Media: D-150 combines ignorance and arrogance at Friday’s press conference
Sometimes I wonder if Peoria School District 150 is capable of avoiding bad publicity. It seems that no matter what the board or the administration does, they come off looking like a bunch of ignorant buffoons.
There’s the whole move-Glen-Oak-School to the park debacle, of course. It started with secret meetings with the park board, included buying a bunch of homes on Prospect and ended with the park board backing away at the last minute, leaving a petulant Superintendent Ken Hinton threatening to punish the entire East Bluff for daring to oppose his will.
There was the board member leaving what he thought was an anonymous comment on the Journal Star Web site about a Catholic cabal on the Peoria City Council. There was the other board member who said she didn’t need to meet with constituents to discuss the plan to cut 45 minutes out of the school day because all she needs to know the administration will tell her. And then there’s the time they voted to change a student’s grade from a “C” to a “B.” And there are more examples of this sort of butt-headedness, but they are too numerous to mention. I’ll leave it up to my commenters to provide additional recent examples.
But now the most recent example happened yesterday.
Hinton held a press conference Friday to announce a concession of sorts on the reduction in the length of the school day. He will recommend to the Board of Education that it restore 45 minutes to the schedule, except on Wednesday, when class would dismiss 90 minutes early.
No it doesn’t make any sense to me either.
Diane Vespa, a businesswoman and mom, has been leading the opposition to the reduction. When she showed up to the press conference, she was denied entry on the grounds that she’s not a reporter. In fact, she is. She’s a citizen journalist, and has been since February 2007, long before she became an activist on this issue.
Full disclosure: Vespa is a friend. She and her husband, John Vespa, advertise on this site.Â
First, we have to understand that a press conference is not an open meeting. There is no state law stating that the public has to be allowed to attend press conferences. It was Ken Hinton’s party and he could invite — or not invite — whoever he wanted.
But that doesn’t mean the public’s right to know didn’t take a hit.
With Vespa kept out of the press conference, Hinton was spared having to answer questions from someone actively in opposition to the district’s policies while the press was there, filming the answers. This no doubt spared Hinton some embarrassment in the short run. In the long run, it just helped cement the district’s reputation for locking the public out of the process.
Normally, I’d give the people who make decisions at District 150 a lecture about citizen journalism and how the people who practice it are members of the media, even if they are opinionated. And I’d point out that trying to control the message by controlling the messenger really doesn’t work out the way the controllers usually hope.
I’m not going to bother lecturing, because there’s this funny thing about people who combine arrogance and an attitude that they are always right. It never occurs to them that they might, just might, be wrong.
June 14th, 2008 at 7:39 am
One correction: Peoria definately serves up some excellent examples of “citizen journalism”, but I’m not one of them. The only thing I am capable of reporting on are the issues right in front of the nose on my face.
June 14th, 2008 at 10:30 am
This brings up a question in my mind… Why didn’t the “journalists” that were there ask questions? Are they not well informed on the subject? Or are they afraid they too will not be invited back?
June 14th, 2008 at 10:46 am
Bill — Were you or other bloggers there and did they let you into the news conference? (I had a conflict and couldn’t attend, but had I known they would try to bar bloggers I would have been there regardless of other commitments.)
Barring Vesta is outrageous. Vespa does a blog, and is a citizen journalist and should have been allowed to attend.
When public bodies can pick and choose the journalists they allow to enter a news conference, something is terribly wrong, as you rightly point out.
I guess some state laws need to be changed. The Freedom of Information Act applies to all citizens. In the same way, public events like a news conference should also allow entry to all citizens.
June 14th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Elaine: I couldn’t make it. Neither could C.J. And we know that Diane didn’t get in.
Do we need a state law making all “press conferences” open? I foresee problems with that. I think public scorn and ridicule might be a more elegant solution. After all, when was the last time a public body was prosecuted in any way for violating the laws we have now?
Diane: I beg to differ. A “citizen journalist” is not defined only as someone who sits at his/her home computer trying to produce an imitation of the daily newspaper or new broadcast. Citizen journalists are those people who publish on the Internet information and insights on newsworthy topics. They doesn’t have to be “objective,” nor do their posts have to be written in the style newspapers and broadcasters follow. Citizen journalism is often intensely personal and focus on the issues of concern to the blogger. I many ways it’s MORE honest than newspaper and broadcast journalist, because the biases are up front.
June 14th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Journalism
a: the collection and editing of news for presentation through the media b: the public press c: an academic study concerned with the collection and editing of news or the management of a news medium
2 a: writing designed for publication in a newspaper or magazine b: writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation c: writing designed to appeal to current popular taste or public interest
1. Blogs are not the media. Receiving a few press releases here and there does not consitute calling yourself the media, nor does attending city council meetings.
2. Bloggers are not the public press.
3. Bloggers don’t write news, they write opinion
4. Most bloggers, especially what I’ve seen from Peoria, do a very bad job of interpreting the facts.
5. Bloggers MIGHT write to appeal or to current popular taste, but they write to their own interest, not the entire publics.
Big difference between blogger and journalist. Please don’t intertwine the two! Blogs serve the purpose of presenting public opinion, and sharing your own stories, and keeping the public well informed of the issues you are most interested in and the opinion you have about those issues. However, the media’s job is to keep the public informed on all issues and do it without bias.
June 14th, 2008 at 11:49 am
merriam-webster: Thanks for the input.
June 14th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
I agree with all of the above points except this one, of course:
“Most bloggers, especially what I’ve seen from Peoria, do a very bad job of interpreting the facts.”
An interpretation of facts is generally subjective, so who is to say that one’s “interpretation” is more accurate than someone elses. Isn’t it all a matter of perspective? In my business if you give 3 people the same set of facts it would not be unusual to get 3 different opinions.
Take the current D150 situation as an example. Given the same set of facts, 2 different factions have vastly opposing points of view. See this thread:
http://peoriachronicle.com/2008/05/31/d150-taking-a-look-at-the-research-in-context/
All that being said, I still do not consider myself in any way, shape or form a journalist. That doesn’t mean, however, that I didn’t consider it petty and shortsighted to ban me from the public unveiling of Hintons new plan. We all want the same things for our kids, don’t we?
June 14th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
If you recall about……gosh has it been 13 years ago…..the City of Peoria would not allow me to see the police blotter because I was not a member of the “press”. I believe it was Judge Joe Vespa (Diane Vespa’s brother in-law) who made the city see the error of its ways.
Typically, the reporters that are covering school board press conferences, especially in today’s corporate media environment are going to be the kids just out of journalism school and on the low end of the totem pole. They are not going to have the breadth of understanding of the issues, much less the my-ox-being-gored motivation to comprehensively understand the issues and the questions which need to be asked of Hinton et.al.
June 14th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Bloggers are definitely members of the press, and they play the same role today that pamphlet writers did during the American Revolution. Today’s bloggers are part of a very long tradition.
Commercial media take an objective stance so as not to offend the public or advertisers. They’ve brain washed the public to believe that’s the only role for media. It is not.
Any philosopher will tell you there is no such thing as “objectivity.” We are all conditioned to view the world through biased lens. Some are more aware of their own bias than others.
“Public media” in other nations are often anchored by “bias” or a political party. In London you can read several different daily newspapers, each with a particular point of view that openly is revealed in the stories they choose to cover and the way they write them. I don’t think even the guy above would argue they’re not part of the public media.
Chase is right about what is happening to traditional media in the US, which makes bloggers more valuable than ever to the public discourse.
June 14th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Since we’re citing documents:
From Wikipedia:
June 15th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
“Commercial media take an objective stance so as not to offend the public or advertisers”
Wrong.
To be objective is to be fair. As well, I could care less about offending an advertiser.
It isn’t about offending the public either, it is about giving them options. With a neutral stance people can form their own opinions.
That is my opinion.
June 17th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Wow, Elaine. Glad you’re no longer with the Journal Star. It’s scary that a “journalist” thinks it’s their job to force their opinions on everyone else.
June 17th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
I gotta say, Ryan, I’ve read both of Elaine comments here and I’m struggling to find any sentence that advocates readers being forced to read anything.