Memory loss

GREENSBORO, NC -- Former New & Record editor John Robinson bemoans the N&R's loss of institutional memory. It seems the paper has a short term memory problem too.

From a letter to the editor today:

The complete list of candidates who have filed to run for mayor of Greensboro, from the Guilford County Board of Elections:

2014 Reckless Reporting of the Year Award

GREENSBORO, NC -- The long knives are out at the News & Record for those currently in control of the International Civil Rights Center and Museum (ICRCM), and it's not pretty. It's embarrassing. Reckless, actually.

On the heels of last week's political hit piece based solely on anonymous sources taking aim at the controlling majority of the ICRM board, reporter Margaret Moffett launches another unfounded salvo so preposterous it seems as if it should be beneath even the very low standards of the very terrible News & Record.

Let's break it down (it won't take much). Moffett begins with:

"The sit-in museum's chief financial officer and interim leader may be violating North Carolina law by representing himself as a certified public accountant."

Says who? Nobody. Although Moffett has demonstrated her willingness to print unfounded assertions* in the past, this one isn't just unfounded, it's unattributed—to anybody. So it is Moffett's accusation. Can she make her case?

For all the rolling around Moffett does in the law and regulations, it all is predicated on one criterion. It's what we programmers recognize as a conditional statement: If a is true, then b; Moffett writes it like this:

"[A] CPA licensed in another state who moves to North Carolina to practice accounting 'must obtain a certificate of qualification from the board prior to using the CPA title in any way in this state,' according to the law."

What is the condition? What is the if that must be true for the law to apply? "WHO MOVES TO NORTH CAROLINA." If a person does not move to North Carolina, the laws Moffett says Swaine may be violating do not apply.

So has Swaine moved to North Carolina? Has he satisfied the condition that would make these laws apply? No. According to whom? According to Moffett herself, who writes:

"Swaine, who commutes to Greensboro from his home in Roanoke, Va., has held a CPA license in Virginia since 1999."

Her conditional fails. MOVED TO NORTH CAROLINA does not equal true. So all that stuff about what is required of a CPA who moves to North Carolina—those laws Moffett says Swaine "may be violating"—do not apply.

Additionally, Moffett cites as examples of Swaine "representing himself as a CPA" in North Carolina posts to Twitter and Linkdin. That's absurd. Such posts are no more "in North Carolina" than they are in Texas or Sri Lanka.

Moffett doesn't let logic and the facts get in her way though. With no regard for whether or not the law even applies in Swaine's case she doesn't hesitate to write that he "may" be breaking the law. Maybe—maybe he's double parked—but Moffett offers nothing to back up her suggestion that Swaine may be breaking the laws pertaining to CPAs. This is the kind of untenable character assassination that has had bloggers kicked off of Greensboro 101. It is shocking to find it in the "professional" media.

Whatever one's opinion on the best policy for the ICRCM, and there are advantages and disadvantages to the options on the table, we cannot allow slander to influence our decision making. Advocacy journalism has its place, but to do it, one must get her facts straight and think.

This is not journalism, it is a horrible and unconscionable smear piece. Greensboro deserves better.


* Moffett is Margaret Banks in the post at this link.

Greensboro votes to fund P. R. B. S. while cutting city services

GREENSBORO, NC -- It was sadly ironic that, on a night when Greensboro city council approved a plan to cut city services, they voted to give $35,000 to WFMY for a "marketing initiative." (Story)

Greensboro too often grasps at shortcuts. Rather than doing things, we think we can just manage appearances. To seem, rather than to be is the motto we live by. It's a shame and a fat check to a local TV station for what councilwoman Nancy Hoffman called a great opportunity to "brand" the area is a sign that we remain a city lacking ideas and motivated by desperation. In this case, the desperation is compounded by sloppy thinking.

Even if $35,000 of "branding" has the possibility to net some return on investment, it is not going to happen by marketing on a local TV station to the people who already live here. (Forget too the issue of a news organization accepting money from a government it should cover objectively, that's not something I'd expect to cause a blip on WFMY's ethics radar.)

I could see, maybe, some benefit of marketing the city to people and businesses elsewhere, but how in the world does Greensboro benefit from promoting a brand to itself?

In voting to cut city services, councilman Zack Matheny said it would help the city run more like a business. Where was that business sense on this waste of money to WFMY that passed by a vote of 9 to 0?

P. R. B. S. is what this is and council fell for it in a night of mixed up priorities.

Opaque "Union Square Campus" demands answers

GREENSBORO, NC -- I have a wish. I wish that someone in our local paid media would stop, take a breath and realize they've gotten ahead of themselves in reporting on what has come to be described as the "Union Square Campus." This project, to be located on publicly owned land at the south sides of the downtown intersection of Elm Streets and Lee Streets, was once considered too contaminated for development until I identified federal funds to pay for for environmental remediation.

Twelve years later (nobody ever accused Greensboro of being supersonic), the site is ready for development and, in the blink of an eye, it has become "Union Square Campus." While the impression created so far is that this will be some sort of satellite campus for area universities, the ownership and money interests have been hard to follow. Instead we've had misrepresentations of the role of project's first building and tortured descriptions like this that are obviously more about hype than clear explanation:

"[A] catalytic higher education development with a first-building focus on training and education for health care professions..."

A catalytic higher education development?

It doesn't help that there is no online resource that describes the project in any detail—no web page, no Wikipedia entry—nothing other than disparate press release-driven announcements regurgitated by local media.

Between few public records, sparse news stories and the rumor mill, there are more questions than answers. Here are some things the professional media ought to clear up for us:

Who will own it?
Currently, the land for the project is owned by the City of Greensboro. Unpublished sources say that a developer was chosen who was to purchase the land but was disqualified for some unknown reason and a new developer was chosen but they have not taken possession of the property. In other words, they haven't purchased it but remain identified as the developer. Who is the intended eventual owner of the land and is the City of Greensboro going to sell it to them at fair market value or will be it be "donated"? Was the developer chosen through an open and fair process in the best interests of the citizens of Greensboro? Who will own the buildings, and not just the first; what is the ownership plan for additional buildings? Who is deciding?

These are matters of fiduciary responsibility of public property. Answers to these questions are of the utmost public interest.

How much is education related? Really.
Supporters hype the project as devoted to education—"A catalytic higher education development"—but only a single building has been described as being education related. Previous discussions and people who claim to know say that the property is also to include apartments and condos as well as commercial and office space.

Is the project being promoted as education related to procure public funding and public support when some portion, if not most of it, will be for other purposes?

Who gets the money?
It has been announced that the first building is to house classroom space, to be rented, hopes are, to local universities. Presumably, there will be other future rents, no matter the purpose of other eventual buildings. To whom will those rents go? Is that arrangement, whatever it may be, in the best interest of the citizens of Greensboro?

The next time reporters type "Union Square Campus" in a story, I wish they'd stop and ask themselves, "How much do my readers know about what this is? How much do I know?"

Summer reruns: Prepare for stories of mobs and riots

GREENSBORO, NC -- School is out, and around here we know what that means. It's time for local TV stations to rev up their scare machines and crank out wildly distorted fear mongering stories of marauding teenagers.

Cub "reporters," recently graduated with degrees in Personal Branding and minors in Hair and Makeup for the Camera, will find some downtown fight or incident of disorder and breathlessly exaggerate it beyond any resemblance to the facts. Dutiful anchors will read what's on the teleprompter, revealing the perfect amount of panic from behind their facades of sage concern while failing to recognize the mendacity of the words they are burping forth. If we're lucky, local politicians may even seize upon the fakery, deny the clear protestations of the police that the media have it wrong, and fan the flames to pursue some public policy for which they would otherwise have no support.

The bar is set pretty low, though, so it will be tough to beat previous years' winners.

WFMY, 2011: A Month of Violent Flash Mobs

In the summer of 2011, WFMY took a single assault and an overturned flowerpot and turned them into an entire month of "police [battling] large flash-mob beatings and vandalism." This whopper, refuted by police, lead the City of Greensboro to stop communicating with WFMY and to demand a meeting with station management to express their displeasure with WFMY "creating storylines." The story fanned all sorts of racist reaction to the detriment of our community.

WFMY never publicly corrected their story or apologized..

WGHP, 2013: 400-Teen Street Brawl

In the summer of 2013, WGHP reported a "massive brawl" downtown involving "400 teens." They even showed surveillance camera video of what they said was the fight. It never happened though, and the video, while showing crowds of people, some running and agitated, did not show a single punch, kick or any people fighting—much less 400 people—but WGHP played the video over and over, instructing viewers to see in the grainy and out of focus footage something that did not exist. This whopper, picked up by the Drudge Report and other media across the country, was also refuted by police, who described, and records document, a series of small and unrelated fights over a seven-hour period on a Saturday night, resulting in eleven arrests. Police accounts did not stop then-mayor and downtown resident Robbie Perkins from repeating the falsehood in an effort to rally support for a downtown youth curfew. The story also inspired  racist reactions to the detriment of our community.

Like WFMY before them, WGHP never publicly corrected their story or apologized (nor did Perkins who subsequently was voted out of office).

News & Record impugns millions with suspect descriptions

GREENSBORO, NC -- At some point, it is going to dawn on the fogies at the News & Record that they are no longer gatekeepers of information, haven't been for a while now, and that much of what they purport to "report" we have already seen from original sources. Until then, their confusion allows us to catch them red handed subverting the facts in the service of ends other than thorough reporting.

In a press release from the Greensboro Police Department describing the robbery of an individual yesterday, the suspects were described as four "black males." In the News & Record's regurgitation of the press release, they scrubbed some of the detail and described simply "four male suspects."

I've written before of the News & Record's outright deceptions when altering suspect descriptions whereby they falsely explained to readers that descriptions were not available, incomplete or where they simply censored descriptions with no explanation.

Anonymous commenters have defended this practice by saying that it is "irresponsible" to describe suspects with only two or three characteristics because such descriptions potentially describe "millions" of people. How exactly that is irresponsible has not been explained and it implies that the police too must be irresponsible in providing the available details, even if those are "incomplete" descriptions of suspects. Of course, a "complete description" is practically impossible.

It is hilarious though how tightly backed into a corner the News & Record finds itself by pretending they have some professionally justifiable reason for dumbing down their reporting. Today's story is a perfect example.

By describing yesterday's robbery suspects as only "males," the News & Record has committed the very offense it pretends it has been avoiding when scrubbing race from suspect descriptions: They have provided a description that could not possibly be any more incomplete unless they just described the suspects as "people." They have "irresponsibly" provided descriptions that could describe half the population. If there is some theoretical line not to cross where descriptions are too broad to be "responsible," than a description that only provides gender crosses it for sure.

Why did the News & Record describe the suspects as four males instead of four people or instead of four black males?  Maybe there is no legitimate line delineating just enough and too little detail and the News & Record has other good reasons for scrubbing race from suspect descriptions; or maybe there is no good reason.

News & Record's irresponsible dissemination of outright falsehoods

GREENSBORO, NC -- What responsibility does the News & Record have to its readers to see to it that outright falsehoods are not disseminated on its pages? Apparently, none.

While people are entitled to their own opinions, they are not entitled to their own facts, but not so on the opinion pages of the News & Record where the editors don't concern themselves with factual accuracy; case in point, a letter to the editor today from one Ned van Buren, in which he writes:

"Buried in the Affordable Care Act are what the Economist magazine (Oct. 5, 2013) describes as death panels designed to “unplug Grandma.” Section 1553 of Public Law 111-148, page 259, tells how the risk of death increases by withholding treatment, but not for the purpose of causing death." 

The claims of fact presented by Mr. Van Buren here are false. The News & Record printed them anyway.

Did the Economist magazine describe death panels "buried in the Affordable Care Act?" No, it did not and it would have been an easy thing, as it was for me, for the News & Record to check, find Van Buren's statement false, and invite him to resubmit his letter without the falsehood. 

What the Economist described, in an article about "Ted Cruz, bomb throwing reactionary," were the fears of some people that the Affordable Care Act would result in "death panels," the scare quotes are theirs. The Economist did not describe such a thing as being in the Affordable Care Act, as Van Buren wrote, it described a fear of such a thing existing in the minds of people: Not in the law, but in some people's minds. Furthermore the term itself—"death panels"—was put in quotes by the magazine to identify it as a catachresis—a strained metaphor—not the Economist's description. Here, read it for yourself:

"Obamacare seeks to insure millions more Americans and rein in sky-high medical costs. Lots of insiders suspect that change will hurt them, whether via higher premiums, skimpier coverage or government 'death panels' with the power to unplug Grandma." 

What about the second part of Van Buren's claim, the confused but seemingly ominous observation that a provision in the Affordable Care Act provides for withholding treatment? Again, the News & Record could have, should have—as I did in two minutes—checked Van Buren's citation to see if it says what he says it does. It does not.

The provision Van Buren "describes," right down to the page number, deals with assisted suicide, specifically PROHIBITING the denial of health care funds to health care providers that DO NOT offer suicide assistance. In other words, it demands the exact opposite of what Mr. Van Buren seems to think it says. It mandates that insurance MAY NOT require services "for the purpose of assisting in causing, the death of any individual, such as by assisted suicide, euthanasia, or mercy killing."

From his woefully wrong "facts," it is a short hop for Van Buren to come to his Nazi comparison—fully accommodated by the News & Record.

This should not happen. If the News & Record is going to allow just any claim, no mater how wrong, to appear on its pages, it could save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by dismissing its editorial staff and just allowing people to post to its Op-Ed pages directly from the internet. Presumably, the News & Record employs editors to add value superior to the cacophony of bull crap that abounds on social media. That value should begin with filtering for blatant falsehoods.

News & Record censors police suspect description

GREENSBORO, NC -- The News & Record reported this today about suspects in a robbery. The article was attributed to "staff reports" which is a euphemism for "regurgitated from a press release":

"One of the women was white, had long blonde hair, a piercing over her left eye, was in her 20s and was wearing a light-colored shirt and blue jeans. There were incomplete descriptions for the three men and the second female who asked for the water." 

That is misleading, relying on a very deceptive meaning of "incomplete description." In fact, there were no "complete" descriptions of any suspects — all descriptions were incomplete — but there were other descriptions provided by the police that the News & Record declined to report because they were "incomplete."

Here is the description of the suspects from the GPD press release:

"The black female was described as having a ponytail, wearing a black shirt, black coat and black pants with gold specks. She appeared to be in her 20’s. The white-female was described as having long blonde hair, a piercing over her left eye, and wearing a light colored shirt and blue jeans. She also appeared to be in her 20’s. The white-males were described as wearing tan masks, light colored shirts and blue jeans."

For the News & Record to describe one suspect then decline to describe the others with the explanation that the other descriptions were "incomplete" is disingenuous, at best. None of the descriptions were "complete." The descriptions of the two females had the same level of detail but for the additional description of a piece of jewelry on one of the suspects.  How does it serve the News & Recrod's readers for it to withhold information from them? What purpose does it serve?

Triad City Beat editor chokes on his own vomit

GREENSBORO, NC -- Triad City Beat editor Brian Clarey writes the most disingenuous piece of editorial deception I've read in a long time. Taking on Greensboro city council representative Tony Wilkins' recent attempt to get the city to make public the top salaries of non-profits to which the city contributes, Clarey takes a central fact and turns it on its head so that he can proceed to cast undeserved aspersions on Wilkins and his constituents.

You may recall that the City of Greensboro, as part of lending $1.5 million to the International Civil Rights Center and Museum (ICRCM), asked the museum to provide some information about its finances, including salaries. The city then proceeded, in the interest of public transparency, to make the information it gathered available on the web.

Wilkins used that interest of the city in gathering and making public the salaries of the employees of the ICRCM to try to convince his colleagues to do the same for OTHER non-profits the city funds. Far from targeting the ICRCM for special scrutiny, Wilkins was saying he wanted the same kind of scrutiny for all other city-funded non-profits. In fact, by using the ICRCM as a starting point, he drew into focus the differing treatment the ICRCM received from other non-profits, hardly the kind of hostility towards the ICRCM Clarey would try to pin on Wilkins.

The facts didn't get in Clarey's way though. Ignoring that Wilkins was using the city's treatment of the ICRCM as a starting place to argue for similar treatment of all city-funded nonprofits, Clarey pretended that Wilkins was motivated, not by fairness and equal treatment, but by—fantastically—animosity for the ICRCM and, having puked up that falsehood, Clarey proceeds to use it to discredit Wilkins, his constituents and conservatives in general. Clarey writes:

"The conservatives who make up Wilkins’ cohort have an almost pathological dislike for the ICRCM, which hits the trifecta of extreme right-wing hot buttons: It concerns civil rights, it gets taxpayer support and there are a whole lot of black people involved. If they were handing out birth control in there, one of these wingnuts might just burn it to the ground." 

Of course, Wilkins' attempts to get all non-profits to be treated by the city the same as the ICRCM was treated has nothing to do with dislike for the ICRCM, in fact, it would make no sense for dislike for the ICRCM to motivate Wilkins' to call for them to be treated equitably.

No, what Clarey did is vomit up his own prejudices then choked on them in righteous indignation. It was about as repugnant as watching a drunk throw up too, and just as enlightening.

Bonus: Clarey, at his former post as editor of Yes!Weekly, endorsed Wilkins in his run for council last fall:

"Wilkins represents all the things we like about conservative policy: fiscal responsibility, fair play, free markets. He’s big on transparency, and has shown an open mind and a zeal for finding out how things work since taking his seat. We endorse him with no reservations, save for the suggestion that he continue in this vein..."

News & Record changed copyrighted piece without permission

Clarification, from Michael Crowell, the author of the original piece: "I knew they were going to publish it, am glad for papers to do that, did not know they were going to alter it."

GREENSBORO, NC -- There is a letter to the editor in today's News & Record from Michael Crowell, a professor at the UNC School of Government, complaining about the News & Record having published a copyrighted work of his on its editorial pages and editing it without his knowledge or permission. The News & Record attaches a weasley anonymous note to the letter to the editor explaining that the piece was "shortened" to make room for an advertisement. There is no explanation or apology for using the article without permission.

In truth, the News & Record did more than shorten it, substantially, without permission, they also added portions the author did not write and deleted portions that affected the meaning. Here are some selected comparisons of significantly edited portions.

Original:

For the last 30 years North Carolina, like most states, has been making it easier to register and vote. In the early 1980s the only way you could register was to go before an official of the local board of elections in person.

In the News & Record's copy:

For the last 30 years, North Carolina has been making it easier to register and vote. In the early 1980s, you had to register in person at your county board of elections office.

---------------
Original:

Did any of the expanded opportunities to register and vote added since 1980 appreciably affect voter turnout or not?

The answer is not clear cut. In tracking voter turnout with election law changes since 1980 it is hard to discern that any particular election law change has made an appreciable difference in how many people vote. Yes, voting in North Carolina in the last two presidential elections was notably higher than before, but other presidential elections have not brought as many people to the polls, and turnout in non-presidential elections is still as low as ever. It may be that the 2008 and 2012 presidential year jumps are simply anomalies, with unusually high interest, and not indicative of any trend.

In the News & Record's copy:

Did any of the expanded opportunities to register and vote appreciably affect voter turnout?

The answer is not clear. Yes, voting in North Carolina in the last two presidential elections was notably higher than before, but turnout in nonpresidential elections is still as low as ever. It may be that the 2008 and 2012 jumps were anomalies, with unusually high interest.

---------------
Original:

While this review of North Carolina data is not very sophisticated, it is consistent with recent political science research, discussed below, which suggests that early voting may actually decrease voter turnout. The same research shows, on the other hand, that same-day registration and voting can increase turnout somewhat. When done together, early voting and same-day registration neutralize each other. And, as one might expect, factors other than election laws have more to do with how many people vote. 

In the News & Record's copy:

[Removed entirely.]

---------------

Original:

Data about voter turnout and election law changes in North Carolina from 1980 through 2012 is found on this chart... [snip] A list of all elections may be found here.

In the News & Record's copy:

[Removed entirely.]

---------------

Original:

What do the data show about turnout over the 32 years? The chart is a busy document and offers an opportunity for lots of interpretation. Here are a few observations about the data:

In the News & Record's copy:

What do the data show about turnout over these 31 years?

---------------

Original:

Turnout in presidential election years varied little between 1980 and 2000, regardless of the closeness of the contests or any election law change. The turnout percentages for those six elections, and the results of the presidential voting in North Carolina:

• 1980 — 43.9 percent (Reagan edges Carter 49.3 to 47.2 percent)

• 1984 — 48.8 percent (Reagan routs Mondale 61.9 to 37.9 percent)

• 1988 — 43.7 percent (Bush routs Dukakis 58 to 41.7 percent)

• 1992 — 50.1 percent (Bush edges Clinton 43.4 to 42.7 percent)

• 1996 — 44.4 percent (Dole beats Clinton 48.7 to 44 percent)

• 2000 — 49.6 percent (Bush beats Gore 56 to 43.2 percent).

In the News & Record's copy:

Turnout in presidential election years varied little between 1980 and 2000, regardless of the closeness of the contests or any election law change. The low, as noted, occurred in 1988; the high was 50.1 percent in 1992.

---------------

Original:

Possible conclusions?

In the News & Record's copy:

No obvious effects

---------------

Original:

The changes in election law since 1980 do not appear to have appreciably affected voter turnout as a whole.

In the News & Record's copy:

The changes in election law since 1980 have not appreciably affected voter turnout as a whole.

---------------

Original:

In sum, based on this limited analysis, the changes in North Carolina’s registration and voting laws over the last 32 years appear not to have made a significant difference in how many people vote. While it has become  noticeably easier to register to vote, and to stay on the rolls, about the same proportion of citizens go to the polls now as before. It seems more likely that voting depends on factors such as the nature of the election, how much seems to be at stake, the level of media coverage, and how much effort candidates and parties put into identifying and mobilizing their voters. The one state election law change that might be argued to have boosted turnout is the 2007 legislation, repealed in 2013, to extend the  deadline for registering by allowing same-day registration and voting  during the early voting period. With even the most generous assumptions,  however, that change in the law could not be said to account for more than  1.5 percent of turnout.

In the News & Record's copy:

In sum, based on this limited analysis, the changes in North Carolina’s registration and voting laws over the last 31 years appear not to have made a significant difference in how many people vote. While it has become noticeably easier to register to vote, and to stay on the rolls, about the same proportion of citizens go to the polls now as before. It seems more likely that voting depends on factors such as the nature of the election, how much seems to be at stake, media coverage, and how much effort candidates and parties put into identifying and mobilizing voters.

Update (4/4/2014): Title changed for accuracy's sake.

Hartzman's mean potshots

GREENSBORO, NC -- Local blogger, Yes!Weekly contributor and former mayoral candidate George Hartzman is a prolific writer. Line after line, paragraph after paragraph, post after post of what appear to be meaningful data and information, often seeming to explain some dire accusation of wrong-doing or malfeasance.

It's all really just so much camouflage, though — textual cover for the unfair and mean-spirited potshots Hartzman launches from behind his deliberately constructed blind of inexactness and misdirection. As local blogger Jeff Martin has rightly said, it's McCarthyism; only the targets are not Communists, but rather anybody simply unlucky enough to find themselves in Hartzman's cross-eyed cross hairs.

Here's how it works. Hartzman beings with some unflattering innuendo or incriminating accusation. Then he sets about creating an illusion that his attacks are founded in reason and supported by facts when, in reality, they are built on rhetorical slights of hand and intentional confusion. Here are some of his common techniques:

Interpretive Grammar : The basics matter. Subject, verb, object. Punctuation. Who did what to whom? The basics are requisite for a reasonable evaluation of the soundness of an assertion. Hartzman will often avoid grammatical precision precisely where it is needed the most, where his attacks meet the facts, in order to slither away from accountability. It is enough for Hartzman that it sounds like he could be saying what you think he might be saying. Clarity, however, means accountability, and that is to be avoided.  

Hartzman Example: "I believe Yvonne voted to enrich Skip Alston and Earl Jones, who she has a financial interest via the Simkins Pac, and Skip and Earl stand to profit from the museum after the debt is paid off via the City of Greensboro's bailout, which Yvonne voted for;"

The Mirage: Instead of a statement of fact, he paints an accusation as an appearance. He often deploys this technique with the words "looks like," — an illusion; an unsubstantiated impression as solid as any fact.

Hartzman Example: "Zack Matheny doing what Roy Carroll told him to on economic incentives after what looks like selling taxpayer money to fund his Congressional campaign?" 

The Ghost: To professionals, this is known as the passive voice, a sentence with no subject, where something happens on its own, unattributed to any earthly actor. "The economic benefits were estimated at $12 million," or "Pollution was released into the river," are examples. Who made the estimate? Who released the pollution? A ghost. This is a journalistic no-no for a reason: It's sneaky. It's a linguistic magic trick;  a misdirection. Without knowing to whom we can  attribute the action we cannot evaluate motives or expertise or know where to look for verification or responsibility. Nobody is accountable. With the passive voice, actions are made by invisible ghosts. Hartzman is fond of ghosts.

Hartzman Example: "City staff and council were informed before the vote that some money the museum was to receive did not look like it was merely meant to pay off loans tied to saving the facility..." [This is actually a two-for-one: the passive voice (who informed?) and another "looks like."]

Befuddle: Like Elmer Fudd hunting Bugs Bunny, Hartzman's readers will find themselves just as befuddled wondering "Which way did he go?" when confronted with Hartzman's intentionally confusing formatting. His inconsistent use of quotations marks, sprinkled with ellipses and a mix of right and left justified paragraphs leave one wondering if one is reading Hartzman's words or something written by someone else. The jumbled mess may make sense to Hartzman, but it's cryptic to the rest of us, which is is part and parcel of Hartzmans intentional obfuscation. The harder for us to follow, the better. No need for full comprehension, he'd rather we just get the gist of his innuendo.

Hartzman Example: Here's a good one.

The Sesame Street Game: Do you remember "One of these things doesn't belong here," the Sesame Street song challenging children to identify a thing that did not belong with the others? It is a good song to keep in your head when reading Hartzman, as you will find him slipping in unrelated items to his lists of particulars to bulk up an assertion light on facts. Here he is explaining how former Mayor Robbie Perkins worked to "enrich" Skip Alston:

Harztman Example: "Robbie Perkins, reported to have personally identified and advocated for Mujeeb Shah-Khan to be hired as Greensboro’s City Attorney, was an honorary Chair of the ICRCM/Simkins 2013 golf tournament. Perkins advocated for the museum bailout, employed Alston’s former campaign manager, voted for what appears to have been an unnecessary police settlement, a television show and Skip Alston’s $150,000 commission via the Bessemer Shopping Center deal." 

Can you guess which does not belong? Here's a hint, they all relate to Skip Alston, however tangentially, except for one — unless Hartzman was just associating it with Alston because it also involved black people. (Answer below.)

The Link Dump: Make a post seem well researched and substantiated with a bunch of links to seemingly supporting sources. Hartzman offers no explanation of why the links matter. Click through and one becomes bewildered as to their relevance but, to the uninitiated, the pile of links looks like solid substantiation.

Hartzman Example: This one will do.

Channel Rube Goldberg: Like the convoluted Rube Golderg contraptions where mechanical events cascade crazily from one to another ultimately to perform some incredibly simple task, Hartzman will send his readers down a chute of incomprehensible logorrhoea  instead of just  being concise and clear. Why? Because to be direct and concise would rob Hartzman of the opportunity to deploy his deplorable rhetorical techniques. There is no room for grammatical obfuscation, mirages, ghosts and irrelevancies in directness.

Example at the end of this post.

All of this would not matter if Hartzman were just amusing himself, but Hartzman deploys these techniques in unscrupulous attacks on people. It's malice in a thin disguise.

Sure, many of Hartzman's targets are public officials (but not always) and they are vulnerable to the slings and arrows of any opinion, but that doesn't make what Hartzman does any less malicious. In fact, under the guise of, as he says about himself, wanting to "leave others better off for his having existed," his practices are especially insidious. To the extent they enter the public discourse (and thanks to Yes!Weekly, that is more frequent now) they impede, convolute and distract. They foment fear, mistrust and inspire suspicion. Yes, once in a while, he digs up some nugget of importance, but far too often he is the wolf who cried boy. He's not leaving others better off. He's tearing us down with his malevolent snarling.

---

Answer to the Sesame Street Game: The police settlement. It had nothing to do with Skip Alston. (The television show may also be an acceptable answer. I thought I remembered an association between it and one of Alston's children, but I cannot find anything on the web to substantiate that memory.) Bonus points if you also noticed that the example included a mirage: " voted for what appears to have been..."

Channel Rube Goldberg example: Hartzman writes this as an "explanation" for his claim that Greensboro City Council representative Yvonne Johnson has a financial conflict of interest in the International Civil Rights Center and Museum:

My understanding is if the property pays off the tax credits and debt with the bailout money, the for profit entities go away and the owners of the Sit in Movement non profit own the property, and the exhibits, and won't have property tax obligations.

If the project goes cash flow positive, Skip and Earl can start taking salaries.

The non-profit could sell the property.

The non-profit could become a for profit.

It will be theirs to do what they want with it, after mismanaging the museum.

City Council will have bailed out members of the Simkins PAC, and the Simkins PAC helped put some of the Council in their seats.

Yvonne is in the Simkins PAC. Skip is the Treasurer of the PAC.

Both look like have paid family members from the PAC's assets.

If money changed hands to their kin while the PAC was under their control, Yvonne and Skip have a financial interest in each other.

Yvonne untied herself to the museum to advocate and vote for the museum bailout, which could enrich Skip.

Yvonne was endorsed by the Simkins PAC, whose Treasurer is Skip.

Skip stands to benefit from the museum via Yvonne's actions.

Yvonne stands to benefit from Skip's actions via the Simpkins PAC.

It's a conflict of interest.

According to the city charter, the vote/contract should be nullified by a Council vote.

News & Record erases story about former mayor

GREENSBORO, NC -- On March 19th, the News & Record published a story titled: "Former mayor's ex-wife claims he failed to pay alimony for March."

It began with: "Today the ex-wife of former mayor Robbie Perkins filed a motion for contempt alleging he failed to pay alimony this month" and reported of a claim filed in "Guilford County District Court" alleging that the former mayor missed a $5,292 alimony payment.

The News & Record has removed the story. Without explanation or correction the story has simply vanished. There is only a "not found" error when one visits the previous link to the story. Searches for the story anywhere else on the News & Record's site come up empty.

Why did the News & Record remove this story? If it was in error, we and the parties involved deserve a correction. If it was removed for some other reason, the News & Record, for the sake of its reputation, should explain why.

(Hat tip, Billy Jones)

News & Record's copy and paste "journalism"

GREENSBORO, NC -- The News & Record posted this story to its website today under the byline "staff reports;" the highlighted portions (nearly all of it) were pasted word-for-word from a press release.
--------------

GREENSBORO – Wells Fargo has pledged $250,000 in support of the planned Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts, the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro announced today.
“Wells Fargo is proud to support the Tanger Center,” Pete Callahan, regional head of Commercial Banking for Wells Fargo, said in a Community Foundation news release. “This connects directly with the vision and values of our company. We take pride in supporting Greensboro, as well as the arts and culture in our local communities. Our goal is to help build strong and vibrant communities, improve the quality of life, and make a positive difference.”

The $65 million performing center, to be built downtown on land bordered by North Elm and East Lindsay Streets and Summit Avenue, will be financed with $35 million in private donations and $30 million from the city.

Wells Fargo joins other corporate leaders that have pledged support to the Tanger Center, including Lorillard Inc., VF Corporation, Ecolab, Lincoln Financial Group, Morrisette Paper Co., NewBridge Bank, Bank of North Carolina and CityView Apartments, as well as area foundations including the Bell Foundation, the Joseph M. Bryan Foundation of Greater Greensboro, Phillips Foundation, The Cemala Foundation, Tannenbaum-Sternberger Foundation, Zeist Foundation, Toleo Foundation and the Cone Mills Charitable Fund.

“We are so appreciative of this latest show of generosity from our corporate community. Wells Fargo continues to demonstrate the overwhelming, continuing support for this project,” Kathy Manning, who leads the private fundraising efforts, said in the news release.

To date, the Tanger Center has received more than $35 million in commitments, making the project the largest public-private partnership in Greensboro’s history. The Community Foundation, which is assisting volunteer fundraisers who are seeking gifts from the private sector, intends to wrap up the Tanger Center’s major gifts campaign by May 1.

Earlier this month, the Greensboro City Council approved an agreement between the city and The Community Foundation on matters including the design, construction and long-term oversight of the center.

Groundbreaking for the Tanger Center is anticipated to occur this fall, with an opening slated for 2016.

For more information about the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts, visit TangerPerformingArts.com and Facebook.

Grits Gauger is oblivious

GREENSBORO, NC -- While he is no longer obsessed with grits, wringing his hands about his inability to find a hot bowl of soup in the South or doing his insulting best to mock his new neighbors, Ohio transplant and News & Record editor and publisher Jeff "Grits" Gauger is still demonstrating himself to be incapable of accurately perceiving the community in which he now lives.

In a rambling defense of his paper's misfires on coverage of the Friendly Avenue/Hobbs Road rezoning, Gauger sticks his head in the sand and blows smoke from his exposed end. Incredibly, Gauger writes this:

"These people, the Trader Joe’s fans, were less visible because they had no leaders and did not organize, speak out or attend meetings. They were the silent many, with a less direct stake in, and thus less passion about, the outcome." 

Gauger is apparently oblivious to what's going on around him — oblivious even to what gets reported in his paper.

FACT: Trader Joe's fans were visible. As early as January, 2012, Trader Joe's fans had started a website called "Bring Trader Joe's to Greensboro"

FACT:  Trader Joe's fans were visible II. The News & Record, in a front page lopsided piece, reported on enthusiasm for Trader Joe's in the area.

FACT: Trader Joe's fans did speak out. The News & Record published a number of letters to the editor from Trader Joe's fans on this issue over the past few months.

FACT: Trader Joe's fans did speak out II. The Bring Trader Joe's to Greensboro website encouraged people to email Greensboro city council in support of the rezoning to accommodate Trader Joe's. Council member Mike Barber is reported to have said that, of the emails he received, a lopsided number were in support of Trader Joe's, as reported by the News & Record.

FACT: Trader Joe's fans were organized. As reported by the News & Record, they formed a committee to coordinate their pro-Trader Joe's message, they put online the aforementioned website and put a sign on the proposed location.

FACT: Trader Joe's fans did have leaders. Identified as far back as January 2012 on their website, they included prominent citizens such as Tony Collins and Chris Lawyer.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. Clearly Gauger is wrong that Trader Joe's fans were not organized, not vocal and not visible. They were. Their number may have been small, but it is lame for Gauger to ignore their visibility, organization and involvement only so that he can speculate, ignoring facts to the contrary, that their number constituted a "silent many."

If Gauger thinks there was some large second wave of fans beyond those he has ignored, then let him demonstrate as much. Otherwise, Guager is simply offering us more unthinking blather.

Related: Ed Cone: "Show your work, Gauger"

Over the head of the News & Record editor

GREENSBORO, NC -- News & Record editor and publisher Jeff  "Grtis" Gauger has a problem with his weekly competitor, The Rhino Times. He finds the Rhino's headline accompanying an article about the retirement of Guilford County commissioner Linda Shaw "odd and daft."

The headline is  "Harper Valley Honey Hangs It Up" -- Grits says the headline is a real "head-scratcher" for an accompanying article he describes as a "straight-ahead account" of an interview with Shaw.

100 bucks says he didn't read the article. If he had, he'd find therein this more than obvious reason for the headline:

Shaw got an early start in life in high-profile elected positions when, at the age of 26, she was elected to serve as president of a PTA in Nashville.  Normally, PTA president isn’t something that counts as a high-profile job.  However, while Shaw was serving in that capacity in 1968, it became one of the highest profile positions in the country: At that time, the hit song Harper Valley PTA, written by Tom T. Hall and sung by Jeannie C. Riley, took the country by storm.

“I was living in Nashville, Tennessee, in the ’60s,” Shaw said.  “When I lived there I was president of the Harpeth Valley PTA, on which the song was based.”

“Tom T. Hall lived a few blocks away,” Shaw said of the songwriter.

The giant hit, Harper Valley PTA, is the story of a mother who wears her skirts too short and perhaps drinks too much, and who gets a note from the PTA rebuking her actions.  In the song, the woman goes to a meeting and calls out the PTA members on their hypocrisy, and the daughter recounts, “the day my momma socked it to the Harper Valley PTA.”

Shaw said that, when the song became a hit, her phone was ringing off the hook from reporters calling.

“I got calls from all over the country,” she said.  “They would ask, ‘What do you think of the song?’”

Shaw said that, at that time she wore some short skirts, but hers weren’t too short she said, adding that they generally fell just above the knees.

One might think the Rhino could have written a more laudable headline appropriate to the carreer of Shaw's public service but, regardless, the headline is not the mystery it was to Gauger. It was relevant to the interesting anecdote of the beginning of Shaw's long political career. Gauger's knee jerk potshots are the real head-scratcher.  

News & Record: Sleepwalking through illusion

GREENSBORO, NC -- The News & Record has reported on more than one occasion of the economic projections of the proposed "Project Haystack" and attributed them to a study paid for by the City of Greensboro.

Indeed, the City paid a company $48,000 to conduct a study of the project. I've obtained a copy of what the City of Greensboro says is that study (you can see it here) and it contains none of the economic projections the News & Record says it does.

Why would the News & Record report the contents of a study they obviously did not read?

From an article by Joe Killian on December 14, 2013:

"A feasibility study funded by the city of Greensboro projected a possible $6.5 billion in private investment and the creation of 5,349 jobs over the next 20 years. "

From an article by Nancy McLaughlin on January 24, 2014:

"A study paid for by the city of Greensboro describes a 3-square-mile campus in eastern Guilford and western Alamance counties that could create more than 5,300 full- and part-time jobs and attract $6.5 billion in private investment over the next 20 years."

Those estimations are just not there. Not in the source to which they are attributed. Take a look at the study for yourself. There is nothing that relates to job projections or that estimates investment. The study evaluates available infrastructure: roads, broadband, electricity, etc. It does not make any economic projections and mentions nothing about jobs or private investment.

Why does this matter?

Economic studies, when the do evaluate jobs and investments, begin by making a set of assumptions. We—one assumes that includes local journalists—must have access to those assumptions to evaluate the legitimacy of the conclusions. It is not enough to simply take it for granted that because there was a "study" its conclusions are reasonable and it is certainly not enough to report on the contents of a study without taking a look at it so that we will avoid coming to think it reports something it does not.

It is essential for us to have accurate information in order for us to have a reality-based understanding of our public policy. If local media cannot provide that to us, they have no value and are simply encouraging us to sleepwalk though a dreamscape of illusions.

N&R's online commenting scheme shrinks youth access

GREENSBORO, NC -- When the News & Record implemented a mandatory Facebook login for story comments last year, I originally thought that bringing to their attention the fact that people could not even read comments on the N&R site without allowing Facebook tracking cookies might have inspired them to implement an alternative to the Facebook-or-nothing comments. Not so.

Maybe this will have them reconsider: Young people are leaving Facebook in droves.

Since 2011:

AGE
13-17: -25.3%
18-24: -7.9%

A mandatory Facebook login to comment or read comments should never have been implemented to begin with. Although it was defended as a way for people to have to use their "real" (haha) identities and, therefore, raise the quality of comments, it was short-sighted and deficient ( -- and a policy so conducive to the free exchange of ideas that the government of Communist China has just implemented a real-identity mandate too).

Now that the must-Facebook requirement has tied the N&R to a diminution of young readers will the N&R take note and make a change?

WFMY's swing and a miss at a fat one over the plate

GREENSBORO, NC -- WFMY reported today of the City of Greensboro's "Better Buildings" program, a program which was to spend federal funds to improve energy efficiency:

 "[T]hey have spent about $4.6 million of the $5 million which includes $1,933,203 for energy improvements on homes."

You left us hanging, WFMY. If only $1,933,203 has been spent to improve energy efficiency from a program that administers a grant to improve energy efficiency, what was the other $2.7 million spent on?

How WGHP "corrects" a story

GREENSBORO, NC -- Despite WGHP having had an error of fact brought to their attention last week and correcting it, WGHP reporter, and Elon University journalism graduate, Jasmine Spencer, repeated the error again this week. Here it is as it appeared in the her story on Sunday*:

As WGHP had previously acknowledged, there was not a drop in traffic accidents corresponding to the increased traffic patrols, but actually an increase. Reporting a "21 percent drop in the number of traffic accidents" was wrong, and I emailed Spencer to let her know.

How does a professionally trained journalist make a correction at WGHP? Silently, without acknowledgement and without supplying the actual facts instead: that there was in increase in crashes. Here is how the story appears now*:

I am not a trained journalist, but if I had as my goal supplying my audience with accurate and complete information, I might have added something like this after changing the story:

This story originally reported erroneous information about the number of traffic accidents during the period of increased patrols on Wendover Avenue. According to police, there was a slight increase in accidents compared to the same period during the previous year. We regret the error but are happy to make the correction because we value your trust and strive to keep you accurately informed.

But what do I know?

* Actual screen captures.

WGHP stubbornly immune to the facts

GREENSBORO, NC -- Last week, Bob Buckley of WGHP MyFox8 reported of a multi-month Greensboro Police Department intensified traffic patrol on Wendover Avenue, that:

"the number of crashes dropped dramatically as a result."

That was at odds with what other media had reported, so I emailed Bob and the news director to ask them what their source was. The news director attributed the reporting to a GPD press release that he forwarded to me. However, the press release itself actually contradicted WGHP's reporting of a decline in crashes. It claimed that, as a result of the Wendover traffic initiative:

"There was a slight increase in the number of crashes."

Once this was brought to WGHP's attention, Bob said they'd correct it on the next newscast and in the accompanying website article.

It didn't stick. Once again today, WGHP MyFox8 is reporting on their website:

"During the same initiative on Wendover Avenue, police reported a 21 percent drop in the number of traffic accidents."

That's false and in direct contradiction to the GPD press release WGHP previously cited.

Regurgitating press releases is bad enough—a correlation between crime, accidents and increased traffic patrols does not prove a cause and effect and it's lazy to say so—but completely misreading a press release when doing so and grossly misreprorting what it says is really amateurish.

You may recall that WGHP MyFox8 was the instigator for the wildly exaggerated story of "Nearly 400 people" and "hundreds of students" involved in a "massive brawl" in downtown Greensboro last summer. (Police reported there were a handful of small fights over a seven hour period that Saturday night, never a several-hundred student brawl.) That malpractice by WGHP was one of many among a persistent pattern of WGHP getting their facts wrong, a pattern that continues today.

It seems to me as if WGHP would benefit from a focus on increasing its attention to detail, fact checking and critical analysis. You know: journalism.