WFMY Vomits a Press Release

After linking to the News & Record's and WGHP MyFox8's coverage of Time Warner Cable's plan to change the way it charges Greensboro subscribers for internet access, I thought I should see what WFMY had on the subject.

What I found was a story that regurgitates Time Warner Cable's talking points with no corroboration of the company's claims, no feedback from affected customers and no context of why this matters to the community.

It wasn't a complete waste of time however, as the unsigned author at least gives us a little chuckle with this nugget:

"The company plans to use metered billing as a way to regulate costumers who use excessive downloading space."

MyFox8 on Time Warner Cable's Internet Access Price Change

Greensboro blogger and WGHP video journalists Stewart Pittman (A.K.A. Lenslinger) reports on Time Warner Cable's plan to change Greensboro subscribers' internet access rates.

Killian's story on TWC's internet access rate changes

The (Greensboro, NC) News & Record's Joe Killian has a story on the subject of Time Warner Cable's planned rates changes for Greensboro's internet subscribers.

Greensboro creative and innovative? Not if Time Warner Cable has its way

Today I want to recommend that you watch this video about Greensboro's own Monkeywhale.

Today, you might very well click on it.

Today you might come to appreciate Greensboro's fermenting creative and innovative spirit.

Next month, when Time Warner Cable starts charging you for how much internet you use... maybe not.

Greensboro in the bottom three: A call to action for city council and economic developers

[Correction: This title of this post refers to three cities affected. The number is four: Greensboro, Rochester, Austin and San Antonio.]

Who says Greensboro isn't unique? Thanks to Time Warner Cable (TWC) we are about to have a distinction reserved for only three other U.S. cities: We will soon be a place where TWC charges you for how much internet you use.

Greensboro subscribers to Time Warner Cable's internet service currently, like other cities, pay a flat rate for broadband access, but thanks to TWC's new CEO, Glenn Britt, Greensboro will soon find itself saddled with a nearly one-of-a-kind competitive economic disadvantage. Under Britt's plan, Greensboro's TWC customers could spend "potentially $100 or more extra" (MyFox8) for monthly Internet access. Downloading a Netflix or Hulu movie "could cost $1 to $4 more".

According to Business Week, Greensboro will be the Guinea Pig for TWC's attempt to "upend a longstanding pricing strategy among Internet service providers." This is a serious affront to Greensboro's economic viability and demands all hands on deck.

If ever Greensboro was serious about inspiring innovation, attracting creative young people and fostering prosperity in industries of the future, it must recognize that impeding access to broadband internet in a way like only three other U.S. cities is a big, bold, speedy move to the bottom. It is the modern equivalent of being one of only a few cities where citizens must pay a fee for every mile they drive. Nobody would move to such a place. No business would expand to such a place. No energetic college student is going to stay in such a place after graduating.

This move demands swift and decisive action from Greensboro's leaders. This cannot be met with genteel, sleepy contemplation. Here is what Greensboro's leadership should begin doing today:

GREENSBORO CITY COUNCIL
-------------

1. Review Time Warner's Franchise Agreement: The first thing to determine is what happens if the original signatory to the agreement (Time Warner) transfers the service operations, as they have done, to another entity (the recently spun-off stand alone Time Warner Cable). Does the city have room to renegotiate the franchise agreement since it is no longer dealing with the original franchisee?

2. Determine if this change is justified and allowable According to generic franchise agreements (I have a request in to the City for a copy of the specific agreement), the cable franchisee must meet certain pricing and technological guidelines. According to a TWC spokesperson on a WGHP video segment last night (I cannot find it online), TWC says it needs to institute this new pricing to keep up with demands on its infrastructure. TWC should be made to come before City Council and demonstrate that that is true. Just as traffic engineers present to council empirical data that shows car traffic versus road capacity, the provisioning of broadband internet relies on technology that also utilizes empirical data to measure traffic and capacity. City Council should ask to see to their satisfaction that TWC's reasons for its actions are, in fact, legitimate.

3. Ask/Require That TWC Postpone Implementation: If allowed by the franchise agreement, City Council should direct the City Attorney to advise TWC not to go forward with this new pricing until the City has had ample time to make the above inquiries. If the City cannot make such a demand, it should request that TWC not go forward until the City has had a chance to explore the issue.

4. Get Serious About Municipal WiFi. (Municipal WiFi: "Turning an entire city into a Wireless Access Zone, with the ultimate goal of making wireless access to the Internet a universal service."). This has come up before. Some city council members have responded that they think this is the kind of thing that should be left to the private sector. We see what that has earned us.

In this day and age, broadband internet access is critical infrastructure. It is no different than roads. Recognizing opportunity in adversity, Greensboro should begin serious efforts to become a thoroughly modern city and, instead of being one of the bottom three for internet access, catapult itself into the top ten. This is not pie in the sky, it is a serious proposal ripe for a city serious about economic development. It is within our grasp; and it's not just for the big boys. It has come to fruition in cities like Corpus Christi, TX, Saint Cloud, FL and Tempe, AZ, where some of the networks biggest fans are police and firefighters who use it to better respond to crises. Even rural Greene County, NC has implemented remarkably successful public wifi.

The cost of such an endeavor appears, at first glance, for a city the size of Greensboro, to be about $10M to $30M. We are preparing to spend $26M on a walking trail around downtown. These two things are not mutually exclusive, but really, which is the smarter investment? It need not be all our money either. Tech experts are noting that federal stimulus money is ripe to support municipal wifi projects. Greensboro is also covered by North Carlina's Golden Leaf Foundation, possibly giving us access to additional outside funding. There may well be other funding sources too. City Council needs to adopt a can-do attitude, avoid looking for excuses and proactively try, with all its might, to make this happen.


ECONOMIC DEVLOPERS
-------------

1. Lobby Time Warner Cable. Put whatever resources you have at your disposal into convincing TWC that, while they have been a good corporate citizen, this action is an aggressive move on Greensboro's economic health. Convince them that not only is the macroeconomic climate unfavorable for this kind of experiment, but that Greensboro, still trying to recover from a decade of the death of old-world industry; Greensboro, with one of its big economic hopes trimmed and delayed and; Greensboro, with unemployment at 11% and climbing is not the place for TWC to try this experiment.

2. Lobby Verizon/Others With Better Technology. Aggressively lobby companies like Verizon to look at Greensboro as a market for their next generation Fiber Optic Internet Service (FOIS). It is faster than TWC's internet access and carries unlimited capacity for all practical purposes. It is already available in other markets. Greensboro would eat it up.

Oh, the irony

I'm pulling for the Greensboro Telegram, Greensboro's new online "newspaper," I really am. But, in an article about the News & Record correcting a Lorraine Ahearn story (hat tip Triad Media Watch), the unidentified Greensboro Telegram reporter writes this:

"The woman had made several frivolous allegations to the FBI against then Greensboro Police Chief Michael Wray."

and this:

"When one read Ahearn's column, one distinctly got the impression that Sanders had worked at the department's bequest..."

If I only had a brain

(I'm a softie on the inside.)

Gene Burnett performs "If I Only Had a Brain."

Link

Guilford Commissioners Chair Skip Alston on government transparency: "I just ain’t told you yet"

Eloquent Guilford County Commissioners Chairman Skip Alston defends illegal government meetings. He explains why he disagrees with North Carolina's open meetings laws

"And I’m not going to adhere to you-all’s version of it and I don't have have no problem with that."

Okay, professor.

Greensboro's Bill Burnett rallies to the defense of mendacity

Bill Burnett of Greensboro has a letter to the editor in today's (Greensboro, NC) News & Record. In it, he writes:

"...I would rather vote for a telephone pole than to vote to re-elect a council member who voted to dismiss the competent former city manager, Mitchell Johnson."

Former City Manager Johnson made racially provocative statements to the public that were not supported by the facts. Mr. Burnett defends those who tolerated this deception and condemns those who set a higher standard. Greensboro deserves better.

Amanda Lehmert, catch up (your editors are letting you down)

Amanda Lehmert, reporter for the (Greensboro, NC) News & Record, has a story in today's edition about a lawsuit that alleges, among other things, that black Greensboro police officers were targeted by the improper use of a line-up book. The story is negligent in its presentation of the facts.

The City has legally sworn that it has no evidence that indicates this book was improperly used and that the only records it has indicate that it was, in fact, properly used in an attempt to solve an alleged sexual assault, allegedly by a uniformed police officer.

In the story, Amanda reports:

"The newly-amended lawsuit claims there are multiple line-up books and that there is no record of such a sexual assault.

"Cohen denied the allegation."

This is another example of the kind of he said/she said reporting the piss poor standards at the News & Record allow. It's not just Amanda, this tactic has a long and sad tradition at the News & Record.

It is fair enough to report what the lawsuit alleges, but to let that claim stand without reporting contradictory facts, especially when they are demonstrably known to the News & Record, is simply unconscionable. Amanda has a little wiggle room because she is a relatively young reporter and relatively new to Greensboro. But the News & Record editors are as aware of this as I am and they should be exercising a little extra effort to make sure Amanda's inexperience isn't getting in the way of accurate reporting.

The fact is, contrary to the unchecked claim Amanda reports, "that there is no record of such a sexual assault," the Greensboro Police Department has said that it does have records of the sexual assault and the News & Record is aware of their existence, a reporter having written about them on her blog.

Leaving this fact out of the story was a huge mistake. The value of newspapers used to be their unique ability to disseminate information. That value has been diminished, perhaps even usurped, by alternate media. The only remaining asset that can offer any kind of value from newspapers and reporters is veracity and their ability to bring understanding to issues. The he said/she said method of reporting, especially when it substitutes for the facts, puts the value of the News & Record in question. There is a mountain of things the News & Record needs to change to survive. This is a hugely important one and one of the easiest to address. This practice should come to an end -- yesterday. Greensboro deserves better.

[Addendum: The city's response to the the News & Record about the records of the assault included an admission of the existence of some records and the denial of the existence of certain memos. The next day, those memos were produced on Ben Holder's blog.]

Tom Phillips, catch up

Rumor has it former city council person Tom Phillips may run for city council again this year. I've always liked Tom. He's smart, respectful and fair. I thought he was a good city council person. But Tom is not up to speed on why citizens found former city manager Mitch Johnson's actions surrounding the "black book' objectionable.

Phillips is quoted in this week's Yes!Weekly ("Justice Department probe of GDP revealed, Johnson fired as city manager" by Jordan Green) as saying this:

"These bloggers keep bringing up that Mitch admitted under oath that he didn’t know exactly how the ‘black book’ was used. He tried to find out, but the people involved wouldn’t talk. They keep bringing this up: ‘He finally admitted.’ He said that from day one. I know he told us in closed session."

Phillips employs some misdirection here (or he truly doesn't understand what Johnson attested to). Johnson was not asked if could say "exactly how the black book was used." He was asked if he had any record at all that even INDICATED any misuse of the black book. He swore no. He had previously lead us to believe otherwise.

Phillips' misrepresentation of the question at hand would be like me asserting that Tom Phillips uses his binoculars as a peeping Tom and, when asked if I had any evidence of such, swearing no, but insisting that my original accusation was fair because I cannot say exactly what Tom uses his binoculars for.

You see, Johnson did not tell the public that he was not sure how the black book was used (even after he apparently became aware that it was a proper investigative tool.) No, Johnson made statements that (we now know) were misleading in asserting that he DID know that the black book was improperly used.

These unsubstantiated assertions bolstered Johnson's case for locking the former police chief out of his office, but they caused the city great tumult and, without any evidence to indicate they were true, Johnson was wildly irresponsible in stoking racial suspicions for his own purposes.

Here are some of the things Johnson told the public:

• Were he, Johnson, a black police officer he would have been damned uncomfortable to be in "that" book. [source]
• That the former chief knew the book was improper. [source]
• That the book was used to conduct "bogus" investigations of black police officers. [source]
• "That there were numerous instances of the book being shown to criminal defendants in an attempt to target black officers among the 19 pictured in the book. Defendants were told, in Johnson's words, 'If you ID an officer, we might help you out....' " [source]
  

Johnson also failed to dispute former city councilor Sandy Carmany's public assertion that there was "ample evidence that the book was used in inappropriate ways several times in efforts to implicate black officers..." which a responsible manager would have done -- especially when, in fact, the city had no record that even indicated misuse of the book, much less "ample evidence."

Phillips thinks these things should be forgotten or misremembered as Johnson saying that he did not know exactly how the black book was used rather than as the inflammatory and unfounded misrepresentations they were.

Johnson may have told Phillips in a closed city council session that he did not really know what the black book was used for (I'll look through those minutes to see if I can find a record of that), but Johnson was telling us, the citizens, something different.

It is that deception of the public Phillips is defending. In fact, one has to wonder, if Phillips knew that the city manager did not know what the book was used for, why was Phillips silent all these years when misinformation was flying? Would he not have been a credit to the community had Phillips stepped forward and said, "Wait a minute, this is going too far. Here's what I was told?" There must be something I'm not getting --- or Phillips needs to catch up.

[edit, 11:50 PM, 03/11/09: added fourth bullet point]

Facts, shmacts. News & Record sloppy again

As an update to the tech staff cuts at Guilford County Schools that caught the attention of Sue Polinsky and me, Sue writes that the (Greensboro, NC) News & Record's reporting that "Tech professionals learned Monday that their department will be cut from 14 employees to five" is not accurate.

According to schools superintendent Moe Green via Sue, "The 14 impacted staff members are not the central district IT staff that supports and maintains district computers." The five positions to be cut are from "14 staff assigned to work with middle school students, one-on-one and in small groups, for computer literacy."

I have invited the News & Record reporter who wrote the original story to comment here.

Tech, shmech. Guilford County Schools contribute to "Gastonia, only bigger."

UPDATE: Never mind. The (Greensboro, NC) News & Record's reporting that inspired this post was inaccurate.
-------------

The Guilford County Schools (GCS) make a contribution this week to Greensboro's new slogan, "Gastonia, only bigger" with their announcements that they are simultaneously cutting their Information Technology (IT) staff while increasing the number of superintendents. (Here, scroll down.)

Although I work with computers and on the Internet, I have a measured view of the benefits of technology in the classroom. I'm not gung-ho on IT as a panacea for education. There are important basics that should come first in the earlier grades and the use of computers should be limited only to supporting other educational objectives. IT for IT's sake should, I believe, begin in middle school, with increasing options through high school. This pretty much aligns with the current GCS approach as I understand it.

Yesterday, however, GCS took two actions that I fear will be a detriment to students and appear to misplace priorities. While the school board approved a plan to create "regional superintendents," GCS announced it is cutting its IT staff from fourteen to five.

Five? Cutting the tech staff to the bone while making the system more top-heavy at the same time doesn't seem wise.

What does five IT people mean?

• 1 tech person for every 24 schools.
• 1 tech person for every 995 teachers.
• 1 tech person for every 14,235 students.

[Source]

The regional superintendent idea should be put on hold and the IT staff maintained.

Refreshing reason at the News & Record

Like a breath of fresh air, the (Greensboro, NC) News & Record's Doug Clark writes a column today in which he shoots down a bogus argument even though it aligns with his views. We know Doug to be opposed to marriage and civil unions for homosexual couples, but he takes a critical look at one of the latest attempts to drum up support for writing prejudice into North Carolina's constitution* and exposes it as a bogus fear tactic.

* Co-sponsors of the bill include local representatives John Blust and Laura Wiley.

Fact Check: News & Record... again

From Ed Cone:

Did Thomas Jefferson really say all the things attributed to him in this morning's reader contribution to the N&R?

No evidence exists that he said the first one, according to the "spurious quotations" section of the Thomas Jefferson Encylopedia. Number three doesn't show up there at all, number four is said to be a misattribution, number five was said by Gerald Ford, number six is "at least partly spurious."

Fact Check: News & Record

How can you form a reasonable opinion when you have your facts wrong?

An unsigned editorial in today's (Greensboro, NC) News & Record tries to form an opinion on the removal of the city manager and builds, in part, on the notion of a divided city council. It offers, as evidence this:

"At various times some council members sought to lessen his power by having the police chief and city attorney report directly to the council instead of to the city manager.

"Those efforts did not succeed, but they underscored sharp divisions on the council, and in the community, that would not go away."

I emailed editorial page editor Allen Johnson to ask if it is accurate that those efforts did not succeed. He emailed a one-word reply: "Yes."

Well, no. The effort to put the city attorney under the auspices of city council was approved by city council and included in the City's legislative agenda. It is now up to the state legislature to grant Greensboro this authority. Far from not having succeeded, the effort is proceeding.

Get your facts straight, News & Record. Greensboro deserves better.

Mitch Johnson a "child of the devil:" Insipid News & Record editorial

Like the guy who still puts on his tie the morning after nuclear Armageddon*, the (Greensboro, NC) News & Record, down to two writers on its editorial staff, continues to publish unsigned editorials. Today's is an insipid and obtuse commentary on the removal of Mitch Johnson from his position as Greensboro city manager.

According to, ahem, the News & Record editorial department, a serious understanding of Mitch Johnson's transgressions and missteps could not be gotten rationally, but rather had to be the "fanciful" conclusions of people who imagine "vast conspiracies."

According to the News & Record, people could not come to the reasonable and considered opinion that Johnson should be replaced because they took an honest look at the cold hard facts and saw public lying, unfounded accusations and extraordinary efforts to obscure city government with a shroud of secrecy. No, according the the News & Record, the people who let the facts speak for themselves and concluded that Greensboro deserves better from the head of city government, could only think so because they are crazy people who think Johnson is "a child of the devil."

I thought newspapers were supposed to help us better understand our community. It is a waste of time when all they do is advertise their own incomprehension.

(* Hat tip: Ed Cone)

Greensboro company with a "big time future"

I was talking to WXII's Bill O'Neil today and he mentioned that he had recently done a story on the guys at Greensboro's Iconfactory. You probably know two of them as local bloggers Ged (gedblog) and Anthony (Plead the First).

You can see Bill's story here and see for yourself why he concludes that the Icon Factory has a "big time future ahead of them."

An open letter to City Councilors Zack Matheny and Sandra Anderson-Groat

Dear City Councilors Matheny and Anderson-Groat:

I know that the decision you made to remove the city manager from his position must not have been an easy one. For what it is worth, I think you made the right decision.

In considering who to hire for the position now, I have two suggestions:

1. Put qualifications above all else. Experience, education and skill set should exceed familiarity with Greensboro, connections or other considerations.

2. Subservient to #1, but important, find a candidate who believes, preferably through demonstrable actions, in open government. The culture of secrecy under the former manager was bad for Greensboro. The City Attorney's latest excuse (according to Yes! Weekly) for not releasing secret tape recordings, even to one of the people recorded -- that they are personnel records because they were produced as "a part of the employee's duties" -- is shocking. Can you imagine if the public were denied access to anything produced as "part of an employee's duties?" Everything would be off limits. This propensity towards secrecy needs to be reversed. Hire a city manager who recognizes this as a problem and is willing to change it.

Yours,
Roch Smith, Jr

Guilford County Schools, seriously? Seriously?

It's bad enough that, even though every other school system, day care and cub scout troop can announce their inclement weather delays in time for the 10:00 news, Guilford County Schools seems to imagine that road conditions might somehow defy the laws of physics and meteorology during a night of temperatures in the teens. Whatever.

But when they finally decide, do they have to irritate us with multiple pre-dawn phone calls? We received three automated recorded calls between 5:40 AM and 6:30 AM to let us know of the two hour delay we already knew about because, not knowing the night before, we had to set the alarm for our regular time, got up and turned on the TV. Very annoying.