It's about the facts, not the crusade for open meetings

     Sunday's Carroll County Times carried the editorial I expected; I could have written it in advance. Secret meetings, conference calls, reeks of payoffs, cronyism, all words used to express their editorial outrage at the departure of four county employees under the terms of contracts that allowed them to leave with severance pay and accrued benefits.
     Having worked for several newspapers, I can attest that the contracts were little different that many of those signed by newspaper executives and managers who have served at the pleasure of various publishers and group owners. I can attest that the newspapers also observed the appropriate rules and applicable laws for offering and accepting and announcing -- or not -- the changes in job status. Sometimes it is what is not said that speaks volumes.
     In the case of the editorial in Sunday's paper, what was not said was that the paper knew that staff changes were under consideration and would be announced when the legal parameters permitted. Also not explained was the fact that it was geographical separation that required that time limits be met with a conference call vote, rather than an announcement of a closed meeting for personnel purposes. In either case, the paper knew in advance that changes were coming, but did not know exactly what changes because even the county administration did not yet know; they were waiting for employee responses.
     The allusion to "payoffs" or preferred treatment for certain people is petulant and immature ranting -- a tantrum -- because the legal requirement was that (1) the contracts be at least reviewed and (2) if sufficient justification was apparent that the interests of the employees might be affected by the change in leadership, ALL persons employed under such a contract must be offered the opportunity to take dismissal under the terms agreed upon when they were hired. The fact that only four of the 21 department heads affected took advantage of their contracts was THEIR choice, not the commissioners'.
Had the commissioners picked only a few to dismiss with benefits, the critics, including the Times' editorialists, might have a point.
     Newspapers like to cast themselves as populist guardians of the right of the people to know, and castigate government loudly and often about transparency, and freedom of information. And yet newspapers themselves deliberately withhold information every day that might be of value to the community.
     They may justify the downplay of a story or a quote by saying it is irrelevant; let the public decide what is relevant. It may refuse to quote public officials on the grounds that the quote is self-serving, or political; but they will turn around and repeat information that they know is "spin" -- or an outright lie -- when it comes from a non-government source critical of those in elected office, or the policies in place.
     I will quote now from a newspaper article published in December of 2004, appearing in numerous papers in syndication across the nation. The writer was Lois Melina, a former newspaper reporter, journalism teacher, and author.
     "As the country prepares for at least two years with the Republicans in control of both the White House and Congress, it is vitally important that the news media look at how they have failed the American people and contributed to a polarized nation...."
     Still applies today. To continue, "TV programs that pit an extremist on the left against an extremist on the right have made it clear that there is no room for moderate voices....."
     Balance and fairness once was defined as getting to the facts behind the quotes or the apparent actions. I have advocated, both as a journalist and as an elected official, that the answer to the question, "Why," be a part of public discourse.
     "Instead, we have too many reporters who believe it is their job simply to quote what people tell them -- who think being 'investigative' is getting a conflicting quote."
     Reporters who have covered county government told me -- two on their departures and others who were frustrated with the editing of their stories -- that their editors killed facts quoted or produced by government sources. The reasons varied from not wanting the reading public to think that they were overly friendly with the elected officials or government employees to something as irresponsible as needing to "punch up the story." Apparently, mitigating inflammatory citizen accusations with enlightened comments by county sources got in the way of a good story.
     I know that any editor or reporter abhors being "used" by a government source, and that's commendable. But to go too far in the other direction is to allow the papers' news columns to be "used" by those with another political agenda.
     When Haven Shoemaker first started making irrational comments about two years ago, I confronted him. I said we had enjoyed a collegial relationship between the county and the town of Hampstead, but if he was going to allow his political ambitions to lead him to unfairly attack the county in general or Commissioner Julia Gouge in particular, I would set the record straight. I saw his strategy, and the papers were playing into it.
     More from the 2004 article:  "Political operatives understand the news media better than reporters and consequently are able to control what news is covered and how."
     That was a reference to the national scene, but all local is politics, too, and it happens here. The reporting jobs on Carroll County newspapers tend to be like revolving doors; the Times has had six or eight reporters come and go on the county beat in as many years: "And political operatives on all sides have learned how to frame lies in ways that manipulate the news media into covering them as though they have substance."
      Okay, fair question: Is that my game?  If so, it would be inconsistent with the efforts the county has made during the past eight years to open up meetings, even putting the budget planning sessions on the agenda, hiring a professional news person to ensure all questions were answered whenever they were asked, by whomever. Asking directors for detailed explanations as to "Why" in open sessions. Insisting that meetings between the commissioners and town officials were held in open session -- even though the press often did not bother to send anyone to cover them. And how many hours did we spend on the phone answering reporters' questions, only to see in the following day's news columns only the "angle" that the paper wanted to play, yet we continued to take the calls and respond to the press inquiries.
     The question is fair, but, as the 2004 article said, "It's also fair to ask the news media to be accountable for giving legs to a story that they knew was false. What we have seen is that smear tactics, if repeated often enough, gain legitimacy...."
     The Times and other local papers should obsess less over "secret" meetings, and try to do a better job of reporting the truths from the facts at hand.