Poached eggs on crab cake at Marco Trattoria in Brevard, NC.

Brevard is about 30 minutes south of Asheville. If you find yourself there, visit either one or both of these restaurants for a wonderful experience.

United States Postal Service lies to me

In response to a complaint that our mail was not held as requested while we were out of town, I received this reply from the United States Post Office just a few minutes after submitting my complaint:

I am sorry your mail was not held, I assure you we do try to hold everything we receive notice for. The carrier says he did not receive a notice and our system is not perfect. I hope you did get all of your mail.

Our mail carrier is not a he. She's a she.

Rejecting rejection

All Fooked Up responds to a rejection:

Dear BlogHer,

I’m not going to be able to accept your rejection of my kind offer to be a “Voice of the Year” speaker at your upcoming conference

Very funny more

Greensbororestaurants.info

There's a new blog in town, Greensbororestaurants.info:

This blog is dedicated to finding our city's best tasting values. I'll be looking for those places I want to go back to, that provided a good experience at a price that didn't melt my debit card.

News & Record fails to report expert's financial interests in Honda Jet story

GREENSBORO, NC -- News & Record reporters Donald Patterson, Amanda Lehmert and Joe Killian wrote a story about Honda Jet seeking incentives from Greensboro and Guilford County for an expansion. The article featured a number of quotes in favor of the incentives from Richard Beard of commercial real estate firm, Simpson, Schulman and Beard.

In an unconscionable omission, the reporters fail to report that Beard's company represents property for sale and lease in the immediate vicinity of the Honda Jet facility, including 18,000 square feet of warehouse space mere yards away.

Interactive map.

The property listing from Simpson, Schulman and Beard's webstite:

WFMY secretly flushes Mickens' $3 million whopper down the memory hole

We all make mistakes. WFMY's Frank Mickens made a big one last week. He reported that the City of Greensboro has spent $3,196,327 in legal and consulting fees attempting to reopen the White Street Landfill. According to official documents, Mickens had exaggerated the costs by almost $3 million dollars.

We all make mistakes. What separates the professionals, one would like to think, is how mistakes are handled. One would like to think that a professional like Mickens, certainly a storied institution like WFMY, would set about to correct misinformation with the same effort made to deliver the error -- you know, to make sure people aren't carrying around the misunderstanding of the original mistake.

Sadly, that's not the case with WFMY and Mickens on the $3 million error. After the mistaken report remained online, in text and video, for at least five days, the web page containing the error was deleted (hat tip, Jeff Martin). The entire page, gone.* No correction; no redirect to updated information; no efforts equal to those that originally conveyed the error to say to viewers, "Hey, we told you something that wasn't right and we want to make sure you know what was wrong and what the truth is because we respect you and want to make sure you trust us not to make you an idiot for believing us."

Nope. WFMY and Mickens appear to prefer to quietly sneak away from their errors even if it means leaving their audience stupider for it.

Here's what was deleted (Google cache has the original web page too):

* The uncorrected video remains available for now, though no longer embedded on the deleted page of the original story.

Guilford County commission proposed redistricting maps

Hat tip, Keith Brown: Guilford County Commission redistricting proposals, maps and spreadsheets. Thanks to the county GOP for putting these online, I could not find them on the County website.

All the rumors fit to print

GREENSBORO, NC -- "All the rumors fit to print" used to be the tagline for the weekly Rhinoceros Times. They dropped it. The local daily, the News & Record, is picking up the slack.

Ed Cone:

...front-paged twaddle in yesterday's [News & Record] edition about Kay Hagan replacing Joe Biden as Obama's 2012 VP, which was sourced to a single blogger, who provided zero evidence for the claim beyond, um, North Carolina will be important in the presidential race, and Kay's alleged awesomeness in beating the ripe-for-defeat Liddy Dole.

On walled gardens, content vaults, Facebook and threats to the open web

Sir Timohty Berners-Lee, the man who invented the World Wide Web, puts into words some things that have been on my mind regarding the tendency of internet users to rely on proprietary services like Facebook for their internet presence (and, in the same vein, the News & Record's insistence on putting some of their most unique content in a Google-proof and unlinkable vault).

Berners-Lee doesn't cover all the implications -- the dreary conformity, the loss of the ability to access information anonymously and the dangers of mistaking the interconnections in a bubble for a clear view of the world, for example -- but he does a great job of explaining some serious implications of these current trends and why it matters.

From Long Live the Web: A Call for Continued Open Standards and Neutrality:
---------

The Web as we know it, however, is being threatened in different ways. Some of its most successful inhabitants have begun to chip away at its principles. Large social-networking sites are walling off information posted by their users from the rest of the Web. Wireless Internet providers are being tempted to slow traffic to sites with which they have not made deals. Governments—totalitarian and democratic alike—are monitoring people’s online habits, endangering important human rights.

If we, the Web’s users, allow these and other trends to proceed unchecked, the Web could be broken into fragmented islands. We could lose the freedom to connect with whichever Web sites we want. The ill effects could extend to smartphones and pads, which are also portals to the extensive information that the Web provides.

Why should you care? Because the Web is yours. It is a public resource on which you, your business, your community and your government depend. The Web is also vital to democracy, a communications channel that makes possible a continuous worldwide conversation. The Web is now more critical to free speech than any other medium. It brings principles established in the U.S. Constitution, the British Magna Carta and other important documents into the network age: freedom from being snooped on, filtered, censored and disconnected.

---------

Several principles are key to assuring that the Web becomes ever more valuable. The primary design principle underlying the Web’s usefulness and growth is universality. When you make a link, you can link to anything. That means people must be able to put anything on the Web, no matter what computer they have, software they use or human language they speak and regardless of whether they have a wired or wireless Internet connection. 

---------

In contrast, not using open standards creates closed worlds. Apple’s iTunes system, for example, identifies songs and videos using URIs that are open. But instead of “http:” the addresses begin with “itunes:,” which is proprietary. You can access an “itunes:” link only using Apple’s proprietary iTunes program. You can’t make a link to any information in the iTunes world—a song or information about a band. You can’t send that link to someone else to see. You are no longer on the Web. The iTunes world is centralized and walled off. You are trapped in a single store, rather than being on the open marketplace. For all the store’s wonderful features, its evolution is limited to what one company thinks up.

Other companies are also creating closed worlds. The tendency for magazines, for example, to produce smartphone “apps” rather than Web apps is disturbing, because that material is off the Web. You can’t bookmark it or e-mail a link to a page within it. You can’t tweet it. It is better to build a Web app that will also run on smartphone browsers, and the techniques for doing so are getting better all the time.

Some people may think that closed worlds are just fine. The worlds are easy to use and may seem to give those people what they want. But as we saw in the 1990s with the America Online dial-up information system that gave you a restricted subset of the Web, these closed, “walled gardens,” no matter how pleasing, can never compete in diversity, richness and innovation with the mad, throbbing Web market outside their gates. If a walled garden has too tight a hold on a market, however, it can delay that outside growth.

Cyndy Hayworth, candidate at-large, adds profile to GreensboroCouncilCandidates.com

Cyndy Hayworth

GREENSBORO, NC -- Cyndy Hayworth, candidate for Greensboro city council at-large, has added her profile to GreensboroCouncilCandidates.com

GreensboroCouncilCandidates.com features:

• Candidate profiles;
  
• Recent campaign and candidate related posts and articles from local news and blogs and;
  
• Trending words in local election-related blogs and news linked to their sources.

Robbie Perkins, candidate for mayor, adds profile to GreensboroCouncilCandidates.com

Robbie Perkins

GREENSBORO, NC -- Robbie Perkins, candidate for mayor of Greensboro, has added his profile to GreensboroCouncilCandidates.com

GreensboroCouncilCandidates.com features:

• Candidate profiles;
  
• Recent campaign and candidate related posts and articles from local news and blogs and;
  
• Trending words in local election-related blogs and news linked to their sources.

5 days later, WFMY's Frank Mickens' outrageous error remains uncorrected

GREENSBORO, NC -- WFMY's Frank Mickens really blew it. He stood before his audience and told them the City of Greensboro had spent "three million on legal counsel" in attempting to reopen the White Street Landfill. That's wrong, as noted at Ed Cone's, Jeff Martin's and on this blog. The actual amount, according to official documents, is around $2,000. Mickens was only off by $2.8 million. So a pro would want to get that corrected as quickly and definitively as possible, right? For his reputation and out of respect for his audience, right?

Five days after the outlandish error, it remains uncorrected on WFMY's website and Mickens' original video remains online too, also without correction. It truly is beyond my comprehension how a professional news organization can so horribly misinform its audience then take no action to repair the wrong. Regrettably, this is not the first time for WFMY or Mickens. Previous uncorrected mistakes include:

• Math errors in calculating average length of city council meetings.
• Falsely reporting that American Express was closing its Greensboro data center.
• Erroneously reporting the number of people participating in a Facebook group, subsequently "correcting" the original error with another error.
• Erroneously reporting that an SBI investigation lead to the resignation of former Greensboro Police Chief David Wray (The chronology alone prohibiting such a conclusion..)
• Erroneously reporting that the "black book" was an illegitimate investigative tool and declining to report facts refuting that notion.

It's one thing to make mistakes, to leave them uncorrected implies immense contempt for one's audience. WFMY and Frank Mickens think you are dumb and they don't mind if you stay that way.

Greensboro councilman's sexual reassignment on WGHP myFox8

WGHP myFox8:

[Greensboro city council representative Danny] Thompson said she understands the city could close the landfill for good if the city can help create a new regional landfill.

Thompson is male. Add the above to WGHP's list of laughable local news errors, including:

• Promoting city council person Robbie Perkins to the nonexistent position of "city council chairman."
• Confusing the city of Greensboro with the county of Guilford.
• Reporting that local home sales were rising when they were falling.
• Concocting the nonexistent "Guilford County Libraries."
• Reporting on the theft of campaign yard signs with zero evidence of any theft.
• Getting punked by a thirteen year-old into reporting a County Commissioner was commenting on something she wasn't.

Are there people who actually trust local TV for accurate local news?

WFMY's Frank Mickens blows it

That means the city has spent more than three million dollars, after you total this all up, look at this number you are about to see, three million dollars, on legal counsel and consolations (sic) related to the White Street landfill. A lot of cash.

- Frank Mickens, WFMY

Wrong.Very wrong. Correction coming? I wouldn't hold my breath, WFMY has a long reputation for allowing its viewers to remain misinformed when a mistake is discovered.

This is gonna sting a little

Earth to JR: conventional wisdom ain't working. How about not caring so much about the trade mags you read, the industry reps you entertain and the junkets you attend?

Jeff Martin delivers it straight to News & Record editor John Robinson. I'd given up, but the exchange is a reminder of the opportunities squandered by the misdirected efforts of the leaders at the local paper.